Before starting my blog, when I used to visit other popular bloggers blog I would always observe what system are they using, what kind of images are they using, what kind of information are they sharing and what plugins are they using for their blog.
So, when I started blogging, I took the entire list of plugins and installed them on this blog, but then gradually I started realizing what is useful for me and what’s not and based on that I deactivated some and installed some one.
In this two part series I will cover the 10 plugins that I like the most. In Part 1, I share with you the plugins that will allow you to increase traffic to your site, increase involvement and build your list. In Part 2, I will share with you how to add some advanced admin features.
We need traffic, we write so that people read and share it with others. Social sites have become good stream of driving traffic. So, the easier we make sharing our blog posts to various social sites the better.
AddThis is one of the most popular social sharing buttons available. They have quite a few services available and you and pick choose from the list to display on your site. You can select from their default options of you can select a button style and add the sites and the order in which you would like to display them. For this blog I have chosen that option. It’s very easy to configure, no coding required, simply install the plug-in and select the style and option from the settings panel and you are done.
If AddThis is so good what’s the need for another plugin. I installed Digg Digg because, it gives those buttons on the top right side at the beginning of each post, you would have noticed it on this post also. There are some people who notice big buttons at top and would click them to share, there are others who would do it only after they read the complete post, so, the easier we make for them to share it, the better. That’s why I have installed both AddThis as well as Digg Digg.
While driving traffic is important, it’s equally important to involve them, get them to contribute them on your blog. This is when WordPress has included comments feature. But, I didn’t like the default comments feature, because if someone has put a comment and you want to reply to that, but there are 5 more people who commented after that, then your reply will have to refer to the person name and write response. I wanted something that allows me to give nested comments, so that my response is below the main comment.
But that’s not the only reason why I got Disqus, as there are many simple plug-ins that give me nested comments feature. Disqus does 3 things in one (that’s what I have discovered so far, when I discover more I will definitely share them with you). A) It gives you nested comments structure B) It allows you to import comments from popular social sites like Facebook, Twitter etc and display on your blog C) It does comments moderation based on the rule set by you and will keep very selected comments for your moderation, otherwise your comments moderation is automated.
Do you use Twitter as part of your online marketing strategy, then you definitely tweet about your latest blog post. But, you have to login to Twitter every time your post on your blog. How would you like to automate this?
Twitter Tools, as the name suggests is not just one plug-in it contains 4 plugins in one. You can activate whichever ones you like. The main plugin does the job of tweeting about your latest blog post as soon as you post. You can add the prefix like “Latest Blog post” and then your blog title and link will appear.
You can use additional plugins that will allow you to use bit.ly (url shortening service) API to post shorter urls in your tweets and in case you want to post it for some Twitter lists then you can include hashtags also in your tweets straight from wordpress. Isn’t this automation cool! J
This is by my favorite programmer and brilliant marketer Robert Plank. You have got the traffic to your site by putting together quality blog posts and people talking about your site on social sites, how about building your list.
You might have noticed a pop-up on this site when you visited the blog for the first time. I have installed Action Popup with basic design and subscriber option. You can design it the way you like and you can make it appear as many times as you want and specify if it should appear in specific post or not. The pop-up appears when someone is trying to leave your site.
You have a very good control over the pop-up content and appearance and its very easy to configure. You can do many cool things with action popup. So, get Action Popup today for your site. In fact Robert gives you 3 cool bonus plugins as a bonus! J
What plugins do you use for driving traffic, interaction or building your list? Any cool tricks you would like to share?
http://www.amarmehta.com/94/my-top-10-wordpress-plugins-part-2 My Top 10 Wordpress Plugins – Part 2 | Amar Mehta on Marketing, Life and People
[...] The permanent link to the blog post is known as permalink. This is the setting we define in the admin panel >> general settings. For example, my permalink structure is %post id%/%post title%. So, it will display the link as http://www.amarmehta.com/92/my-top-10-wordpress-plugins-part-1 [...]
http://www.sportingtonic.co.uk/blog Aki
That’s pretty useful actually
http://twitter.com/JosephBushnell Web Marketing Mentor
My Top 10 WordPress Plugins – Part 1
Before starting my blog, when I used to visit other popular bloggers blog I would always observe what system are they using, what kind of images are they using, what kind of information are they sharing and what plugins are they using for their blog.
So, when I started blogging, I took the entire list of plugins and installed them on this blog, but then gradually I started realizing what is useful for me and what’s not and based on that I deactivated some and installed some one.
In this two part series I will cover the 10 plugins that I like the most. In Part 1, I share with you the plugins that will allow you to increase traffic to your site, increase involvement and build your list. In Part 2, I will share with you how to add some advanced admin features.
Let’s get on with this part.
AddThis and Digg Digg
We need traffic, we write so that people read and share it with others. Social sites have become good stream of driving traffic. So, the easier we make sharing our blog posts to various social sites the better.
AddThis is one of the most popular social sharing buttons available. They have quite a few services available and you and pick choose from the list to display on your site. You can select from their default options of you can select a button style and add the sites and the order in which you would like to display them. For this blog I have chosen that option. It’s very easy to configure, no coding required, simply install the plug-in and select the style and option from the settings panel and you are done.
If AddThis is so good what’s the need for another plugin. I installed Digg Digg because, it gives those buttons on the top right side at the beginning of each post, you would have noticed it on this post also. There are some people who notice big buttons at top and would click them to share, there are others who would do it only after they read the complete post, so, the easier we make for them to share it, the better. That’s why I have installed both AddThis as well as Digg Digg.
Disqus
While driving traffic is important, it’s equally important to involve them, get them to contribute them on your blog. This is when WordPress has included comments feature. But, I didn’t like the default comments feature, because if someone has put a comment and you want to reply to that, but there are 5 more people who commented after that, then your reply will have to refer to the person name and write response. I wanted something that allows me to give nested comments, so that my response is below the main comment.
But that’s not the only reason why I got Disqus, as there are many simple plug-ins that give me nested comments feature. Disqus does 3 things in one (that’s what I have discovered so far, when I discover more I will definitely share them with you). A) It gives you nested comments structure B) It allows you to import comments from popular social sites like Facebook, Twitter etc and display on your blog C) It does comments moderation based on the rule set by you and will keep very selected comments for your moderation, otherwise your comments moderation is automated.
Twitter Tools
Do you use Twitter as part of your online marketing strategy, then you definitely tweet about your latest blog post. But, you have to login to Twitter every time your post on your blog. How would you like to automate this?
Twitter Tools, as the name suggests is not just one plug-in it contains 4 plugins in one. You can activate whichever ones you like. The main plugin does the job of tweeting about your latest blog post as soon as you post. You can add the prefix like “Latest Blog post” and then your blog title and link will appear.
You can use additional plugins that will allow you to use bit.ly (url shortening service) API to post shorter urls in your tweets and in case you want to post it for some Twitter lists then you can include hashtags also in your tweets straight from wordpress. Isn’t this automation cool! J
Action Popup
This is by my favorite programmer and brilliant marketer Robert Plank. You have got the traffic to your site by putting together quality blog posts and people talking about your site on social sites, how about building your list.
You might have noticed a pop-up on this site when you visited the blog for the first time. I have installed Action Popup with basic design and subscriber option. You can design it the way you like and you can make it appear as many times as you want and specify if it should appear in specific post or not. The pop-up appears when someone is trying to leave your site.
You have a very good control over the pop-up content and appearance and its very easy to configure. You can do many cool things with action popup. So, get Action Popup today for your site. In fact Robert gives you 3 cool bonus plugins as a bonus! J
What plugins do you use for driving traffic, interaction or building your list? Any cool tricks you would like to share?
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