27 Essential Wordpress Plugins you should have
Ever since I started using wordpress, I’ve been pretty amazed on the number of plugins it currently has and the numerous features that you can gain if you use those. I would like to share with you my personal list of Essential Wordpress Plugins that you should have.
I’ve broken them down into five (5) different parts:
- For your blog’s visitors – This is to enhance the experience of the visitors in your blog. Make them happy and surely they will return to your blog.
- For your blog’s protection – With numerous people getting hacked lately, you need all the protection that you need.
- For search engines – In order to gain organic traffic (search engine traffic), you should make your blog look good in search engines.
- For your blog’s functionality – Although wordpress already offers a lot of features, there are still some that we crave to have.
- For your blog’s feeds -Not all your visitors read your blog by visiting the website itself. Sometimes, they just subscribe through your feeds and read them there. So you should also make your feeds presentable. Why don’t you subscribe to my feeds too?
Just a quick note: Most of the plugins mentioned in this post are just upload and activate. I will be telling you if you need to do something to make it work. I have personally tested and used each of these plugins. They work with the latest version of wordpress.
Trackback Spam – Something to be aware of
Beware of trackback spam.
This is my warning to everyone but first, what is a trackback? Trackbacks are like a notification that somebody linked to your page. Here is an example of a trackback. Joiz’s post linked to my post, HostTracker – Free website monitoring service, so a trackback was created.
It makes me happy knowing that somebody mentioned me in their posts. It can also add traffic to your blog since their visitors might click that link to your blog. However, nowadays, trackbacks are being used by spammers for their own benefit.
Learn how do spammers do this and how to avoid it by clicking here, Beware of Trackback Spam.
The letter of Carlo Cruz – Glorietta Blast Victim
I was on my way to the office earlier today when the radio station mentioned a guy named Carlo Cruz and his letter that has circulated around the world. He wrote his letter at first with the intention of informing his employers that a disaster has struck his life and he wishes to take a bereavement leave.
Carlo Cruz is the husband of one of the eleven people who perished in the Glorietta 2 blast last October 2007. His wife, Leslie Cruz, died on the place where they were supposed to meet. When I heard about him earlier, he was even on the radio station for he read his letter on the air, I felt pity but at the same time, I look up to his faith and strength to live on and be a single parent to his daughter, Amber.
You can read Carlo Cruz’s letter by clicking here.
UAAP Season 70 – 5th Showdown – DLSU defeats ADMU
The final showdown for UAAP Season 70 between ADMU (Ateneo de Manila University) and DLSU (De La Salle University) was concluded last sunday where DLSU emerged victorious.
Game Synopsis
It was a great game because both teams are fighting for their dear life. The team who loses will automatically get third place while the winner will face off with UE for the championship. For the first three quarters, the battle was very close. DLSU would take a four to five point lead at some time but ADMU would always bounce back. However, in the fourth quarter, DLSU started to get away from ADMU through the heroics of Pocholo “Pochy” Villanueva. He made several big shots that shattered ADMU’s hopes in winning a championship this season.
There was a time where DLSU only had a five point lead and the ball was in Chris Tiu’s hands. Knowing that Chris Tiu is ADMU’s three point specialist, DLSU guarded him like hell that he was forced to pass the ball to Baclao standing beyond the arc. Baclao shot the ball and it went in. The ADMU crowd went wild and I was hoping that it won’t be a dejavu of the last game since the situation is very similar (DLSU leading then ADMU rallies to win the game) However, Pocholo made a side jumper and Casio sank his free throws that erased ADMU’s hope for a comeback. In the end, DLSU wins over ADMU and will go on to fight UE for the championship! Go go Lasalle! Pochy power!
How do you upgrade to wordpress 2.3?
When doing your upgrade to wordpress 2.3 , I suggest you test it out by first using a local copy on your computer.
NEVER DO AN UPGRADE ON YOUR SITE WITHOUT TESTING IT OUT LOCALLY FIRST. When you do it locally, you can still recover your local blog when something wrong happens.
Disclaimer: This guide will try to help you in your attempt to upgrade your existing blog to Wordpress 2.3. I do not claim that this guide will work for you 100% flawlessly but this is just how I did it. It is up to you if you want to continue reading however, please do not blame me when something goes wrong. ^_^
Now if you are ready to upgrade to wordpress 2.3, click here.
Is your blog ready for Wordpress 2.3?
The official launch date of Wordpress 2.3 is just around the corner. It has been scheduled at September 24, 2007. So far, based from the new features Wordpress 2.3 is adding, it looks very promising. Personally, I’m excited to download it and upgrade my Wordpress as soon as possible. If you want to try the first release candidate of wordpress, you can get it here.
However, before you go on upgrading, you need to ask yourself this question, Is your blog ready for Wordpress 2.3?
Unlike the previous upgrades such as wordpress 2.2.1 to wordpress 2.2.2 and wordpress 2.2.2 to wordpress 2.2.3 which are just minor security updates, Wordpress 2.3 is a huge update. A lot of things have been changed and added. You can’t just go and replace the files since there are bound to be conflicts in your database and also your plug ins.
So how do you get ready for a big upgrade such as this? Click Here.
Introduction to ClickAider – Tracks clicks including adsense
I searched around the web for a solution in detecting click fraud since my current stat trackers, Wordpress.com Stats, Firestats and AWStats don’t show where the user clicked. My search resulted in my discovery of the Webtool called ClickAider. This post will serve as an introduction to ClickAider and will be written just like a FAQ.
What is ClickAider?
ClickAider is an analysis tool that helps publishers maximize revenues from Pay-Per-Click Advertisements. (ClickAider Homepage)
Basically, ClickAider is a webtool that will help you keep track of the clicks on your website. It claims that it can even track clicks on ads such as Adsense and YPN.
Do you need this?
If you are just like me who recently got attacked through adsense clicking, then you do need this. You would like to know who is attacking you right? You need a tool such as this that will try to track all clicks made and provide you with the time and IP address of the click origin. Using these information, you can report it to Google to defend your claim that you are not clicking your own ads or made someone else do it.
Click here to continue reading Introduction to ClickAider – Tracks clicks including adsense
BlogRush – A new way to increase blog traffic
I’ve been hopping around on different blogs and I noticed a new trend in some blogs. They are adding this new thing called BlogRush. At first glance, it looks like a list of blog posts from different blogs. I was thinking, what is this for?
I also got an invite from Karlo.PinoyBlogero to join BlogRush last week. So I went to visit the website and try to learn about it.
What is Blogrush?
From my understanding, blogrush is a type of link-exchange where you show links from other blogs in exchange for showing your own links in other’s blogs automatically.
How does this work?
Every time you show the blogrush widget, you gain one (1) credit. This credit will be used to display your links (blog titles) in other people’s blogrush widget. For example, if I were to show the blogrush widget five times, my blog links will also be shown to other’s blogrush widget five times also.
Continue reading on how you can use blogrush to increase your traffic.
2 examples of bad blogging practices you should avoid
A few days ago I discovered that I have been linked on somebody’s post. When I read the title, I was surprised. Take a look at the post title below…
Don’t request for ad clicks
The post title has been written in Filipino language to disguise its intentions of cheating. “As thanks for linking up to your blogs, please click on the ads on top. You will lose nothing out of this. God Bless you.” (My attempt for the translation of the post title) I went to the said post and the ads that I see were Adsense ads. The post had no content but just links to other bloggers.
Continue Reading for the Second Bad Blogging Practice you should avoid…
Get an alert everytime google indexes your blog
This is an experiment of one of Google’s features called Google Alerts. This is the description of Google Alert based from their page.
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
Some handy uses of Google Alerts include: [1] monitoring a developing news story, [2] keeping current on a competitor or industry, [3] getting the latest on a celebrity or event, [4] keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams.
Creating the Google Alert
Creating a Google Alert is easy. Just enter the search terms you want to receive updates on, choose what type of report, how often should you receive the report and give your email address.
Click here to know about my experiment on getting an alert everytime Google Indexes your blog.
