Review of the wordpress seo plugin SEO Ultimate. To check out the whole review and reviews on other seo plugins as well go to: best-plugins-for-wordpress.com
Tag Archives | Plugins
How to Install WordPress Widgets
How to Install WordPress Widgets
One of the things that makes WordPress so easy to use is widgets. What is a widget? I will try and explain them the easiest way possible. Basically, a widget is an area of a website or blog where you can control the location by dragging and dropping it. In WordPress, widgets are usually found in the sidebar section. As far as what can be places in them, there are really no limits. There are literally hundreds of different ways to utilize widgets within WordPress.
However, before you get started you should probably learn how to install WordPress widgets. The good news is that a lot of widgets come preinstalled with the WordPress package. The common ones include things like recent posts, categories, tags, and a search function.
However, if you want to add any functionality to your blog or website then you will want to know how to install WordPress widgets from plugins. Many WordPress plugins come with widgets built in so all you have to do is install the plugin and then browse to the widgets section in WordPress.
If the plugin comes with a widget, you should automatically see it listed under the available widgets. If for some reason you do not see any new widgets, then you should make sure the plugin is activated. If for some reason it is not, it will not show up under widgets. The other possibility is that the plugin does not come with a built in widget. If this is the case, you may have to find the short code that works with the plugin and add it to a text widget.
So there you have it, a quick lesson in how to install WordPress widgets.
WordPress plugins and some of the popular plugins
WordPress plugins and some of the popular plugins
There are a large number of plugins available for all WordPress users with the intention to enhance and improve their blogging experience. The number of plugins is increasing from day to day, but not all of the plugins are good for you as some may damage your WordPress installation or even harm your site. Some of the plugins that are worth trying out are:
1. Sideblog- this is a way to post short notes on the sidebar with options such as the number of entries to display, defining the sideblog categories and exclusion from RSS feeds. It is useful to post updates and sharing of links. Some of the options include cool themes, made the sidebars invisible from the search robots or adding feeds to the sideblog.
2. Secure and Accessible Contact Form- this is a plugin with a number of features such as extensive security with 16 individual abuse countermeasures, form an overview page to confirm the general configuration of the plugin, maximum accessibility and usability, option to use your own style sheet or extensive on board documentation library if you ever need any help.
3. Sociable- this plugin attaches a list of social bookmarking sites, which allows your visitors to bookmark and it is found at the end of your posts. It automatically add links to your favourite social bookmarking sites on your posts, RSS feeds and pages and you can choose from 99 different sites.
4. Gravatar 2 Plugin- this plugin allows the display Gravatar which is a globally recognized avatar of your commenters. This allows you to distinguish yourself from other users in an online community such as websites, forum or chat rooms. In WordPress, Gravatars are hosted on a single server by encrypting the user’s email address. You can have one avatar for each forum you visit.
5. Search Everything- this plugin allows you to search everything in the database as the default WordPress search engine does not search some pages such as static Pages or metadatas. There are options for you to choose, so you can choose what to search. Some of the options are to search every page, tag, category, comment, attachment, excerpt or non-password protected pages.
6. Admin Drop Down Menu- this is a very useful plugin as it saves you more time. Usually, you have to click a number of times to get from one page to another. With this plugin, just hovers the arrow of your mouse to the category that the page is located to save more time. Instead of going from one page to another before reaching the final destination, you can choose from the menu itself, which can inactivate a second menu from the first.
Do not be scared by the number of plugins available out there. The best thing to do is to do your research. Read blog posts, reviews or comments on the plugins which are widely available in the Internet. Choose those that will enhance your WordPress sites wisely.
Why use Sideblog in WordPress
Why use Sideblog in WordPress?
For the blogging community of WordPress, it is well-known that there are lots of plugins available for your blogging experience. It would be impossible for one to utilize all of them and not all are suitable for your taste and style. Thus it takes time to learn the advantages and disadvantages of each of the plugins and whether they are serving the purposes they were built for. Some of the plugins are known to make your sites wonderful, while there are some that are just disasters.
One of the popular plugins is Sideblog. It is a small blog that sits in your sidebar. Here, you can post short entries on anything such as personal updates, recommendations of websites, links or updates of your blog.
Why should you use a Sideblog? There are several benefits for using Sideblog. You will be able to obtain more frequent updates. There are active bloggers who update several times a day, however for those who do not there will be a period of inactivity of their blogs. The only update they are getting is from the comments of the readers and visitors. A Sideblog will be useful here as it allows you to break up the inactive period.
For those who do not have sufficient time to post up a full blog post, Sideblog is useful as it allows the bloggers to post up short and quick updates. This is helpful to those who have a thought or update to share, but the amount of time is limited.
There are some readers who only read from RSS, and thus they may never have visited your blog although they may be loyal readers to your blogs. A Sideblog is separated from your main blog post feed, and thus readers will check in often to read the posts on your Sideblog. This will not only increase the number of visitors to your site, but also giving them a chance to leave comments or ad clicks.
With Sideblog, you will be able to add links to other sites that your friends are blogging, even if they are non-related to the contents of your blog. It comes with options such as preventing the search robots to search the Sideblog, and thus Sideblog allows you to add non-related links to your site. With this, you will be able to gain more friends by linking your sites to theirs and to link to friends that you have made, but cannot be linked from your main content.
Sideblog also allows the bloggers to show some of their true sides. In the blogging community, professionalism is important and bloggers work hard to retain this in their posts. This leads to good quality of articles they produced. With this plugin, a blogger will be able to show a little more of their true self. Sideblog is more personal compared to the main contents of a blog site.
The reasons to why should you use Sidebar plugin in your blogs are listed as above. There are positive feedbacks from the blogging community on this plugin.
How to Install WordPress Plugins Easily
How to Install WordPress Plugins Easily
Most plugins can be found and installed easily. You do not have to leave your WordPress website because you can install most plugins quickly from your dashboard. The search for plugins is just as simple.
Where do I find Plugins?
Simply login to your WordPress dashboard. Scroll down to “”Plugins”” then select add new. In the new window that opens to the right there is a search box. You can also see a tag cloud of popular searches. Type in your term or select one of the words.
How do I select a Plugin?
Now there should be a list of plugins for you to choose from. If you know exactly which plugin you want check the name and the plugin author to make certain you have the right one. Otherwise you want to decide which plugin will be the best one.
What can I learn from this list?
Without clicking install there is a lot to learn from this list of plugins. You can see what the name of the plugin is. The average rating, however you do not know how many people rated that plugin. Then the description of the plugin. See if the description meets your particular needs. The plugin may be related to what you need not do what you need. If you still like the plugin at this point click install.
Does it pass the Installation Screen?
A Install pop-up screen will appear. This will tell you even more about the plugin. Here you can read more about the description. To the right you can see when it was last updated. This is in days. Next you can see if it is compatible with your version of WordPress. If the version is fairly current then even if it does not list your version it will probably work. You can also see how many people download it and how many people rated it. This is good because one person giving it a 5 means less than 100 people rating it a 4.5.
Still not certain about this WordPress Plugin?
Look towards the top of the pop up. You will see description, which is what you are looking at. Click Installation, Screenshots, and other tabs. These tabs change depending on if it has information or not. Visit the Plugin Site which is on the description tab. Then visit the WordPress plugin page. Hopefully this will get you enough information.
What about installation?
If you are satisfied enough, try the plugin. Just click install, then activate. Remember you can try a plugin and if you do not like it uninstall it. Simply click installed under the plugin tab. Scroll down the list of plugins to the one you want. Then click the word deactivate. If you do not plan on using it further, click delete next. But most plugins are free, and easy to deactivate. So when you need a new one, try it, you might like it
Why should you use plugins for WordPress
Why should you use plugins for WordPress?
The default WordPress comes with only basic features. Thus to make your blogs more colourful and attractive, there is a large variety of plugins available to suit what you want and your taste. These plugins will not only enhance your experience as the owner and the blogger, but also to make it more pleasant for the readers to read your blogs, leave comments or to link to your blog site.
Some of the useful plugins for WordPress users are listed as below. One of the useful plugin is WP Cache. This plugin works by caching WordPress pages and storing them in a static file for future use. It is very useful especially if you have a site with low performance server or high traffic. Instead of loading and compiling the whole PHP code before building a page from the database, WP Cache will use the files stored in the static file when needed to save more time.
For those who are selling things on their blog sites, WP eCommerce is an useful plugin. It is easy to use and you can setup the shop within a few minutes through the Admin panels. It is a shopping cart plugin for WordPress users who are selling products or services on their blog sites. There is a wide range of setting for your product or service such as downloadable products, promotions, coupon codes or product variations.
Intouch Ajax contact form is another plugin for WordPress blogs. This contact form has been known to be useful and it filters all spams. Apart from filtering all spam messages, it has the option where you can customize the email subject, addition of form fields and thank you messages. It allows you to insert a custom-made contact form and the information will be sent via email.
Ajax Post Rating plugin adds a 5-star Ajax rating system to your pages and posts. It allows readers to rate your pages and posts either daily, weekly or monthly. Another similar plugin is Ajax Polls. This plugin is very flexible with lots of features. Other option available for this plugin is it allows you to archive the polls and the layout is customizable via Admin panels.
Another useful plugin is Ajax Comment plugin. It is a simple but effective comment plugin as it checks whether all fields are filled correctly, makes sure that there is no duplication of comments and it has flood protection capability too.
Digg This is another WordPress plugin which detects incoming links from Digg.com website to your WordPress posts. It will then automatically display a link to the post from Digg.com so that people will be able to digg your story. An email will be sent to the admin of the site once a dig is recognized.
The above are only a few of thousands of plugins for WordPress bloggers. It is worth the time to research around to search for plugins that will enhance your blogging experience. Plugins are a necessity not only for the blogger, but also for the readers.
10 WordPress Plugins For Your Tech Blog
10 WordPress Plugins For Your Tech Blog
As a general rule of thumb most errors you’ll encounter with your WordPress blog are the result of excessive or incompatible plugins. While many find the selection of essential plugins a conundrum I believe in testing each plugin one-by-one with the latest version of WordPress so I can isolate the problem to determine the cause of the slow load times, call function errors or php memory limit warnings. The most valuable tool I can tell you when it comes to plugins is that when possible look for existing code that can accomplish the same result.
Of course there are certain plugins that even I use in my WordPress Blogs. I’ve compiled a list below of the top 10 plugins that I use on a daily basis that I believe will help any tech blog:
* AdSense Now – There are many ad insertion plugins for WordPress, but if your tech blog is using AdSense – this is the plugin I recommend. It allows you to insert your ad blocks aligned left, center or middle in 3 sections of a post. It also gives you the option to suppress ads on pages, category pages, tag pages, archives and more.
* Audio Player – Being able to insert mp3 clips or podcasts into your blog can be a problem. Audio Player is a plugin that makes this process simple – simply create a music folder on your site via FTP and then upload mp3 tracks to the directory. You can insert the built-in audio player into any of your posts or pages with a simple line of code – painless, simple and easy.
* Facebook Sharecount – It’s no secret that social networking sites like Facebook are effective ways to create a fanbase, but being able to harness that power relies on an easy way to share your great content. Facebook Sharecount will make it easy for visitors share your posts and monitor your content.
* Foliopress Descriptions – Once your tech blog has hundreds or even thousands of posts you will need a way to mass edit your descriptions. While the importance of meta descriptions is debated, I still believe that a hand written summary should be written for each post. Foliopress Descriptions supports post excerpt, These and All In One Seo meta description fields.
* Google XML Sitemaps – If you’ve read my previous post on how to get indexed by Google and Yahoo you know that having a sitemap is essential. This plugin auto generates your sitemap in a nice and neat XML file and let’s search engines understand the content on your tech blog. After installing and activating the plugin Google XML Sitemaps will take care of the rest.
* NextGEN Gallery – Managing your images and photo galleries can be a pain, but NextGen Gallery makes this simple. With features like auto resizing, watermarks, thumbnail creation as well as gallery effects – NextGEN Gallery is a must have plugin.
* Star Rating for Reviews – When you run a tech blog sooner or later you will start receiving products for review. Creating a solid review is as much about content as it is about presentation. Star Rating for Reviews allows you to create ratings for the products you review or even rate different aspects of the product and averages the ratings to determine a final score. The possibilities are limitless with the plugin – a must have for anyone looking to review tech.
* TweetMeme Retween Button – If you look at the posts on TechBlogStartup you’ll notice a yellow Retweet button aligned to the right. The power of Twitter is growing by the day so making it easy for your reader to ReTweet great content can prove very valuable. If you’ve installed Google Analytics like I explained in my previous post here, then you will be able to monitor just how many visitors enter your post through Twitter. If you are wondering why I haven’t included ShareThis it’s because I manually insert the code instead of using a WordPress Plugin.
* WP Super Cache – If you’ve heard of Digg then odds are you’ve heard of the Digg Effect where an article on a website becomes so popular so quickly that the flood of traffic to the website causes the server to crash. Since WordPress blogs are built on SQL Databases they are highly susceptible to this condition, but installing WP Super Cache can almost eliminate this threat. The plugin builds a cache of your posts and creates a static html page so that the server load is reduced and your site can handle more visitors. If your tech blog is brand spanking new I would install the plugin but not activate it until I started to see spikes in traffic or one of my articles was picked up by a major tech blog like Engadget or Gizmodo.
* All in One SEO – Search Engine Optimization is a key ingredient to driving organic traffic to your tech blog. Writting great content is key, but after you have created that content you need to make sure that it targets keywords and includes some basic optimization to ensure it is search engine friendly. All in One SEO does this job very well. If you are using the WordPress theme I use (Thesis) then you will not need this plugin, but for pretty much every other WordPressTheme I recommend installing it right away so that you can start writing your custom meta descriptions
All of the plugins I’ve mentioned above can be downloaded manually and then uploaded via FTP to your blog or you can add them from within your WordPress Dashboard – personally I prefer the latter. If you are wondering why certain plugins are not listed on my top 10 list – I just don’t find them essential to a tech blog. You will notice that I do somethings with TechBlogStartup that many people use Plugins or Widgets to do – eg. the top 6 articles aligned horizontally at the top of the site or the Recent Posts section in the side bar. For tech blogs that receive a large volume of traffic, limiting the plugins helps reduce the SQL memory load and if you’ve ever had a website crash you know just how important this is. Do you have some WordPress plugins on your tech blog that you think we should know about? Go ahead and drop your own list or links to the plugins in the comments section below so we can check them out.
How to Add WordPress Plugins
How to Add WordPress Plugins
When it comes to utilizing the power of WordPress, the one thing that sets is apart from other platforms is the plugin system. Plugins allow you to easily add advanced functionality to WordPress and can help you perform a wide variety of tasks. However, you need to learn how to add WordPress Plugin before you can start using them on your own blog or website.
There are two different ways to add plugins to WordPress. The first one is to go out and find the plugin you are looking for on the internet. You can then download the file that they give you. From there, all you have to do is log in to your WordPress blog and select the add new plugin link. WordPress will then have you point to the file you downloaded and it will automatically upload it into the correct directory.
The second way to learn how to add WordPress plugin is to use the built in search feature. You can type in a certain keyword or phrase and WordPress will automatically show you the plugins that it finds based on your search. Best of all, you can also see ratings for each plugin and see which one is the best option for you.
Once you find a plugin you like, just click the install button and WordPress will take care of uploading the plugin for you. If you do this method, you do not even have to upload the files yourself. It is really that easy!
As you can see, there are a few different ways to learn how to add plugins to the WordPress platform. Regardless of the way you choose, you can quickly start adding a lot more functionality to your blog or website.