When you first begin blogging, you don’t necessarily know what WP Plugins are good to have or essential to blog success. I’ve decided to share some that are just awesome, and then some that are not a question as to whether you should have them on your blog or not. I’ve starred the plugins that are absolutely essential, although I personally feel every one of these plugins is essential to your Blogging Success.
Akismet- This plugin will single-handedly ease your pain. Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. If you haven’t noticed yet, you will see that a lot of bots are out there spamming blogs to generate backlinks. Don’t waste any more of your time deleting those spam comments, just let Akismet do the work for you.
*All in One SEO Pack- This wordpress plugin optimizes your wordpress blog for the Search Engines. After all, you do want your content to be seen in the search engines, even if that isn’t your main focus. My Main Focus is social-media buzz, however my content is still ranking in the search engines. The “All in One SEO Pack” is a great help.
Digg Digg- This is my Favorite Social-Media Sharing Buttons plugin. This is not just for Digg…15 different social media buttons can be put into your blog posts with one convenient plugin. Learn how to install my favorite plugin for social media syndication in my previous post.
Disqus Comment System- This will replace your wordpress comment system completely. One of the coolest things about this plugin is that it sends a notice when you reply to someone’s comment. This will create more return visitors to your blog, because they want to see what you’ve written back to them.
*Do Follow- Essential to allowing the SEO Factor in on your blog commentators’ comments. Without this plugin, a back link inside of a comment would hold no power in the Search engine rankings. Make sure to have this plugin installed for all of the other tribe members. Remember the “Golden Rule”.
Fixed Social buttons- Another social media sharing buttons plugin. This will add a little flare to your page as they are fixed on the right hand side of the internet browser no matter where you scroll on the blog. Just another great way for all of us to be able to share your content on our social networks. I recently learned about this from my good friend Marcus Baker on his Top WordPress Plugins post, where he shows specifically how to install this plugin and configure it. Make sure to check it out.
* Google Analytics for WordPress- The easiest way to analyze your blog’s visitors. Knowing where they’re coming from, what they’re spending the most time reading, and other important statistics will allow you to focus your marketing where it really counts.
*Google XML Sitemaps- A Great Plugin to help with SEO. This makes your blog very easy for the search engine spiders to crawl through and index all of the pages in your website. When your site is easier for the search engines to index, you will rank in the search engines faster for all of your content. Need I Say MORE??
LinkWithin- Entice your readers to look at another one of your Brilliant blog posts with this Awesome Plugin. Notice the pictures down below that link to other relevant blog posts of mine. This is the Reason. You will not be able to find this plugin in the plugins search section. Visit the LinkWithin website, download it to your computer, and then you have to upload it to your plugins section in your wp-admin area.
*MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer- Visit http://www.maxblogpress.com/plugins/mpo/ and scroll to the bottom. You have to register for this plugin for FREE, and then download it and upload it to your plugins area of your blog. This will make sure that your blog doesn’t over-ping the search engines. If that happens, the search engines will ban your blog from pinging them, which is simply notifying the search engines that you have new content that needs to be indexed. Watch this video here on my Friend Rob Larson put together on how to install and more importantly configure this Essential WP Plugin.
OnlyWire for WordPress- My favorite plugin to automatically share my blog posts on my social media sites. Check out my previous blog post to learn how to install one of my favorite social media marketing tools.
TinyMCE Advanced- I was told about this plugin a few weeks ago, and I am so happy that Stephen Bolin shared this with me. Until then, I always found it very difficult to edit the style of writing in my blog posts. It allows you to basically edit your text like you would be able to in a Microsoft word document.
WordPress Related Posts- Yet another way to get your visitors to spend more time on your site. When they get done reading one post, they are shown quite a few other related posts that they can view. I wouldn’t recommend using both this plugin and the LinkWithin plugin, as it will look crowded on your blog, and isn’t very appealing to the eye. The choice is yours.
Install some or all of these plugins and start having some Real fun with your WordPress Blog. Above and beyond all the fun that you’ll have with some of them, they will all help you to achieve Blog Success.
To Your Massive Success,
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
Great stuff Jordan…. the maxblogpress ping optimizer is very essential… i did a training tutorial on it and how to put ur pinging on steroids by adding the other services. Rock on my friend with the killer content!! gotta love digg digg…. gonna check out TinyMCE Advanced… thinks for the tip!
Very cool, Jordan! Thanks for the tip on over-pinging. I'll have to try out the MaxBlogPress plugin.
I'm re-evaluating Discuss. It seems like a PIA sometimes when it doesn't remember your name. Also you have to sign up for it. Comment luv is what I prefer. It has been out for a number of years already.
This is neat Jordan. We all should re-evaluate our plugins and see what is new out there – at least every 6 months.
Stephen Bolin
Online Marketing Coach
Absolutely. There are always new and better plugins coming out, and there are only a few that I've actually stuck with for the long haul.
thanks Jordan,
at least a couple i don’t have yet…
Outstanding post there Jordan. That is the kind of information that people are looking for. Getting this out is doing exactly what this is all about. Solving problems, and let me tell you that it can be a real problem trying to figure out what plugins are needed on your blog. Great job.
It’s so easy sometimes to forget about how important the plugins are. Thanks for the info
Ron Sherwood
Network Marketing Success Coach
Jordan… just treasures of “awesomeness” here mate! Thanks too for the mention. Appreciate it. The Fixed Social Buttons look fantastic on your blog!
~Marcus Baker~
Attraction Marketing Teacher
Hey Jordan…. I noticed your new side bar social icons are not working. For example for Twitter, Youtube & Facebook…. you only want to put in the very ending… for ex: My youtube is http://ww.youtube.com/WorkWithRob (you would only add the WorkWithRob part in the social media icon settings of the plugin. the same goes for twitter, flickr and facebook.
I hope that helps my friend… didn’t want you losing any potential faithful followers.
Rob
Thanks for the tips Jordan, I just need to add the last few that you mentioned to my blog. It took me 4 days last week to find Digg Digg as I had no idea what the plugin was called! LOL.
Keep up the great value.
Tristram Lodge
Awesome info Jordan I will add the three new ones to the ten you already recommened thx for putting this out there
New Plugins are Always Great! This is exactly How I learned about half of these!
Good, useful and comprehensive information, Jordan. I appreciate your efforts to condense copious information by researching and trying it first so we can save time and energy. Keep on making social media networking easier for all of us!
Susan Tabar
Hi Jordan
Very resourceful article on the 13 plug-ins to optimize your blog. Only have 6 of the 13 plug-ins installed. Thank you for informing me of the other 7. Have a good day.
CoachJaneLee
Marketing and Sales Coach
Hello Jane,
Glad to be helpful.
That's what blogging is all about Susan. Sharing what you know has worked for you to help others. This is the reason why I love our tribe concept so much. I'm learning so much from everyone.
Tristram,
I had a tough time finding the correct digg digg plugin as well. I didn't know exactly what it was called.
Thanks for the help Rob. Always nice to have a fellow marketer looking out for you.
Thanks for helping with this post Marcus. I love that plugin that you shared with me
Whatever we can do to make our lives easier, and our blogs get more traffic is always a great thing.
Thank you Matt. I remember when I first started, I had no clue what a plugin was. Then when I did find out, I only put the plugins on that were recommended to me. Yes, posts like this have given me some great ideas.
No Problem David. How've you been??
Very essential post for all the bloggers Jordan, I personally use these plugins and they are pretty much simplify my life and get the results. I love your commitment and contribution Jordan, you create very valuble content.
The social buttons looks great on your blog!
Vitaliy Dubinin
Great Post Jordan, I am still building my Blog so these were definately helpful. Thanks for all the great info
Thanks Jordan, 3 or 4 of those I had not heard of…keep up the good work! I'm adding them now!
Thank yo so much for the names of the plugins I was searching for… It saved me a lot of time.
Thanks Chief. Those buttons are all thanks to Marcus. Loving them.
Awesome Craig,
Let me know if you need any other help with building your blog. Have a lot of other videos put together.
Posts like this one are where I've found a lot of my favorite plugins
I absolutely love finding “Favorite Plugin” blog posts. All of the different plugins excite me a ton.
This is an execellent post because when you are starting a blog its good to know what plugins are helpful, this is great because I had to figure out different plugins on my on. I wish I had a post like this that would have help. This would have saved me a lot of time.
Glad to be of help to you Theresa… These are the exact posts that helped me through it in my beginnings, and still to this day I find posts like this with cool new plugins. Blog posts are a great way to learn from others
Glad to be of help to you Theresa… These are the exact posts that helped me through it in my beginnings, and still to this day I find posts like this with cool new plugins. Blog posts are a great way to learn from others
Thanks so much for this valuable information…i really appreciate this…it will help me heaps and enable me to help others
Awesome Christopher,
Looking forward to seeing your blog over in our tribe.
Hey Jordan,
Askimet is an awesome plugin, they should have charged money for that one.
Tyronne
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