real blogging tips

It’s that time again, and a request from Freddie made me push this to the top of the queue for publishing. I want to share with everyone the plugins I use to make my blogging life easier. Some of these will be new, and some will not have been mentioned here before, and I am sure you will notice that a few plugins were shelved as well.

The whole point to having plugins is to simplify your bogs day to day operations or to add functionality that was not there before. Having said this I have a couple of plugins I choose to run with for now that I will be changing in the future. Essentially when I have some more time to revamp some things. Let’s get to it and unveil this posts top plugins for wordpress.

The Plugin List

1.) 404 Notifier – This plugin will log 404 hits on your site and can notify you via e-mail or you can subscribe to the generated RSS feed of 404 events. For me this lets me know whenever somone his arriving at one of my custom 404 error pages. While I did program my 404 error page to rewrite the title of the page so I can track them in alalytics this is the easiest way of them all to see whats going on.

2.) Akismet – Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” Now many of you are using the broken caphtcha or making me do simple math or asking me if something is hot or cold. 99% of the time this plugin catches my spam and life goes on. As you know I like to impact my readers experience as little as possible, be it from no ads in the content to being able to post comments with ease.

3.) Brian’s Threaded Comments – this gives you threaded comments and a “wandering” comment form. Now this was not as bad to implement as I had first thought honestly I followed the directions and then had to move the comments down about two page breaks and that was that. Most of you who run a blog know the advantages to being able to reply to a comment easily vs. having to scroll down a page of comments. This works two fold as it also alows commentators to come back to their own comment and see the response!

4.) Broken Link Checker – Checks your posts for broken links and missing images and notifies you on the dashboard if any are found. Now this plugin runs only when your in your admin panel, and in the background. Most of us will use google webmaster tools to fix any broken links, but as you know their is a delay in the information coming out google. To help stay on top of things I use this plugin to knock out any dead links or broken ones that I may have.

5.) Commentluv - Plugin to show a link to the last post from the commenters blog in their comment. Just activate and it’s ready. Will parse a feed from most sites that have a feed location specified in its head html. This is one of the best plugins to have to promote commentating on your blog. I feel that since you take the time to comment on my blog that the least I could do is reward you will a potential portal for some extra visitors to check out whatever it is your posting about. Word of mouth is grand ya know.

6.) Contact Form ][ - Contact Form ][ is a drop-in form that allows site visitors to contact you. It can be implemented easily (via QuickTags) within any post or page. I wanted my contact form on my contact page to give me as little trouble as possible. This plugin delivers and to date I have had 0 issues with getting any direct mail comments from the contact page.

7.) FeedBurner FeedSmith – This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. Baiscly you want credit for all your subscribers and the many different ways which they can subscribe right? What better than to use the plugin from feedburner to do it! Works like a charm!

8.) GD Star Rating – Star Rating plugin allows you to set up rating system for pages and/or posts in your blog. This plugin is  just making its debut on this blog and so far people are liking it. I only llist the rating within the post at the bottom and in the future I will have a proper featured post section where they are displayed by this rank. I recommend getting this so you too can display the content your readers have enjoyed the most.

9.) Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. You need this obviously for google happiness reasons. Install and it does the rest automaticly. This makes the search spiders and google much happier and willing to index your content in a timely matter.

10.) InstantUpgrade – Upgrade your WordPress installation with one simple click via the InstantUpgrade panel. This plugin is used whenever an update is released. Now Normal Joe told me about a single plugin that will perform the duties of this and my db back plugin, but to be honest I never switched. So far no problems though.

11.) KeywordLuv – Reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords, in the link to their website, giving them improved anchor text. For example, leaving “Stephen @ Custom WordPress Plugins” in the name field. Another way to reward your readers for commenting.

12.) OIOpublisher Direct Pro – OIOpublisher’s aim is to connect bloggers with their target audience, whether that be readers, advertisers, or other bloggers, in practical and effective ways. Eliminate the middle man and collect the lewtz directly. This is by far the best blog monetization tool available and if your running your blog without it your losing money.

13.) pageMash – I was tired of seeing wordpress put my navigation bar in whatever order it liked. Im just like that. Install this plugin and easily configure what order it appears as. Simple as that.

14.) Random Posts – I am using this plugin in the sidebar under the header of “featured posts” essentially it is grabbing 10 random posts from my archive and displaying them for me. Until I finda proper way to hand select a group of the best posts from this blog this exposes the readers to some posts that have not been on the front page recently.

15.) SezWho – This plugin has a lot of functionality built in, but at this point I am using it for the (what I say) and for the entre credits which it can produce for those with accounts for commenting. I have always wanted a tool where I could mouse over a commentators name and see just where they comment and exactly what they have been saying. This is  great way to find new blogs or eliminate spammers.

16.) Subscribe To Comments – Working for the readers this is another plugin you must have. When the next post drops that is all that and a bag of chips you want your readers to be able to keep up with the action play by play instead of having to come and navigate your site or rss to see. Make it simple and your readers will appreciate you.

17.) Top Commentators Widget – The mother of all commentation cultivating plugins. While your comments may be no follow this is a great way to encourage people to commentate by rewarding those that do with a free follow on back link on your front page. Besides we all like to see our names in the lights right?

18.) WP-DBManager – This will optimize your db, repair it if it is having issues and export/import as well. I use this in conjunction with instant upgrade during a wordpress platform upgrade. I also get night mails with the latest db in my mailbox thanks to this plugin.

19.) WP Super Cache – Very fast caching module for WordPress. Essentially if your on a shared host like myself and even with an unlimited hosting option like me you still have to worry some about cpu use. While I have never had an issue from time to time digg or stumble will send a great deal of traffic to my front page and in order to assure no downtime or stalls I use this plugin. It caches your .php which is cpu intensive to load into an already rendered html which takes next to no cpu. You can see the value of this when you start to spike 500 users hitting the site at a time. This does not effect any of your java based items, but if your using OIO with ad rotation you will want to switch to the java ad server so you keep the rotation.

20.) Platinum SEO Pack – Complete SEO solution for your Wordpress blog. This does more than seo all in one. I can not find it but I think the same people made it. I could be wrong, still better than seo all in one at least for now.

In Closing

That’s it the 20 plugins I use to keep things running smooth around here and keep the extra functionality for all my readers. I am still working on a better featured posts setup, but that has more to do with layout than anything. If you don’t see your favorite plugin let me know about it in the comments section and lets see what we can do about that.

I hope this list helps to empower success for your wordpress bog!

Related posts:

1. 13 Essential Wordpress Plugins
2. Review: The 118 Most Useful Plugins For Your Wordpress Blog
3. How to Activate the Date Exclusion WordPress Plugin
4. WordPress Setup Checklist
5. Almost Time For Wordpress 2.6