Posts Tagged ‘plugins’
How To Secure Your Blog
Nothing is more frustrating than waking up one day and realizing that your blog has been successfully defaced. That’s if you get lucky. In most cases, hackers go after blogs and add malicious code to them that is hard to find and get rid of. Sometimes, they may even lock you out of your own blog. Make no mistake about it. There is no hack-proof blog out there. Some security holes we all know about. Some nobody knows about until they are exploited. Your goal as a blogger should be to make the process as hard as possible for hackers. Having your data backed-up can give you the cover you need just in case someone gets through your blog’s security defenses. But it is not the only thing you need to do to secure your blog.
As a blogger, your focus should be on creating the best content possible for your readers. But there are a lot of us that get too attached to our work and forget about other issues that we need to take care of to keep our blogs going. Blog security should be at the top of every blogger’s agenda. Your blog’s admin pages are like a closed gate of a tower. If someone finds a crack in there somewhere, you are in deep trouble. Of course, if you let someone kick at your door long enough, the door might open (brute force attack). If you happen to run your blog on WordPress, there are plenty of plugins you can download to strengthen your blog’s security. Even if you are using other platforms, there are still simple steps you can take to protect your blog:
- Hide sensitive information: hiding the information that hackers can use to get through your defenses easier is smart. You should take time to hide plugin information as well as anything else that you do not need to show to the world (but can be a security threat). Encrypting your database information is a must too (use a public/private key if you must). Read more »
Top 5 Best Social Media Plugins For Wordpress
So you have decided to start a Wordpress blog? Maybe you have been using Wordpress for years and are now ready to drive more traffic to it through the social media. The good news is that you won’t have to know any programming or write a single line of code. There are plenty of powerful social media plugins that enable you to add buttons, widgets, and other tools to your posts to give you readers a chance to promote your top posts. As a blogger, you should pick and choose the communities that you want your readers to submit your posts too. Not every social networking site will work for your blog, so why not focus on those that do? I personally focus on Delicious, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and Facebook. I have tested Google Buzz on a few of my websites, but my main focus is on those 4 services. If you too are interested in making your blog more social friendly and get more traffic from those sites, here are 5 top social media WP plugins you should look at:
Digg Digg: one of the best social media plugins for Wordpress platform. It covers almost any social network that matters. Delicious, StumbleUpon, Google Buzz, and Digg are all covered by this plugin.
Tweetmeme: a simple to use plugin that adds Tweetmeme buttons to your blog. Twitter is one of the best sources of traffic for blogs, which is why this plugin is worth a serious consideration. Read more »
3 Powerful Cache Plugins To Speed Up Your WP Blog
Millions of people run their blogs on Wordpress. It’s the most popular blogging CMS hands down, and it keeps getting better. No matter what CMS you are using or how attractive your theme is, you want to make sure your blog loads fast when your visitors come to your blog. Wouldn’t you find it annoying if your favorite blog took forever to load? No matter how popular your blog, you are going to have to deal with speed issues on your blog at some point. One way to speed up your blog is by adding the proper cache plugin in to your website. Caching not only reduces the load on your servers, but it improves the performance and speed of your blog, hence keeping your visitors happy.
If you are looking to speed up your Wordpress blog and improve its performance dramatically, here are 3 powerful cache plugins worth trying:
WP Super Cache: one of the most powerful cache plugins available for Wordpress. This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog, meaning that your server won’t have to deal with those resource intensive PHP scripts all the time. The bad news is this plugin is known to have issues with some web hosting services (e.g. Dream host). Read more »
Enhance Your Wordpress Blog Posts with WDTGFH
I don’t know about you, but I never realized I had so many posts until one day I stopped and noticed the actual number. On another blog of mine, I blog on a daily basis and have been doing it for 9 years. After a while, you stop focusing on the number of posts you have and spend more time adding quality to your posts. But posts add up quickly, especially if you write a new one everyday. If you happen to have many posts on your blog, you want to make sure you provide your readers with the chance to go through your other posts and spend more time on your blog. That’s where WDTGFH comes in. It’s a powerful Wordpress plugin that let you users discover new posts on your blog and get more out of it.
If you have bought anything from Amazon recently, you have probably seen the above message. Essentially, Amazon is trying to encourage you to browse through more of its products and spend even more money on the site. That’s exactly what WDTGFH does, except it focuses on your blog posts instead of actual products. It keeps track of what stories people click on and provides a link to them on the source page. So your readers can go through your posts and figure out what posts other readers have found interesting after viewing a specific post.
Search Engine Optimize Your Blog with All-in-One SEO Plugin
Whether you are a professional blogger or just getting started with blogging, you are going to need a tangible amount of traffic if you want to make it in this business. Getting more traffic to your blog not only gets your more exposure and more opportunities, it will also give you a better chance of building a more solid community around your blog and monetize it in the long run. Blogging superstars that have made big in this business all possess a solid, dynamic community around their blogs. But that would not be possible if only ten people know about your blog.
One of the best ways to drive traffic to your blog is by optimizing it for the search engines. Getting free traffic from Google, Bing, and other top search engine sites enables you to spend money on growth and more premium advertising opportunities. There is no simple way to dominate the SERPs on Google and other engines. But you got to start somewhere, so you might as well start with the most important SEO factor that you can control on your blog — your title tags. Your title tags can make a big difference in the amount of traffic you get for free through the organic search. Choosing the right keywords and using them through your content gives search engines the indication that your page should probably get ranked for those keywords. I admit there are a lot of moving parts here. But without optimized titles, you are not maximizing your blog’s traffic.
All-in-One SEO is a cool free plugin for Wordpress bloggers that allows you to optimize the title tags on all your pages without doing too much. If you happen to have a blog that has never been optimized for search engines, you can use the plugin to mass update your title tags in a flash.
20 Top Flickr Plugins For Wordpress
Flickr is one of the best places to find cool pictures for your blog. There are a lot of folks who don’t mind allowing you to use their pictures on your blog as long as proper credit is given. You can also give your blog a decent upgrade by adding a Flickr widget to display related pictures to your posts. If you are using Wordpress, you are even in more luck. There are lots of plugins to choose from and the sky’s the limit as far as giving your blog an upgrade.
With that in mind here are 20 best Flickr plugins for Wordpress:
- Flickr Widget: a simple plugin that displays your latest Flickr photos.
- Flickr Post: lets you include specially tagged Flickr photographs in your WordPress posts
- Photo of the Day – flickr widget: display Flickr’s photo of the Day on your blog.
- flickrFaves: display your favorite Flickr photos on your blog.
- WP-Flickr: makes it so easy to add Flickr photos to your blog post.
- Flickr Comment Importer: a cool plugin that lets you import your Flickr comments into your blog.
- Flickr picture backup: Backup your Flickr’s pictures which you link to on your posts.
- WordPress Flickr Manager: a decent plugin that makes easy to upload photos and manage your Flickr account.
- Flickr Thumbnails Photostream: a cool plugin that makes it easy to manage your Flickr photos.
- Flickr-slideshow-wrapper: a simple gallery for Wordpress based on Flickr.
- Flickr Photo Album: create an album from your Flickr photos.
- Flickr + Highslide: displays Flickr photos using highslide.
- J-Flickr: a little bit technical but allows you to work with Flickr API.
- flickrRSS: easily display Flickr photos on your site.
- FlickrTips: displays a thumbnail of your pictures on your blog.
- Fidgetr: another attractive Flickr plugin
- WP Decoratr: find related photos to your blog posts from Flickr.
- Photo Dropper: makes it so easy to find common license photos from Flickr and add them to your blog.
- Random Flickr Favorites: shows a random favorite picture of yours from Flickr on your blog.
- MyPixs: another wonderful plugin to import photos from Flickr.
There you have it. What’s your favorite Flickr plugin?
Top Wordpress Twitter Tools To Die For
Twitter has truly come to its own these days. There was a time when folks looked at Twitter and dismissed it altogether. Well, those times are long gone. Anyone who has any idea about how the Web works probably knows there is something to this whole Twitter thing. Now, if you are a Wordpress blog owner, you are in luck. There are literally hundreds of plug-ins that you can use to get the most out of your Twitter. Here are top Twitter plug-ins that I have used on my own blogs:
- TweetSuite: a complete Twitter solution for your blog.
- Tweetbacks: another tweetback plug-in for Wordpress.
- Twittar: a plug-in that uses Twitter to show avatars in comments.
- LifeStream: a plug-in that makes it easy for your users to stalk you on social networks.
- Twitme: notifies your followers about your new blog posts.
- BirdFeeder: yet another Twitter plug-in that sends your posts to your Twitter account.
- MyTwitter: show your Twitter status on your blog and update it from your Wordpress blog.
- Twitt-Twoo: an Ajax plug-in that allows you to update your Twitter status from your sidebar.
- Twitter Tools: one of the best Twitter tools ever made for Wordpress. You can send updates to your Twitter account and create blog posts from your Tweet.
- Twitter Updater: yet another Wordpress plug-in that helps you promote your blog posts on Twitter.
- Twitter WP Sidebar Widget: a plug-in that makes it easy to add Twitter to your sidebar.
- WordTwit: yet another tool to send updates to your Twitter account when you publish posts.
- TwitterPress: yet another cool Wordpress plug-in, allowing you to promote your posts on Twitter.
- Tweetback: add trackback feature for Tweets to your blog.
- Twitter for Wordpress: shows your latest tweets on your blog.
- WP Twitip ID: adds an extra field to the comment form for user to enter their twitter username.
- TwitThis: an amazing little plug-in which makes it easy for your readers to tweet your posts.
- TwitURLs: shows favorite URLs on Twitter.
- TweetRoll: show the people you are following and the number of followers you have.
- Twitter Wordpress Widget: another Twitter widget plug-in.
- NewTweet: Set a keyword or phrase and NewsTweet constantly pulls twitter posts containing that word or phrase
- Twitter Blaster: allows your visitors to update your Twitter account!
- Ajax Twitter Plugin: uses Twitter API to get and post the updates
- Tweet This: adds a shortened Twitter link to each and every post.
- TwitterCounter: shows the number of folks following you on your blog.
- WP to Twitter: uses Cligs to post your blog posts to Twitter.
- Thread Twitter: shows twitter posts as a thread.
- ParaTwit: a Twitter updater plug-in that is integrated with TinyURL.
- TwitterSplit: helps you gain links from your followers.
- Twitter Style Links: converts @x in your comments to links.
- Autolink: automatically makes @x into links.
- TickTweet: a cool plug-in that allows you to search for a keyword and show the tweets on your blog.
- WP Twitter Pitch: allows others to pitch to you using Twitter DM right on your blog.
- Twit It Up!: allows you users to tweet or re-tweet your blog posts.
- Tweet Tweet: archive your Twitter updates in your database.
- Twitterdoodle: allows you to create posts and categories based on Twitter keyword searches.
- Automagic Twitter Profile URI: a cool plug-in that adds a Twitter profile link to your comments.
Did I miss anything?
