7 Effective WordPress Plugins That Will Help Your Blog Succeed

Written by Moon on March 10, 2010 - 16 Comments
Categories: Blog Thingamajiggies

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While I am organizing my other passive income experiment, a niche website that is, I had the opportunity to review the stats of Experiments In Passive Income. For every newcomer in the blogging world, there are “things” that they can do which can help the success of their blog. Fortunately, WordPress is one of easiest and most convenient blogging software around. What’s even better about WordPress is the easy integration of “plugins” and “widgets”.

If you don’t know what a plugin is, then let’s get you out from under that rock. To understand the difference betwee, a plugin and a widget, you can take a look here. For the purpose of this article, I will use the term interchangeably.

Here are the “must-have” WordPress plugins and widgets that you need to utilize asap:

Comment Luv

I absolutely LOVE this plug-in. Simply, if a blogger has added Comment Luv plug-in to their blog, it allows you to leave a link to your latest post. At first glance, you might think, “What’s the big deal? You’re just leaving a link”. Well, imagine you left 10 comments today and for each comment, Comment Luv was enabled. Any other commenter (or even the blogger him/herself) could be led to your blog if they see your article title (hopefully you’ll make it catchy).

WP Greet Box

Hopefully you’ve seen this plugin at work when you hop on over here. It “detects” where the reader came from and shows an appropriate message. For example, if you came from Twitter, it will display a message encouraging them to tweet this post and to follow me. Better yet: “you can ask Digg visitors to Digg your post, Google visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed, and more!” I love the slick AJAX interface and let’s face it: if something can make your blog look slick and help it gain readers, why the hell not use it?

All-In-One-SEO

I had read a lot about this plugin and am still waiting for results, but it makes SEO hell of a lot easier. A simple “Options Configuration” page allows you to define your home title, description, keywords, amongst a lot of other customizable fields. You’ll see a lot of the big guys using this plugin.

Akismet

This one is really obvious but it has saved my ass! It has saved me work equivalent to a few hours of frustration. It checks the comments to see if they are spam or not, and if it looks like spam, it categorizes it as that. You can then click on “Spam” under comments and review the comments. If it’s spam, you can delete it and if not, you can approve the comment. Moderating comments would be time consuming without this plugin.

Recent Love

How do bloggers display their most recent comments? Thanks to this plugin, you can do just that. I loved how the settings gave the option of including the author’s/blogger’s comments in the widget. As you can see, I only display my reader’s comments (and not mine). I want to shed light on my commenters and this does just that. It helps create that sense of community around your blog.

FD Feedburner

This plugin redirects your existing feed to a Feedburner feed. The steps were really easy to follow on this one. I haven’t explored other options, but it seems to be doing the job fine. In fact, Feedburner made it easy to even add e-mail subscriptions.

Contact Form 7

If you’re new to WordPress, you might be struggling with how to create a simple contact form for your “Contact Me” page. Contact Form 7 got me up and running quickly!

Use WordPress Plugins To Elevate Your Blog’s Success

There are quite a few other plug-ins that I use, but these are the essentials. I tried a number of other plugins and widgets, but I use these for a reason: they were simple to setup and did what I needed them to do. More importantly, they help create a sense of community that I’ve been striving for. From your WordPress Dashboard, it takes under two minutes to search a plugin and test it, so don’t be afraid to check them out.

Want A Link To Your Blog From My Blog?

Since it’s Wednesday and I feel like giving back, I will do you a favour. If you share with me a WordPress plugin that’s not on this list and one that really helps you, please post that in the comments. Tell us the name of the plugin, what it does, and why you like it. I will choose three suggestions and update this post under a new section. Under the plugin name and description, I will mention your blog name. Feel like giving back? Please re-tweet this article if you find some good use out of it. Here’s the catch: I will only do this for three commenters that I choose of my liking, so make sure to suggest an impressive plugin with all the details I’ve mentioned above.

Word of Caution: Before trying any plug-in, please be responsible and back up all your files. I had one plug-in that I tried that left me with an annoying error.

If you have great alternatives, state the plugin name and why it is a better alternative. I am looking for a good backup plugin so if you use a convenient one now, please let me know.

Tags: wordpress plugins

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16 Responses to “7 Effective WordPress Plugins That Will Help Your Blog Succeed”

Comments

Read below or add a comment...

Steven Ponec

03/10/2010 at 10:45 pm

Hey Moon! It’s Steven
Liked the post! Thanks for the plugin suggestions. I’m going to try some out right now.
I use Date Exclusion so that my older posts stay fresher (for me, older posts is post number…7. Haven’t done that much blogging yet!)
Steven Ponec´s last blog ..My review of the Nintendo DS Lite – or, why it makes a great travel companion!

Reply
- Moon
  
  03/11/2010 at 9:56 am
  
  Hi Steven,
  
  Glad you liked it. Play around and I’m sure you’ll find something useful. Date Exclusion? I’m not sure I understand, but will check it out. Thanks for dropping by!
  
  Reply
Paul

03/11/2010 at 10:12 am

Moon,

We are thinking together with joined up writing. I use all but two of those. I use Disqus comment system, rather than Comment Luv. Why, because I came across it first. Popular posts and Recent Love aren’t needed because my theme is built with them integrated.

A great post and definitely worth a ReTweet. Thanks for sharing.

Regards

Paul
Paul´s last blog ..It’s only skin deep

Reply
- Moon
  
  03/11/2010 at 3:06 pm
  
  Correct me if I”m wrong Paul, but doesn’t discuss only let you leave a comment? With Comment Luv, you actually leave a trail to your latest post/article.
  
  Reply
Hulbert

03/11/2010 at 12:39 pm

Hi Moon, you’re right about the flexibility and convenient usage of WordPress. I love the platform! It was nice for you to share those plugins above as I think all of them are very effective tools for helping our blog grow. Askimet has protected me from 842 comments and yeah, without that I would definitely not have a fun time deleting spam one by one. Thanks for sharing this.
Hulbert´s last blog ..Tony Robbins and Why

Reply
- Moon
  
  03/11/2010 at 3:08 pm
  
  Hulbert,
  
  I’m with you on Akismet. The spam’s just getting worse.
  
  Reply
Dusty

03/13/2010 at 9:37 am

You should also add the dofollow plugin so that you reward the people who leave comments on your site with a do-follow link! Just my 2 cents….

Additionally, the last time I checked I have 2,000 comments protected from spam by Askimet. I love that little plugin!
Dusty´s last blog ..Auto Content Cash – Creating Passive Income Automatically

Reply
- Moon
  
  03/14/2010 at 12:08 pm
  
  Yep Dusty, Akismet rocks. I’ll consider your suggestion, we’ll see
  
  Reply
Dusty

03/13/2010 at 9:39 am

Also, if you are looking for better on-page SEO benefits, check out the plugin ‘Head Space 2′. It is one of the so-called ‘experts’ secret weapon.

Drop me an email and I can tell you how to use it more effectively!
Dusty´s last blog ..Auto Content Cash – Creating Passive Income Automatically

Reply
- Moon
  
  03/14/2010 at 12:09 pm
  
  Ooo, thanks Dusty, sure will check it out. Interesting name for it, ha.
  
  Reply
Azad Shaikh

03/14/2010 at 4:21 pm

Hi,
I just drop by and checked out your awesome post.It is good that you are giving some backlinks for inputs. I am not writing this comment for any backlinks as i am already helping you with your blog tech problems. I am having lots of nice plugin list with me. But most of them are not relevant to your blog. So i am sharing my three most important comment plugins that you must start using form now on.

1. Subscribe To Comments
url: http://txfx.net/wordpress-plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
This is must for any blog.

2. Comment Change Status
url: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comment-change-status/
With this you don’t have to login to wp-admin for approval of comments.

3. Comment Redirect
url: http://yoast.com/wordpress/comment-redirect/
Redirect commenter who just made their first comment to a page of your choice.

I think this can be a post itself. consider it as my guest post to your blog.

Warm Regards,
Azad Shaikh (The Internet Geek)
Azad Shaikh´s last blog ..How To Improve The Speed Of Your Website

Reply
- Moon
  
  03/15/2010 at 10:06 am
  
  Azad,
  
  Thanks for the list. I’m curious about #3, the comment re-direct page. I’d love to set that up soon.
  
  Reply
Patrick Toerner

03/19/2010 at 4:15 pm

I wrote an article very similar to this. Here were a few you did not include:

1. Google XML Sitemaps
This helps Google index your blog, and the easier it is for Google to index the better.

2. WP Super Cache
This makes your blog blazing fast! It changes your php files into static html files so they load much faster. I wouldn’t run a blog without this.

3. WordPress Database Backup
Better safe than sorry. This plugin schedules database backups whenever you want. It has saved me once already.

4. Subscribe To Comments
Let’s people see if a new comment has been made on a post. Very helpful for bring readers back to your blog.

5. Zemanta
This plugin does everything! Searches all over for relevant stuff based on the content you are writing. Let’s you easily insert pictures and links.

Plenty more that I use more, but these are some good ones.
Patrick Toerner´s last blog ..$1,000 a Month From a Minisite

Reply
- Moon
  
  03/19/2010 at 11:04 pm
  
  Patrick,
  
  Great list there. I just installed WP Super Cache. I’ll have to check out Google XML Sitemaps and the WP Database Backup. I’ve been looking for a good backup plugin.
  
  Thanks for mentioning some cool plugins while reminding me about backups!
  
  Reply