Upload Activate Configure WordPress Plugins

Plugins are awesome. I love them. Anything you want your blog to do you can probably find a plugin to help you do it. While it’s fun to play with lots of plugins, right now it’s important to get started with the basics.

I’ve already covered the basic plugins I add to a new site, and how to configure them. On this post you can find the basic plugins, how to upload and install them. (just scroll down past the theme part)

Plugins, uploading them and activating them are going to be the same no matter what kind of blog you’re doing. If you’re using wordpress the process is the same to get your plugins on your site and activated.

Once you’ve got your plugins installed and activated here’s the post that explains how I configure my plugins.

Now with the basics out of the way, let’s talk about some of the more fun plugins I use.

Keywordluv:

I am using this plugin on this site. It’s the one that lets you add keywords in the name field of the comments so the commentor gets an anchor text link back to their site instead of just their name.

I’m not sure how much I like this plugin. It has done one thing for me though ~ help decide which posts are spam and which are not. The rule that has come to me from this plugin is this: if you only have a kw in the name field then I just delete the comment. I’m giving you the opportunity to get an anchor text link in the name field, but you can at least follow the directions and use your name as well so I can talk to you like a person and not an articleseowizard But that’s just me.

It is a good plugin to use if you’re trying to encourage comments on your site.

Commentluv:

I was a little more hesitant to use this one, and I’m not sure why. However, I like this one a LOT. I’m going through and adding it to all my blogs. This plugin is the one that pulls up the last post you wrote on the blog/site you put in the url field of the comment.

In addition to the benefits on site this plugin offers I spoke about the searchable database it offers on the site. In addition people have been taught to go out looking for commluv blogs to make their comments on, which makes sense. So this plugin could also bring you some additional traffic. (how good the traffic is questionable, but if you’ve got good content you can probably convert them to regular readers or at least regular commenters lol)

If you’re going to use either kwluv or comluv you’ll also need the dofollow plugin. This takes out the nofollow attribute on links in your comments. Basically that allows google to follow those links and give the site the link juice for the link. These two plugins won’t work without it.

Ad stripe:

If you’ve noticed the green stripe I have across the top of this blog this is actually a plugin. It’s from Maxblogpress and it’s free. It’s called maxblogpressstripead plugin. This plugin allows you to really easily add different ads to the stripe. The ads will show along the top of your blog. (no you don’t have to use green, you can make it whatever color you want)

Optin Adder:

This is another free MaxBlogPress plugin. This one allows you to create a gorgeous opt in box for your site without having to mess with the code at all. You go to the plugin settings area and then just fill in the information it asks for. You will still need your opt in code from your autoresponder, but all you have to do is paste it in a box where it asks for it. You can then customize the size/color/wording etc for you opt in box. Then you can choose where you want it, sidebar, bottom of every post etc. Very easy. Very cool.

Maxblogpress has quite a few other very handy plugins  ~ I don’t use them all but if you have a need you might look there. They have the ninja plugin (which is not free), it allows you to choose certain words and it will automatically create cloaked links pointing to the product you’ve chosen each time you use those words. I haven’t used it, but it sounds pretty cool. I just prefer the system I’m already using.

Simple Link Cloaker

This is a great little plugin that allows you to cloak your affiliate links easily right inside your blog posts. You install the plugin. Then go grab your affiliate link to a product. Go to the plugin settings area and then give the link a name in the first area, then add your affiliate link in the next box. Click create link and then when you want to link to that product in a blog post, instead of using your affiliate link you just use the nickname you gave it in the cloaker. Instead of a full url you would just put /productnickname in the link box that comes up. Very simple.

When you get tons and tons of products you’re promoting this is a great way to make it easy to remember your affiliate links. All the links you have created are posted in the cloaker settings area, so you can look through the list and find the product you want to promote.

Photo Dropper

If  your blog calls for images and zemanta is not giving you the images your looking for this plugin might be a good one for you. Photo dropper shows up at the bottom of your post. You can go down and add a kw to the search bar. It will pull up images from flickr. You can choose the size of image you want to use, as well as placement. The image credit is there as well.

Sexy Bookmarks

There are a TON of bookmarking plugins. I’ve tried quite a few, but I’m happiest with the one I have on the site right now. It’s sexy bookmarks. There are a few different “looks” for the buttons available for you to choose from. You can easily choose the bookmarking sites you want to show up as well. I like the size of the buttons and it was super easy.

What Would Seth Godin Do?

This is a fantastic plugin that everyone should use. It’s so ingenious. It uses cookies of the reader to give them a message when they get to your site. If it’s their first time you can encourage them to subscribe to your list or rss or whatever you want. You can set how many times you want them to see the “first timer” message, and then you can create a different message for people who are regular readers to see. Promote a product, or maybe asking for a bookmark? Whatever activity you’d like your regular readers to do. Great plugin.

Subscribe Remind

Along the same lines, although this one is just one message all the time. You can use this to remind people to subscribe to your RSS feed. If you’re doing that in WWSGD you don’t need both, but if you’re asking for something else with the other plugin it might be wise to have a remind for RSS subscription.

Subscribe to Comments

(thanks Dennis) This is a great plugin when you get some conversation going on your blog. It allows people to subscribe to the comments so they can stay involved with the conversation. This is nice because it will keep people coming back to your site and keep them involved AND build community ~ which is super important.

Tweetmyblog

This one will tweet your newest blog posts for you automatically. It’s a nice feature. It has other features, like adding your twitterstream to your sidebar, but I didn’t really like the way the stream looked so I don’t use that part. There are other ways to get your new posts tweeted, but this is pretty easy, set it and forget it.

Twitterlinks comments

This is the plugin I use to let you fill in your twitter id in the comment area. It provides a link to each commenters twitter page. Nice bonus for people. I know I find myself checking people out from blogs that use this plugin.

wp125

This is the plugin I use to put the 125×125 ads in my sidebar. It’s really simple to use. You install and activate. Then you’ll see an “ad” link at the bottom of your settings area in your dashboard. Just open that and it will allow you to put the ad url and your affiliate link in it. It will also count how many clicks each ad gets. This makes it really easy to see which ads are performing and test different ads to see which does the best for your site.

Damn. That’s a lot of plugins lol, and it’s not even all the ones I have in my dashboard. Here’s the thing though. You don’t have to go get all these plugins right now. I’ve accumulated them over the years. As a need arises I do some searching to find a solution. Many times that solution is a plugin, so I go grab it to solve a problem.

I’d start with the basics and then think about the direction you want to take your blog. Building community is HUGE with an authority blog, so I’d add the plugins that will help build community. (comluv, kwluv, tweetmeme, twitterlinks comment, tweetmyblog, sexybookmark, wwsgd) These will help you start spreading the word of your new site.

Why would you give people so many links off your site?

I get this question quite a bit, there’s lots of discussion about losing page rank and all that from giving people so many links off your blog. Here’s my feeling on the subject.

Pagerank is DEAD.

Community is the new king.

Do whatever you can to foster community on your site and the big G will be happy. You don’t see them starting and acquiring social networking assets for nothing.

The more you offer to your bloggers as far as benefits from being a reader and participater (links back to their site, easy ways to tweet great content) the more they will show up, and the more they will participate which is what makes your blog grow!

Phew. I’m almost at two thousand words, and this was supposed to be a short post lol. Oh well. Grab the plugins you think you need right now, you probably don’t need them all. Upload and install and play around.

Remember, you can’t really mess anything up playing around with this. Play with position of things that give you options, and see what you like. There’s no right or wrong, only what works for you and your site. So try different things, see what you think, see if you get a different response depending on where things are. This is a fun piece of the puzzle so don’t stress over it k?

If you have any questions feel free to ask. I’ll do my best to answer.