Best WordPress Plug-Ins

plugsBlogging with WordPress offers users so many choices, including a variety of plug-ins that meet different needs. Some are for fun and others are very functional and useful for a variety of purposes. No one would want all these plug-ins in their blog, though, and some are more well-suited to some types of content than others.

But all of them when used with the right blog can make the blog more dynamic and easier for the reader to use, as well as keep them interested and coming back.

Related Posts: This plug-in shows a linked list of related posts at the bottom of a post. This is excellent for keeping readers at your blog. They’ll finish one post and see list of others that contain relevant content, and keep clicking through and reading as long as they’re interested in your content. This plug-in is great for any blog, especially those with many older posts that they still want to bring to the attention of readers.

Adsense Deluxe: This plug-in allows you to place Adsense ads on your blog. Adsense is Google’s pay-per-click program. If you run Adsense ads on your blog, when people click on them you get paid. The amount of pay varies by ad, topic and a variety of other factors, with ads ranging from 1 to 3 cents per click up to several dollars per click. Adsense uses the content of your page to determine which related ads will run, making it more likely that your audience will click on those ads. These are best for very niche blogs on a specific topic.

All in One SEO Pack: This plug-in helps you optimize your WordPress blog for search engines. It will help you choose titles, descriptions and keywords to help you get better listings with the search engines.

Feedsmith: Feedsmith sends your blog to Feedburner. This allows those who prefer reading blogs via RSS feeds to do so without having to visit your site. Many people will sign up for feeds rather than have to visit every blog site they read every day. If you don’t get your blog in a feed, you’re missing out a valuable chunk of readers. There are dozens of plug-ins designed to help you copyright and optimize your feed, including advertising on it.

Askimet: Askimet stops spam in its tracks. When comments and trackback links are spammy, Askimet catches them and asks your approval before posting. You can search comments then by IP to find all the comments by one person, as well as searching by user name. This can really save you from spam on your blog.

WP Captcha-Free: This plug-in stops automated commenting without requiring each commenter to type in a hard-to-read captcha. This blog plug-in is designed more for bot and automated spam comments, while Askimet catches individually posted comments, too.

WordPress Popular Posts:  This plug-in adds a widget to your blog similar to the Related Posts that you can customize in a variety of ways to show the information that you want it to. The plug-in shows your most read blog posts.

Photo Credits: myuibe

Originally posted 2009-06-05 05:55:24. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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10 Benefits of Hosting your Own Blog

trafficIf you want to create an edge over many of the other bloggers on the web, then one of the best things that you can do is host your own blog. There are a number of benefits of hosting your own blog over having some other service host your blog. Here are ten of the most prevalent benefits.

1 – Professional Appearance –

Hosting your own blog gives your blog a professional appearance, because you can use your own domain name or website name and can host your blog on your own website. If you do not host your own blog, you will have a lengthy blog URL which will make it appear less professional and will make it more difficult for readers to recall the name and website for your blog.

2 – Design –

Another benefit of hosting your own blog is the fact that you have a lot more freedom regarding the design. When you host your own blog, you do not have to follow a pre set design but can design your own blog layout instead.

3 – Recall Ability –

By hosting your own blog, you can make your blog easier to recall among readers. What address do you think is easier to recall, http://www.blogsite.com or http://blogsite.blogger.com/~blogname? The easier your domain name is, the easier it will be for readers to recall it, and this is one of the greatest benefits for hosting your own blog.

4 – Content Control –

While there are not normally really strict guidelines regarding content, when you have your blog hosted by a blogging network, your choices in content can be restricted. By hosting your own blog, you can have much larger control over your content.

5 – Security –

By hosting your own blog on your own website, you can have more control over your security, and will be better able to protect your own blog rather relying on someone else to do it.

6 – Brand Promotion –

By hosting your own blog, it will be easier to develop and promote your own brand. Even if you are not selling something, hosting your own blog will provide greater individuality than what shared hosting can offer.

7 – Revenue Generation –

When you host your blog with someone else, you have less control over generating revenue. When you host your own blog, however, you have much greater control over how you generate revenue online.

8 – Growth –

While starting on a blogging network makes sense, if you want to grow your blog, you need to go independent. By hosting your own blog, you can create a much larger level of growth over time.

9 – Site Integration –

By hosting your own blog, you can integrate your blog with your website, rather than having to create a completely separate website from your blog.

10 – More Traffic –

Hosting your own blog will also allow you to generate more traffic, because your posts will be easier to find in search engines.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2009-02-01 05:05:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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What to Look for in Your Blogging Software

blogitThere are so many choices for blogging software on the market, that it can be very difficult to choose the right one. Every software choice has its advantages and disadvantages which means that you will have to make some decisions on your needs. This will help you to determine which blogging software will work for you.

Make sure that the blogging software that you choose is easy to use and install. Bloggers who are not web developers or programmers will find it difficult to use more complicated software programs. For the business blogger, it is important that the software is easy to install and use from day one.

Good blogging software will also allow you to make changes to your blog and regularly update your site. This should not be an overly complicated process. Again, unless you are a programmer, you might find some of the software on the market a little difficult to use. Research the software before you decide to use it for your blog.

Pinging is an important feature to have on your blogging software. Pinging simply means that your software will let others know that your blog has been updated. The search engines are specifically looking for fresh content on the Internet. Your software should let these services know that you have what they are looking for every time you make an update to your blog.

After some time working on your blog, you will become more comfortable with the process. Your blogging software should give you the ability to add new features to your blog to continuously improve your site and the information that is contained on the blog. You will most likely want to add these new features as your blog becomes more and more popular. Keeping your site fresh and friendly for your visitors is your goal and the blogging software that you choose should be able to help you keep your site up to date.

Consumer reviews along with blogging expert reviews will help you to determine which software program will match your capabilities and needs. In the beginning, you will need a software that will be easy to use and allow you to do everything that you want with your blog without all of the technical knowledge.

Blogging has become a communication method that has exploded in recent years. More and more businesses are finding out that their blogs are an important part of the success of the business. It is a simple way to communicate with those who are going to buy your products or read your information. With the right blogging software, it is easy for anyone to take advantage of this great communication tool and speak right to the customers that you are trying to reach. Every aspect of your blogging business should focus on bringing the latest information and content to your visitors on a consistent basis.

Photo Credits: Mike Licht,…

Originally posted 2009-07-08 05:40:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Permalink Structure without Dates

linkThe structure behind WordPress is generous enough to allow for built in SEO advantages which come with building pages that static web page building and other blogging software cannot afford you. By using WordPress, you already have an advantage over bloggers, but only as long as you are willing to take advantage of the right permalink structure. By default, your dashboard in WordPress gives you three different choices that you can select from. The default permalink structure and one of the other options are both pretty terrible options. Basically, the three permalink structures that are available to you would create blog post URLs that look something like this:

- http://www.yourwordpressblog.com/?p=123

- http://www.yourwordpressblog.com/2008/01/01/the-name-of-your-post

- http://www.yourwordpressblog.com/the-name-of-your-post-123

Which of these linking strategies do you think is going to be the most ideal for SEO purposes?

The truth is, while the bottom two seem to both be advantageous, including the date in your blog posts is not the best strategy to follow, making the third option the best option for you to follow.

For starters, putting the date stamp in your URL like the second example dilutes the value of your keyword, increasing the number of characters in your URL. While there is no real rule here, and while some SEO experts do seem to appreciate having the date stamps, it does seem to be much more advantageous to leave the post date out of the URL of your permalink structure. When you are trying to rank for keywords that you use in the titles of your blogs, and when you want to be found for the titles of your blogs, you need to show Google and other search engines how important your pages are based on their URLs. If you have a date stamp in your URL, Google will perceive the date stamp to be more important than your keyword, which can have a negative effect on your SEO effort.

It is surprising how important your URL names can be when it comes to your SEO effort and the efficiency of your blog. Not only are there numerous factors that make it worthwhile for you to leave the date stamp out of your URL, but there is also no good reason not to.

There is an added bonus to leaving the date stamp out of your permalink structure, in that it allows you to revitalize old posts, bringing them back to the forefront of your blog without having to mess with the date stamps. If someone links to your blog at http://www.yourwordpressblog.com/2008/01/01/the-name-of-your-post and you decide to change the date of your blog entry to bring it back to the front of your blog, all of those links will be destroyed, and your SEO effort will be largely undone in one fell swoop.

Sound good to you? Learn how to remove dates from permalink.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2009-02-05 14:15:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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