Now that we’ve discussed some general ways to improve your blog, we can move on to my favorite blogging platform, WordPress, and some useful plugins that you can download to help make your blog the best it’s ever been. While there are many different blog publishing platforms out there, WordPress’s friendly user interface and abundance of customization and optimization features has made it a favorite among many.*
Top Plugins for your WordPress Blog
• SEO Rank Reporter This handy plugin tracks your Google page ranking every three days, provides comparisons between other sites, can export all of the data into a CSV file and more!
• Jetpack Similar to a real jetpack, this plugin is awesomely impressive. Site stats are displayed in a simple format, users can have blog and comment posts sent to their email addresses and the plugin even contains a tool to shorten URLs! Keep checking back on their page for additional updates.
• WPtouch One of the most important things you can do is make your site and blog smartphone-friendly. This amazing plugin creates a simple, app-like theme for your blog so that others can read and browse your blog with ease.
• Contextual Related Posts This tool, which displays previous posts that relate to your most recent blog content, is a great way to keep readers on your page.
• Socialize Let’s face it: We don’t only enjoy reading interesting articles, we enjoy sharing them with our friends, family and co-workers too! Allow your readers to share the wealth of knowledge that you provide on your blog by installing Socialize. This plugin lets you easily select which social media buttons that you would like to include on your blog.
• Akismet Having spam comments on blog posts makes your blog appear messy and unprofessional. This plugin checks all of the comments that you receive on your blog and compares them to their web service to determine if they are spam. You are able to view these captured comments and determine if you would like them to appear on your blog.
• New Pinterest Plugin, WP Pinner I’m a huge Pinterest fan, so I’ve been waiting patiently for the day when a great Pinterest plugin would be added. Well, it’s almost here! Join as a beta user and experience the benefits of pinning your blog posts to Pinterest, analyzing them to optimize your message and even scheduling your pins throughout the day.
*Please note that the WordPress plugins are only available for WordPress.org users, not WordPress.com users. If you’re curious about the differences between these sites, visit the WordPress Support page.
Do you have any blog tips or great WordPress plugins to share? Leave us a comment!