Article by Wendy McCance
Now that the new blog is humming along, I would like to share some information on plugins. I have been like a kid in a candy store checking out all of the plugins on WordPress that can be installed. It’s been a lot of fun. These plugins are free. You can try any of them out. If you like them, great. If you don’t care for what the plugin does, just deactivate it. A super easy and painless way to tweak your blog.
There are more plugins than I ever thought possible. I have tried out several and have some favorites, but I know down the road I will still find more incredible plugins to try.
So many of you have mentioned possibly switching to a domain name instead of using WordPress.com. So, for all of the people who would like to continue with WordPress after getting your own domain name, I would like to share some great plugins to try out. Below are the plugin names along with the description used for that plugin.
- Akismet (Love this!!! It takes care of spam for you)
- All in One Social Lite (Innovative plugin for social sharing and generating traffic)
- All in One Webmaster (Sitemap Submission option to Google, Bing. Options to add Google, Bing, Alexa, Facebook Insights, Facebook, SEO, Blogcatalog Webmaster Meta Tag. Options to add Google, Quantcast.com, GetClicky.com, Compete.com Analytics scripts for your blogs)
- Copyright Proof (Digitally certify your posts to prove copyright ownership, generate copyright notice, and copy-protect text and images)
- Google Analytics
- Google XML Sitemaps (This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog)
- Jetpack by WordPress.com (Bring the power of the WordPress.com cloud to your self-hosted WordPress. Jetpack enables you to connect your blog to a WordPress.com account to use the powerful features normally only available to WordPress.com users)
- NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-poster (Truly genius!! Will post to around 10 networks every time you publish a post)
- PhotoDropper (Find the perfect blog photo without ever leaving WordPress. Now with access to over 211M+ photos it is easy to find the right photo with PhotoDropper) * I’m still looking for the best image site, but this one makes posting an image easy. The button is on the same page as your post, so you can pop it right into the article.
- SEO Friendly Images (Automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images. Improves traffic from search results and makes them W3C/xHTML valid as well)
- Simple Page Sidebars (Assign custom, widget-enabled sidebars to any page with ease)
- Statpress Visitors (Gives you more statistics than you thought possible)
- Wordfence Security (Wordfence Security - Anti-virus and Firewall security plugin for WordPress)
- WordPress Importer (Invaluable tool when I switched my blog to the new site. It Imports posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags and more from a WordPress export file)
- Yet Another Related Post Plugin (Love, Love Love this!!) Returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds. Now with thumbnail support built-in!
I am still looking for a great plugin to handle followers (specifically). I also am still in need of that perfect image plugin. I’ll find them eventually, and when I do, I’ll let you know.
Two quick points I’d like to make:
1. Please make sure to check the details befor downloading any plugin. What works with one theme might not work with another. You will see on the details page if the plugin is an appropriate match.
2. These are just my personal opinions. I can’t be responsible for any issues you might have with a plugin. I am not getting any incentive for mentioning any of these plugins. My hope is to give you some ideas of what to try out and what types of plugins you might want to consider for your own blog.
Wendy McCance
To contact Wendy McCance about a writing or social media assignment, interview or speaking engagement, please email her at: [email protected]
Latest posts by Wendy McCance (see all)
- Open Your Eyes With This Quiz - November 19, 2016
- Relationship Problems: When Do You Get Involved? - November 11, 2016
- Let’s Make America Great Again - November 9, 2016
Related Posts
Ways to Monetize your Blog
My Experience Switching Hosting Sites
5 of the Best Tips to Get More Traffic to Your Blog
How to Make Money Using Product Review Sites - Part 1
What Should You Do If Your Articles Are Used Without Your Permission?
How I Get Traffic To My Blog- A List You Can Use
Great Finds for Those Looking to Monetize Their Blogs
Pingback: Inside the Mind of a Blogging Professional | Searching For The Happiness
Hi Wendy,
Thank you for your post. I am fairly new to blogging and would like to use Akismet to control spam but when I try to use it, it says I need a key. Do you know where I can find the key mentioned? I don’t know how to activate Akismet or any of the plugins on my site.
Thank you,
Michele
Hi Michele, just go to the askimet website and sign up. You will get a key there. When I downloaded the plugin from WordPress, there was a link to askimet when I was setting it up. Good luck.
Great post. Thanks for the tips, I am a huge fan of the flexibility WordPress offers and will definitely checkout your suggestions.
Hi Beatrice, I’m glad you found the post helpful.
Very interesting, especially the copyright plugin. My blog is filled with stunning and exclusive photos as well as content heavy material that I have written and I would love to know it is all be protected as best as possible.
Hi Deb,
I would definitely recommend looking into the copyright plugin. It’s free and easy to use. I think you will love it.
What wonderful plug in ideas you have here. Some people are new to WordPress and now they have some great tips. 🙂
I love all of the options available on WordPress. It’s a world of difference compared to the old site I was using.
You have a nice list here. I really like PhotoDropper too. It makes it so much easier to find images for posts that don’t require I take one of my own. Thanks for sharing your favorites!
We’ve linked to you over at Cinnamon Hollow http://thecinnamonhollow.com/2013/04/12/favorite-plugins-lists-and-how-they-can-help-you/ and if you don’t mind, I’d love to add you to our list of bloggers that we feature in our short posts each week.
Hi Crystal, that’s incredible. Thank you so very much. 🙂
Thank you for the list! I have been on Blogger since 2007 and then a few months ago I started a new project and went with a self hosted WordPress blog. I am learning a lot as I go, but I am still quite new to WordPress. I too have been like a kid in a candy store with all of these plugins!
I use Zemanta for related blog posts. You get related content, photos and also you can submit your blogs to them so that others can link to your posts. If you use Google Chrome, you can add it as an add on (through Zemanta’s site) and then every time you use Chrome for any of your blogs it is ready for you. I have it in Chrome and it remains set up whether I am on my Blogger blogs or my WordPress blog. It is free too.
Hi Dawn, I signed up with Zemanta too. I haven’t really paid too much attention to it though. I’ll have to go back and check it out. Thanks for the suggestions.