Upload Activate Configure WordPress Plugins
Mar 15
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. 
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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Hi and thanks for this list, i dont know all this plugins, but i will test some in my blogs. Thank you
Thank you so much Jackie, I just built my first WP blog and I was looking for the best plugins to use.
I am too new to understand all your recommendations and had to read your post several times
see you in twitter
Sergio
Booklet Printing´s last blog ..Booklet Printing by Printing Poodles
Good article. The problem with some plugins is that after some developments, they stop updating them. You may not find alternative plugin all time. You’d also like to add some of plugins from maxblogpress. They have some good ones.
I love your list but I have a question on DoFollow. I was just reading on another site that Google requires the nofollow attribute on comments and using DOFollow violates Google’s guidelines and could get a consequence from them. Do you think this is a valid concern? Thanks.
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No I don’t think it is something to be concerned with. I get plenty of traffic from Google to this blog and I’ve been running dofollow for a couple years now. I do not however, run adsense on this site. If you are running adsense you might want to check the TOS a little more closely.
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Thanks very much Jackie. I appreciate your response!
MJ Corr´s last blog ..Lost My Best Friend
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Hi,
Thanks for your post.
Thanks
Nicole
I haven’t noticed that, but it’s probably something to keep an eye on.
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Thanks for sharing those plugins. I downloaded some of them and activate it in my blog.
By the way, does a blog loading time would get slower if you loaded your blog much plugins?
- Felix Albutra
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Super list of plugins! Thank you. One of the many things I love about WordPress is that if you need your blog to “do something special” there is usually an easy breezy plugin to help you do it.
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That would be awesome – thanks Jackie I can wait.
Laura :O)
Actually, if you’re looking for more questions to answer – not that this needs to be answered in tomorrow’s post but another time would be great – I have also been having trouble with the wp125 plugin. I installed it fine and went into the settings to put an ad in there and I’m sure that I did it correctly, I had uploaded the image to an image hosting site so used that url for the image and I entered in my affiliate code and hit the update button but, nothing is showing on my blog. So, maybe that could be another topic too?
If you can wait until tomorrow I’ll do a whole post on it. Will that work?
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Hi Jackie,
Thanks so much for the speedy reply. Thanks for the recommendation on the ninja plugin although I don’t think I’ll invest in that right now. At the moment my links are uncloaked. But, I’m afraid that I’m not sure what you mean by “create subdomains and redirect them to your affiliate product” if you have time to eloborate a little I would very much appreciate it.
Thank you,
Laura
I’ve heard quite a few people having trouble with this one. You’ve got a few options.
1. create subdomains and redirect them to your affiliate product. (this is what I generally do)
2. Get the ninja plugin from Maxblogpress. I have heard EXCELLENT things about it, but haven’t used it myself.
3. Leave your affiliate links uncloaked.
Don’t spend a million years trying to make a plugin work ~ if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work, and time spent above and beyond is time wasted.
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Hi Jackie,
I am having trouble with the Simple Link Cloaker – I installed it and followed the instructions from the author which are the same as what you’ve got above for using this plugin and it’s not working. When you click on the link in my blog post, my affiliate link is showing on the sales page plain as day. I’m pretty sure I’ve done everything right – I’ve checked and double checked and triple checked against the directions.
Thank you,
Laura
Thanks! I’m lovin it
Welcome, and congrats on a new blog. The photo dropper plugin you just put in a keyword and it will bring up images related to that keyword. It’s pretty cool.
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thanks for the great list. I really like the ad stripe plug in. I’m new to blogging and just started my own on word press so this has helped me a lot. I’ll definitely be coming back with questions haha. A question on the photo dropper…let me see if im getting this right. Its a plug in that allows you to pick and choose from flickr photos to add to your blog?
Luke@Denver Photography´s last blog ..There’s more than one way to devour a Mac Life
Thank you for this post Jackie. I’ve used some of these plug-ins before, particularly What Would Seth Godin Do, which has worked wonderfully for me.
You introduced me to Ad Stripe, which I think is a great idea. It’s one of the first things I noticed when I landed on your blog!. I like how its noticeable, yet not obtrusive and still allows you to enjoy the content. How has it worked for you? I’m definitely going to give it a try on some of my blogs.
Kind regards,
Victoria
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Jackie,
Great list.
I wasn’t actually aware of Photo Dropper, but I use Flikr all the time to post images in my blogs…and this will make adding those images a snap.
It sure beats having to pay for images from some of the stock image directories…and there are actually some awesome photographers and photos on Flikr that work great as image “teasers”
Appreciate the info!
Jack Duncan´s last blog ..Google Keywords – How To Find The Best Keywords To Use
The next is, after any plugin install check “if the blog is quite running – if not disable the last plugin and search for an other with the same functions. Thanks for sharing this manual and good luck.
Simple Link Cloaker is a great plugin I also use and recommend, why? it very much depends what kind of an audience your blog has, remember that cloaking your links not only helps visually to remember the link and making it user friendly with the right text, it also helps you get the commission you deserve. So, if your blog audience are webmasters, sometimes they will understand it’s an affiliate link and remove it, but other then that, I don’t think people in the real world know the difference.
just 2c.
Can you tell me what the best widget is to use for getting google ads on your subject? I have blogged all about quitting smoking but my google adsense ads are about blogging , etc. off the subject of quitting smoking. I have tried any number of ways to correct this, of course I want a high CTR but none of the widgets I’ve tried in WordPress are helping me focus on the keyword quit smoking. I am new to this, and maybe there is something i’ve overlooked. Thank you Jackie – Anna
It doesn’t matter what “widget” you use. Google is the one that comes up with relevant ads.
Part of the problem is you have all the links to wordpress in your sidebar ~ which is what is probably triggering your blog related ads.
Your ads also don’t have any surrounding content to pull from. You’ll notice when you click on a specific page your ads suddenly become relevant. They are also IN the content.
Take out the blogroll ~ or at least change them to links that are smoking related and I bet your find your ads get more targeted.
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Ohhh, there are so many goodies here! Thanks Jackie! What do you use for the area in the top right of this blog that says Subscribe For Instant Updates?
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My mistake. Maybe I should make you the honorary mistake catcher huh? I guess if you’re going to go so far as to give people links to their sites they may as well count for something is the way I see it so I use the dofollow too.
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You’re absolutely right, I use and advise all 3 as well.
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KWL/CL will work without the do follow plugin. They will both display the links they’re supposed to, but those links may not be do follow is all.
Overall, great list. A good bunch are staples on all my blogs.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..UPDATED: Theme Customization Part 3 – Banner Advertising NOT for Sale!
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not that I’m aware of Julie ~ I just use feedburner to keep track.
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Hi Jackie!
Is there any plugin (or way) to know who subscribes to your rss feed? (not feedburner – but your /feed) ? I’ve looked around but I can’t seem to locate anything. I know I have subscribers – I just can’t figure out how to tell how many I have
Thanks!
Julie
Thank for the sharing the quality plug-ins emphasizing the value of word press and its plug-ins!!
I always wondered about the ads you had in your sidebar. When I looked for a new theme for my site, I even considered some of the “more difficult” ones that had these as part of the theme. And here you are giving us the “secret” for free!
The same goes for the green stripe, I liked it since the first time I read your blog.
Thank you for all the other plugins you told us about. I already added some of them to my site and now I can go and do more!
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Thank you Jackie for the plugins sharing. It is awesome and the information is super.
This is the reason I check your blog every day without fail to learn and apply what you share.
Learning or Reading is not sufficient but APPLY it is the key to SUCCESS in internet
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Oh I heard about this not long ago. I haven’t tried it so I don’t know what I think. I wouldn’t pay for it, but that’s just me. It seems pretty similar to what zemanta does for free, if you use the related posts.
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Jackie,
Sorry that link has been changed, I had been saving it until you did the plugin lesson, but it seems they made it so it redirects to a sales page now.
I googled it and here is the actual download page for the plugin.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/deep-link-engine/
let us know what you think
thanks
I’m curious as to what you think of this plugin.
Is it worth using?
http://www.affilorama.com/redirect/deepplugin
Jackie:
Thanks for the list of plugins. Currently I only use about half of them.
Have you had any success with the Ad Stripe from MaxBlogPress? I have installed it but have yet to activate it.
I have also noticed that many marketers are going to the Sexy Bookmarks plugin. Is this a new trend or do you think this plugin is really better than the others?
- Rick
Rick Byrd @ MarketingWithRick.com´s last blog ..5 More Blogging Mistakes to Avoid
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I don’t know that it’s about sexy bookmarks being BETTER per se, I just happen to like the way it looks better, and the way the buttons pop up on the page. I like the functionality of it and the way it looks. Visible but not intrusive.
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Hi Jackie,
One of the main reasons I chose wordpress for my blog is that it has some of the incredible plugins. My friends always suggested me wordpress whenever I questioned them about choosing the perfect content management tool. I have heard about keywordluv and commentluv long back, but the rest of the plugins mentioned here are totally new to me. Of all of them I personally like the adstriper plugin. You can have ads on your website like a hanging banner without disturbing the content. I think I might just copy your idea of the green stripe. Thanks heaps for this post which emphasizes the values of wordpress and its plugins
Melvin@Auckland Property Management´s last blog ..Otahuhu, Auckland City
Wow! Lots of good stuff here to soak in. I’ll be busy for awhile
Thanks Jackie!
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