A Detailed Look at Some of the Most Popular WordPress Plugins
One of the most popular WordPress plugins being downloaded on a daily basis is WordPress.com Stats, in fact at the time of writing it has been downloaded more than 37,000 times. To be able to use this WordPress plugin you will need to be running WordPress version 2.1 or higher. It is also compatible up to 2.7 beta.
WordPress.com Stats offers you a really simple way of retrieving data. I sometimes find that the more complex stat systems such as Google analytics or mint provide far too much information which can be confusing especially if you are new to blogging.
Installation is extremely easy, and is done in 4 steps
1. First you will need to upload stats.php to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.2. Then activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.3. It will then ask you to enter your WordPress.com API key, you will need to do this to enable it to work.4. After a few minutes your stats will show.
Once installed you can view the stats in less than 20 minutes. It also has the added function of not including the hits of logged on users, which is especially handy if you are constantly updating and adding new posts.
This WordPress plugin will provide you with valuable information such as letting you know which pages and posts are the most popular, what people are clicking on and where your traffic is coming from. The way the information is viewed is very simple and easy to understand.
You can use the plugin on either a hosted or unhosted accounts and because all the data collection and processing is not done on your server it does not effect the load on your hosting account making it one of the fastest stats systems you can use.
Another of the most popular WordPress plugins is Google XML sitemaps. Over 1000 people per day are adding this plugin to their websites and blogs and the main advantage is because as you update or create a post the sitemap is automatically updated and the new information is passed to all major search engines such as Google, YAHOO, MSN and ASK.
You will need to be running WordPress 2.1 or higher to be able to install it and also have access to an ftp programme in order to create the files needed to install the software.
Adding WordPress plugins to your blog will not only give you access to a lot more information, these plugins are designed to make your website more pleasing to the eye and far more user friendly taking it to the next level.