5 Essential Plugins for All New WordPress Blogs

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The list of plugins for WordPress is endless. And most of them work very well. That's one of things I love about the WordPress platform! No matter what you want to do from eCommerce to Social Bookmarking there is a plugin for it.

Here are the top 5 plugins I install and configure on every new blog I setup.

BTW: I usually install these right after I apply my Top 5 Essential WordPress Tweaks.

1. Google Analytics Plugin by Dennis de BernardyIn our free ebook, "How to Monetize Your Blog", we talk a lot about the importance of tracking and testing to get higher conversions. As a matter of fact, that's really where better website monetization starts. You have to know where your visitors are coming from, what search phrases they typed in to find you, how long they stayed on your site, what page they left from, and how changes to your site are improving your conversion rate. Without this information you're just shooting in the dark.Now, I know that GA is not the only way to get stats from your site. But, in my opinion, it is the most convenient and damn is it slick!

Here are a few reasons why I like Google Analytics…

Get stats from all of your websites in one place with one login
Easy to use interface
Setup and Track Conversion Goals
Seemlessly integrates with Google AdWords and Website Optimizer
The list goes on and on…

Here's how you get your GA tracking code:

Go to http://google.com/analytics and login with your existing Google account or create a new one.
Click Add Website Profile.
Enter your domain name and click continue.
Now you will be taken to a page that displays your GA code.
Leave this browser window open. We'll come back to it in a minute.

Download and Install the Google Analytics Plugin by Dennis de Bernardy

Click here to download the plugin
Extract the Zip file to your hard drive
Upload all the files to your sites wp-content/plugins/ directory
Login to your WP admin and activate the plugin
Click on OPTIONS | GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Paste your Google Analytics code into the field provided and hit Update Options

Finishing Up

After you insert your GA code into WordPress
Go bak to the Google Analytics browser window and click FINISH.
It may take a while for Google to pick up your site but it is usually added within a few minutes.

2. Google Sitemap Generator Plugin by Arne BrachholdUsing an XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap should be a part of every website's SEO startegy. This plugin makes it easy to add a properly formatted sitemap to your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.

Download the plugin and installation instructions here.

After generating my sitemap there are two additional steps I usually like to take.

Step 1: Add my Sitemap link to the footer.php file of my WordPress blog.

Step 2: Add my sitemap to Google Webmaster tools.

3. FeedBurner FeedSmith Plugin by Steve SmithFeedBurner enhances the standard WordPress feed and helps get your feed out to more people.The FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin is recommended by WordPress as the best way to use FeedBurner on your site. Some of the benefits of using FeedBurner are:

FeedBurner constantly analyzes your feed to make sure it is formatted correctly. This can be very useful especially if your feed accidentally gets "broken" by improper coding in a post, etc…
Manage and track all of your blog feeds from one FeedBurner account.
Instantly see how many people viewed and clicked on your feed(s)
Includes a comprehensive set of tools for Analyzing, Optimizing, Publicizing, Monetizing and Troubleshooting your feeds.
Gives your viewers more options when subscribing to your feed. See Demo Here
Allows you to setup a separate feed for comments.

Setting up this plugin is done in 2 main steps.

Step 1:

Download, Install and Activate the Plugin - Download Here
After the plugin is activated login to your WordPress admin and got to OPTIONS | FEED BURNER
Leave this window open. We'll come back to it in a minute.

Step 2:

Go to FeedBurner.com and create a new account. (If you don't already have one.)
Enter your WordPress blog feed when asked.
Your feed URL will be http://yourdomain.com/feed
Now FeedBurner will create a feed burner feed using the WordPress feed you just entered.
Copy and Paste the FeedBurner feed into the available field in your WordPress admin area.
Click Update Options
Now when someone goes to http://yourdomain.com/feed they will be redirected to your FeedBurner feed.
That's it. You're done.

4. All in One SEO by UberdoseThere are two main reasons I love this plugin and it is essential to every WordPress blog I create.1. It allows me to have a title tag in my blog's meta tags without having a "Blog Title" in my blog's GENERAL | OPTIONS field. (Read that again slowly) Why would I want to do that? Well, let's say you have a really sweet header graphic for your blog that already includes your Blog title.

If you leave the default "Blog Title" in you have this ugly text covering up your sweet graphic.

But, if you take the "Blog Title" out then your blog has no title in the meta tags and that is very bad.

The answer? All in One SEO (Or go and hack your php files.)

2. All in One SEO allows you to customize the Title and Keyword tags for each individual post! Go here for download and installation instructions.

Watch this 1Cat.biz How-To Video for more info.

5. Akismet by Matt MullenwegComment Spam can take the fun out of blogging really fast. Fortunately, there is a convenient free tool that will put an end to it.This plugin comes pre-installed in every new WordPress installation.All you have to do is Activate it in the Plugins section of your WordPress admin and then go and get your free API key.

BONUS: Auto Social Poster by Anthony Ellis I know I said "5 Essential WordPress Plugins" in the title of this post but, there is one more that I always include. I am a little hesitant to mention it because some people consider this technique to be "Black Hat". I'll let you be the judge.Auto Social Poster puts my social bookmarking efforts on steroids. I always include it in my initial WordPress setup because it automates, at least part, of my social bookmarking campaign. It helps ensure that from the very first post my site is being bookmarked and getting links.

It gives me the ability to post my bookmarks automatically to these top 34 bookmarking sites:

http://faves.com http://netvouz.com http://diigo.com http://bibsonomy.org http://excites.com http://folkd.com http://connectedy.com http://taggly.com http://my.xilinus.com http://buddymarks.com http://mister-wong.com http://mister-wong.cn http://mister-wong.de http://mister-wong.es http://mister-wong.fr http://mister-wong.ru http://google.com/bookmarks

http://backflip.com http://connotea.com http://markaboo.com http://linkagogo.com http://feedmelinks.com http://blinklist.com http://furl.net http://del.icio.us http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com http://simpy.com http://blogmarks.net http://ma.gnolia.com http://blogmemes.net http://de.lirio.us http://linkroll.com http://scuttleplus.org http://scuttle.org

Click Here for Download and Installation Instructions.

I hope you find this post useful. As always please leave your comments below and tell me what you think.Thanks, Barry O.