Yet Another List Of Wordpress Plug-Ins
After my blog redesign I had several people ask me about who did it (Tia Wood) and what plug-ins I use. Rather than reply to all the emails with the same answer over and over again I thought I would put the list out here.
Akismet - This plug-in is a must, it is an automated spam comment catcher. Enable it and paste in your Wordpress API key and it is ready to go. Saves a lot of time.
All-In-One-SEO-Pack - Although there are a ton of SEO packs for Wordpress now I still continue to use this one. Allows you to set keywords and description per post along with title.
Contact Form 7 - A VERY easy to use contact form plugin. Select your fields, cut and paste one line of code and your contact form is there.
Contextual Related Posts - This has helped drive my pageviews upwards, this plugin will determine related posts to show at the end of you post based on titles, etc. Very easy to use.
FD Feedburner Plugin - Serves one purpose, to redirect my RSS feed to Feedburner.
Full Text Feed - Allows for the full RSS feed to show after post excerpts is turned on.
Google XML Sitemaps - This allows for automatic generation and submission of Google compliant sitemaps after a new post is created. Very configurable and also submits to Yahoo, Ask, and more.
My Twitpics - This automatically shows a list of the last pictures I have sent through Twitpic, adds a bit of a personal touch to the blog.
PHPBay - This is a paid plugin and allows for automatic creation of Ebay links in my sidebar or in posts. I use it mainly on some of my sites but also use it here as well to allow people to see some of the auctions happening at Ebay.
SEO Smart Links - This is a great plugin that allows you to set keywords and then have those keywords automatically link to other posts or sites. Very useful for building targeted anchor text.
Sexy Bookmarks - I just recently started using this, this is the plugin that shows the social bookmarking plugins at the bottom of each post. Nicer looking than some of the older plugins out there that do something similar.
Statpress Reloaded - I use this to watch real time results of keywords, etc driving traffic to the blog. To be honest I prefer the type of data Awstats provides but this is useful for a quick look at why a traffic spike may be occurring or other things like that.
Subscribe To Comments - The name says it all, allows a use to subscribe to follow up comments, helps drive conversation and continued traffic.
Supr By Stumbleupon - Su.pr is my link shortener of choice, this, for the most part, automates that. I will say there have been times that it has not actually posted but when it does work it helps automate a very simple process.
Top Commentators Widget - A nice way to show the people commenting the most and give them a link. Easy to install.
Tweetmeme Retweet Button - As more and more people use Twitter to share links this makes it easy to share the post right from the post itself.
Wibiya Plugin - I will let the plugin explain itself. See the toolbar at the bottom of this screen, yep, pretty cool:) Thanks to Tia for finding this one, from what I understand it is a beta plugin but it has worked fine so far.
Wordpress.com Stats - This is another stats program that uses the Wordpress key and API to share info with Wordpress press to generate very key data (what links are being clicked, how many times, etc). I like statpress for real time, I like this to see where people go on the site but I really installed it so the next plugin would work.
Wordpress Popular Posts - I wanted a way to show people what was being read, not necessarily based on comments like many popular posts plugins due, but using other variables. This allowed me to do that. You can see it in use in the box under the first post on the main page of the blog.
WPTouch iPhone Theme - I did a post about WPTouch iPhone Theme recently and have been very happy with it. Makes the site very usable from a mobile interface.
Well, there is the list. Thanks to those that have commented on the new theme and sent the questions hopefully this answers the questions:)
WPTouch iPhone Theme Plus A Few Other Wordpress Plugin Tweaks
In anticipation of installing my custom blog theme that is being worked on literally as I type I have been working to tweak some of the plug-ins and doing some other fine tuning to the blog. You may notice some changes over the next couple days as I get close to making the full change. In the mean time I thought I would point out a few things that maybe useful to you as you work on your own Wordpress blog, whether it be for your personal blog or a site you have developed for one of your domains.
Post Excerpts - One thing I am contemplating is turning on post excerpts instead of showing the full post on the front page of the blog, there are a couple reasons for doing this, one is it allows more posts to be shown on the front page as people browse down the list but the negative is that pictures and formatting is lost. There are ways to do this manually but that can be a bit of a pain. If you are looking for more info on setting up post excerpts check out ProBlogDesign.com
Sexy Bookmarks - I had seen this plug-in used on several other blogs and also noticed it on ChefPatrick.com as one of Patrick's plugin choices. I had been using Add To Any as my social bookmarking plugin but Sexy Bookmarks looks so much better, I hate to say it but Web 2.0ish... You can find more details on the plugin at SexyBookmarks.net. You can see how it looks by hovering your mouse over the chiclets at the bottom of this post.
WPTouch iPhone Theme - OK, and now for my favorite new plug-in. As a self-proclaimed gadget geek and long time iPhone fanboy I have been slacking in my move to offering a mobile interface to my own blog. Funny how that usually works though. Well, now you can check out my blog from your iPhone and get an easy to use and very readable mobile interface. I have noticed that a good bit of the traffic to this site comes from iPhones and other mobile devices, hopefully this helps the usability a bit. The plug-in is very configurable, you can get more information on this plug-in at the BraveNewCode.com site.
So far, from my brief usage of it, I would highly recommend using the WPTouch plug-in if you are looking for a slick looking mobile interface for your Wordpress site. I am going to be implementing it on a few tonight.
