Developing a well-maintained, money making blog can be a pain in the ass. You’ve got to SEO, you’ve got to write compellingly, you’ve got to consider web usability and you’ve got sell.
Fortunately for us modern bloggers, there are plugins to help is handle all those fuss. There’s no more need for us to dig around the code, trying to figure what’s what.
I know these plugins have saved me countless hours. I would like to thank the people who made them by giving them credit right here while at the same time informing you, my readers, into the best plugins ever. (Believe me, I’ve done my digging.)
Photo by Giorgio Monteforti
1. SEO Platinum
This plugin is a must if you want to SEO your blog. I used to use all-in-one SEO but found out… somewhere, that SEO platinum is better. Everything all-in-one can do, platinum can too plus a lot more other options like adding a no-index tag.
2. Sniplets
Sniplets allows you to place a “sniplet” of code practically anywhere on a page. All you have to do is paste the code into the box and choose where you want to place it. Some choices, among the many more, includes “before all post”, “after all post”, header and footer. This plugin is indispensable if you’re a code dummy like I am.
3. Exec-PHP
Have you ever tried executing a PHP code using the sidebar text widget? If you have, you would notice that it didn’t work. That’s where Exec-PHP comes in. It allows you to execute PHP code in your posts, pages and text widgets. Simple yet powerful because a lot “stuff” requires PHP code.
One of the most crucial part of SEO is generating a sitemap to help Google spiders find every page of your website. Google sitemap generator makes it brain-dead easy for you to do that. Set a few parameters, hit generate and wa-lah! You got yourself a sitemap.
I talked about this in greater detail on a previous post. Long story short: You have to get this.
If you think you are safe from hackers, think again. Popular blogs know the importance of security, but even the best of us falls prey sometime. Yan Susanto of www.thoushallblog.com was recently hacked, but thanks to his backup, he could at least recover from it.
7. Single Click Plugin Updater
Keeping up-to-date is a pain in the ass when you have a dozen or more plugins. Single Click Plugin Updater makes the job a breeze and you’ll thank it for saving you tons of your precious time.
If you’re not displaying a “most popular” list, you’re leaving a tone of money on the table. People like these lists because they want to know what others are reading. By harnessing the power of such lists, you allow your readers to stay on your website for a longer period of time, surfing through from one post to another.
9. Post Teaser
Chris Pearson talked about this in quite a detail over at his blog. Main point being: It increases clicks and it increases page view because now people will have to click through to the post’s page to read the full post.
But another effect this has is lessening duplicate content. I talked about this in my previous post about duplicate content.
10. Similar Post
What this plugin does is easy. It displays the title of posts similar to the one your readers are reading. This is a killer plugin, and together with exec-php and sniplets, you can now very easily place similar post list anywhere on your blog.
Again, I posted about using this plugin in my post about relevancy. Check it out.
Related Posts
- Boosts Your Traffic With This Simple Plugin
- The Duplicate Content You Didnt Realize You’re Producing - Part 2
- How To Decrease Bounce Rate
- Web Copywriting Tip #1 - Using Squidoo To Drive Traffic
- Adding Depth To Your Content
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Yan Shall Blog 09.28.08 at 5:08 am
Yet another great list of awesome plugins. I really couldn’t imagine the worst if I had not done my daily backup and the emphasis is on the word “daily”.
Yes, prevention is better than cure but it’s even more vital to learn what the ‘cure’ is, should it happen when the least expected.
Thanks for the shout, Andre. You have a great writing skill….no question about it.
Yan