The beauty of using WordPress to run your blog is the extensive number of plugins that let you customize your blog the way you want. The plugins can be for things that appear in public such as threaded comments, Technorati tags, and allowing users to subscribe to comments or things that are behind the scenes in the admin panel such as blog stats and SEO.

I would like to share a current list of WP plugins that are installed on this blog. Here they are along with a short explanation of what each one does and how it’s useful.

But wait, if you have no clue how to install a plugin, read this next section. Otherwise, you can skip down to the list.

Install a WordPress Plugin in 5 Steps

1. Download the plugin. Normally it’s in a zip file.

2. Uncompress the zip file. If you’re using Windows XP or later, there is a built-in utility to help you do this. All you have to do is double-click on the downloaded file and you can extract the files inside to a directory of your choice.

3. FTP the file to the plugin directory on your webserver. Sometimes you’ll need to upload the entire directory into the plugin directory.

4. In your WP admin, click on the Plugins tab to find and activate the plugin.

5. Some plugins may need some customization. You can choose the options either under the Plugins tab or the Options tab.

Be sure to read the README file that comes with each plugin for installation details.

Okay, now on to the list of cool plugins:

Akismet

Akismet helps to cut down on spam comments. The only thing you need to get this plugin functioning is a WP API key. You can find out how to get one. Ever since I installed Akismet on this blog, it has caught a grand total of 12,682 spam comments. I do check the spam folder every now and then because some valid comments can slip through the cracks.

Subscribe to Comments

Want to build community? Using the subscribe to comments plugin will give the commenter a chance to be alerted by email whenever a new comment is posted in response to the same blog post.

Threaded Comments

This plugin (Yet Another Threaded Comments plugin) helps to organize the comments section on your blog by allowing commenters to respond to a particular comment and displays all of them in a threaded fashion just like the way some forums or groups are organized.

Popularity Contest

This plugin called Popularity Contest from Alex King will help you see which of your posts are the most popular among readers. You can configure the way the popularity of each post is measured by setting the weight given to each criteria such as number of views, comments, etc.

You can show a list of the most popular posts on the main page of your blog so that new readers will be able to get a taste of what your blog is all about.

Related Posts

This is another great plugin for keeping the interest of new readers. It displays a list of posts that are closely related to the topic of the current post below that post. What this does is it allows the reader to stay on your site longer as they may be interested in reading other related posts.

Including You Tube Video Clips

WP Video makes it easy to include You Tube videos on your site. Just include the URL of the video between a set of tags in your posts.

Managing Post Archives

SRG Clean Archives organizes your archives so that your older posts can be easily accessed by the reader.

Simple Tags

Generate Technorati tags for each post by using the Simple Tags plugin. Technorati is very popular and having the appropriate tags on each post will help your blog get discovered.

SEO Title Tag

I’m fairly new to using this plugin but the concept is that you can optimize your blog for search engines by creating customized title tags for any post, static page, category page, etc.

WP Shortstat

This is one of my all time favorites. WP Shortstat lets you view keyword searches that bring visitors to your site and tracks the number of visitors to your blog each day. It also shows you additional information such as the countries your visitors come from.

WP User Online

WP User Online lets you see the number of current visitors to your blog. Visitors could be either human or machines, i.e. search engine spiders. It helps you see how often and how fast your posts get spidered. You can also include a widget on your sidebar to let your visitors see how many users are online.

Ever read the Cialdini’s book called “Influence”? This plugin helps you implement the concept of social proof on your blog. The thinking behind this is that if a visitor sees that there are 53 other people currently reading the blog, then this must be a popular blog and they should pay more attention to it.

These plugins may help you build up a community around your blog.

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image credit: Donncha (Flickr)

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