IN Wordpress Plugins
posted Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Good news! There is a new version of CForms that is out and has got great features. The best thing about it is it has got most of the features on my wish list 
So here goes…
CForms is now completely compatible with three of the most used comment plugins.
First Step is to install the above mentioned plugins and activate them.
Next… adding Subscribe To Comments and CommentLuv
posted Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
I have already discussed a few techniques and plugins you can use to increase your comments. Here is a re-cap of some old and some new plugins I haven’t discussed before. All are must-haves if you want to explode your comments:
Without this option, your commenters may just get sick and tired of checking manually or not bother at all. Not everyone subscribes to the comments RSS feeds so make sure you provide this option.
I cannot stress this one enuff!
posted Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
Cforms II is a WordPress plugin which makes it easy for you to add a contact form to your website.
Once you install and activate the plugin, don’t get intimidated by the dozens of options available. It is pretty easy to set up. Click on CForms from your WP admin menu.
Click to view the bigger image
continue reading…
posted Thursday, July 31st, 2008
It is time for an updated list of useful WordPress Plugins that work with the 2.5.1 version.
I’m not going over 2.6 as it is still in its early stages and not all plugin authors have successfully updated to this version. But I will get to this soon.
Some of these are going to overlap with my previous list as they have been upgraded to work with this version and some I have already discussed in detail in several other posts.
Accordion Tabs
This lets you add WordPress functions in a tabbed interface. Not only does this look pretty neat but it also saves space. A must have for any blog!
Add This Social Bookmarking Widget OR Add To Any
Both plugins offer your visitors the chance to bookmark your posts and pages. Instead of adding several icons under your post and making them look cluttered, the whole menu pops up AJAX style on mouseover.
Adsense Deluxe
This is a classic and should not need any introduction. It lets you add adsense or YPN ads to your posts at the click of a button. Manage the codes on the plugin settings page.
An alternate which lets you add either adsense or YPN is the All in One Adsense and YPN. However, I haven’t tested this one yet.
posted Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
Once you have visitors to your blog, the point is to keep them reading and keep them coming back. For that you need to keep your content in front of them. Give them easy access to posts they might be interested in.
This means you need to show listings of your most recent posts, popular posts, posts with comments on them and so on and so forth.
And as always WordPress plugins help.
posted Monday, July 21st, 2008
I joined Twitter a while but never bothered much with it. That is until I found this very simple to use WordPress plugin.
This plugin not only displays my last X twitters but also lets me add Twitters from inside the WP admin. Now that is a God send for people like me — what a time saver!
This can be called as a function or added as a widget. And that is the way all plugins should work. Give both options! You never know what might be needed.
Now I can tweet to my heart’s content and it is quite a lot of fun to do so, too.
For those of you who are still as yet unaware of Twitter, it is reminiscent of its name. Think of it as constant status updates of your life. It is the answer to one simple question: What Are You Doing? You can twitter away, let your friends and family follow your escapades or make new friends and see what they are up to.
posted Friday, July 18th, 2008
WordPress, by default adds a no-follow tag to links in comments.
What that means in very simple terms is that a Search Engine Bot should not follow that link. Your commentator receives no link benefit from this and gets no page rank credit from Google. The reason why this is a default action in WordPress is to combat comment spam, to stop people from leaving meaningless comments just to get a link back to their websites.
However, all this does is inconvenience the real posters who are genuinely contributing to the discussion. The no-follow tag has not served its pupose and has not stopped spam flooding your comments. Best option is to just use the Akismet plugin (comes with WordPress) for that and be done with it.
So let’s come back to the people who are contributing effectively to a discussion on your blog. Why are they being punished? They are giving something, they should get something back. It is a fair exchange. And it is a win-win situation as you can be at the receiving end as well by posting comments on blogs that do-follow links.
So from today onwards, this blog is officially a DO FOLLOW blog.
You can use a very simple, set it and forget it plugin called Semiologic Do-Follow
You can add your do-follow blog to this list.
There is a list of more plugins as well as directories you can add your do-follow blog to. Check it out.
posted Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
If you have tried using the NextGen Gallery Plugin (and mind you it is one of the best image gallery plugins out there for WordPress) then chances are you might have run into the php memory limit problem.
What this means is that unless you increase the memory limit, you might have problems with automatic thumbnail creation.
There are a few options here:
posted Sunday, July 6th, 2008
This has to be the most useful and time saving plugin ever. What are the steps you follow when you install a plugin? Here’s how I do it:
Here’s how you do it with Plugin Central:
posted Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
This is not the must-have top of the list plugin. Nor is it one you can’t live without. It is just one of those fun, I want this option, kind of thing.
The plugin I am talking about is the Stray Random Quotes plugin. It let’s you add an unlimited number of quotes, be they famous ones or your own rants, to the database. These posts are then displayed in your sidebar randomly and one at a time.
You can also click next to view the next random quote.
Just a bit of harmless fun!
This can also be used to add a random tip. I can imagine a yellow post-it or a piece of torn paper with some random wisdom posted at the top of your website.
Edit: It can also be added to your sidebar as a widget if your theme is widget enabled.
Erum Munir: Web Designer, Internet Marketer, Product Developer and now Blogger. I have been running a website design business since the year 2000.
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