Let’s check out what some Favorite Blog Plugins Are…

So you’ve got your WordPress.org blog theme setup…what do you do now? In order for your blog to FUNCTION and work well for you, you’ll want to install some blog plugins. Blog plugins will help make your blog look better, work better, and help others who visit your site be able to maneuver around without difficulty.

There are thousands of plugins you could install, however I would suggest not going crazy and installing every single plugin you come across. Some plugins can react strangely with blogs, and the more blog plugins you have, the slower and more destructive they could be.

I have come up with a variety of plugins, because some are simply used for maintaining your blog, and some are there for your readers to enjoy and use. I thought I would put together a list for you to peruse and use if you choose.

Blog Plugins:

1. Akismet – This will help protect you from Spam comments. Don’t just automatically delete everything that gets put into your Spam folder under Comments though, read it first, because it may have been put there by mistake. NOTE: For this plugin, after you install and activate it, you will need to make sure to go into Settings and get an API Key at Akismet.com. **Watch the video below for a quick tutorial**

2. All In One SEO Pack - This one is ESSENTIAL. This plugin will help optimize your blog for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

3. Comment Luv - Gives the last blog post of the author when they comment. This will most likely increase viewers on other bloggers posts encouraging more of a community feel and get others contributing to many other blogs.

4. Comment Redirect – I really like this one, because it gives your blog more of a personal touch. This will redirect 1st-time commentator’s to a page of your choice so you can either thank them for commenting or possibly send them to another page on your blog that you want them to see.

5. Contact Form 7 – This will give you the option to customize a contact form for your readers. It’s very nice to have so people can contact you.

6. Google XML Sitemap – Helps Search Engines to better index your blog. Great one to have….

7. Pretty Link – This one isn’t A MUST, but it gives you the ability to shrink, track and share another URL from your blog. You can use it to shorten URL’s using your own domain name or even use it to help mask affiliate links as well.

8. Related Posts – This is just what it sounds like…it will give a list of related posts on your blog. There are different plugins that are available for this, so just take a peek around when looking and see what you like best.

9. Sexy Bookmarks – This plugin will add a “sexy” social bookmarking menu that you can customize to have readers be able to SHARE your blog posts. I think this is definitely a great one to have!

10. Simple Facebook Share Button – Adds a Facebook share button to your posts, and you can change where it shows up as well in the plugin’s settings.

11. Tiny MCE Advanced – Gives you more Microsoft Word capabilities when making a post, and many other features.

12. TweetMeme Button – Adds a very simple button so readers can easily RETWEET your content on Twitter.

13. WordPress Backup – Very important to have backup….

14. WordPress Super Cache – Helps to improve the speed of your blog, but also make sure you ENABLE it within the settings.

15. WordPress Thread Comment – When a reader comments on someone else’s comment, or when you reply back to someone’s comment, it will thread the conversation for you. Otherwise on many blogs your comment gets put at the end, and it’s not flowing smoothly.

With all of these BLOG PLUGINS, you will need to go into their Settings to see if there is anything you need to “Enable” or perhaps change to make it work. Some of these you will want to change text or where the button appears in your post.

Watch the video below for a quick tutorial on installing and activating a plugin (if you haven’t done that before), and I will also go through some of the settings for several of the plugins.

Sit back and enjoy the tidbits of info….

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmXfV30oYmo[/youtube]

Here’s To Your Path Of Success!

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