Plugin & Go - Powering Up Wordpress With Plugins

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Since I launched this blog at the end of November I have been constantly testing and tweaking the design and lots of stuff in the background which makes Wordpress tick.  I’ve now got it working pretty much as I want it, so I thought I’d write a little bit today about the Wordpress Plugins I’m using on James-Dyson.com, and why I’ve chosen these plugins in particular.  This list is in no-particular order…

 1. Akismet - Although it’s in it’s early stages, I anticipate that as this blog grows, it will recieve more comments on the posts I make.  For this reason, I have enabled Akismet. This plugin assists me in filtering out comment and trackback spam, which saves me a lot of time when managing my blog.  This plugin requires an API for which you have to signup to Wordpress (free) - http://wordpress.com/signup/

2. Customizable Post Listings - I use this plugin to provide the listing of the most recent posts which you can see at the top of all pages on James-Dyson.com.  This plugin can also be used to display other post information lists like recently commented posts, random posts, and other customisable lists.

3. FeedBurner FeedSmith - This is an excellent plugin which directs all subscribers to my feed to my Feedburner page.  This makes it a lot easier for me to track all subscribers to my feeds and centralise this part of my blog.

4. Popularity Contest - I use the Popularity Contest plugin to supply the listing of Most Popular Posts you see on the sidebar of my blog.  Stats such as views and comments on each post are tracked and from this the popularity is determined.  This should make it easier for my visitors to find the most popular content on the site with one click.  This plugin is created by Alex King, who has created a wide range of excellent plugins - I recommend you check out his site as you might find something useful to you http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress

5. Social Bookmark Creator - This is the plugin which creates the list of social bookmarking sites at the bottom of each of my posts.  This list can be customised and you can choose from over 40 different sites to add to the list, however I have just chosen the most popular sites in my opinion.  This allows my visitors to bookmark an individual post if they find it useful, which can drive valuable traffic to my site…(note I am currently considering replacing this with Alex King’s “Share This” plugin, which looks like it may be a better option).

6. Subscribe me - This Plugin/Widget allows me to add a customised list of feed subscription sites to my sidebar very easily.  A quick note here, although this plugin can be used without your blog being “Widget Ready” i strongly recommend using a blog theme/design which is widget ready as this makes it 100% easier to modify your sidebar contents with little or no HTML knowledge required.

7. What Would Seth Godin Do - This is one of my favourite plugins on the site, and one I consider extremely useful.  This allows me to create a custom message to new visitors to my blog (controlled with a cookie).  As you may have seen, I use this message to encourage my visitors to subscribe to my RSS feed and newsletter.  You can, however, edit this message to whatever text you want, and it provides a nice personalised element to my blog

That completes the run-down of the main plugins currently in use on James-Dyson.com.  I hope you’ve found this list useful and I’d love to hear your suggestions or comments on my chosen plugins and any of your favourite plugins for Wordpress. 

Popularity: 19% [?]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 12:04 pm and is filed under James's Design Stuff, James Dyson News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.