Plugins For Beginner Bloggers

Plugins are wonderful little programs that can help manage, organize and improve your blog. The challenge with plugins is that there are so many, it’s overwhelming to decide which to use. I have many plugins on all of my blogs, but when I first launch a blog, these are the ones I install first.

Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email – This makes it easy for your readers to share your blog post through email, social networks like Twitter, or bookmarks such as Digg.

Akismet: This anti-spam plugin comes pre-installed in all WordPress blogs. However you need a key to make it work. Learn more at WordPress.

All In One SEO Pack – This plugin not only lets you enter SEO information about your blog in general, but you can add SEO material — title, description, and keywords — to each blog post and page. One advantage to this is that you can have a reader-friendly title in your post, but put a SEO-friendly title for the search engines.

CommentLuv – Give back to people who take the time to comment on your blog by allowing them to have a link back to their last blog post. CommentLuv takes care of this for you.

Si Captcha Anit-Spam – Managing spam can become overwhelming without tools to filter it (like Akismet) and captchas to help prevent it. This plug in add captcha’s to your comments and registration. It’s a hassle for your readers, but necessary if you want to avoid hundreds of spam comments and registrations a day.

Simple Google Sitemap XML – This little tool is designed to let Google know about new pages or posts that have been added to your site so they can be indexed.

How to add plug-ins:

1. Log into to your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Click on “Plugins” from the left hand navigation.
3. Click on ” Add New”
4. Enter the name of the plugin you want to add in the search box.
5. Click on “Install Now” to add the one you want.

Some plugins work automatically while others will need some set up. Plugins are listed under “Plugins”, but to manage them you’ll find the individual plugin set up under “Tool”, “Setting” or sometimes in its own menu.