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Even though this blog is quite new, I get asked this question a lot. Specifically, new visitors to this site are often intrigued by the box that welcomes them the first few times they load my page up.
Fellow bloggers often ask me, “How did you do that?”
It’s no big secret (and I’ve been happy to answer all emails relating to the subject). It’s a simple Wordpress plugin, one of many I run on this site.
Indeed, at the time of writing there are no less than 23 Wordpress plugins running on iamsheamus.com. I would estimate that over the past few months I’ve also installed and looked at another fifty or so (before then deciding to uninstall them for various reasons).
Why so many? And what do they all do?
Let’s take a look.
(Note: In all cases I use the latest versions of each plugin [as recently as June 6, 2008]. My Wordpress installation is 2.5.1.)
Adsense-Deluxe (Acme Technologies)
As I’ve blogged before, I spent a fair amount of time playing around with the format and location of the Google Adsense adverts that run on this site. I’m a pretty competent coder but even in its HTML format Wordpress has this somewhat annoying habit of clumping Adsense code together which often stops the adverts from working. I spent many bewildered days and nights starting at blank, empty boxes that were meant to be adverts in the middle of my articles - that Google told me were working perfectly - before figuring this out.
Adsense-Deluxe basically removes this issue. Firstly, the interface lets you easily add your Google Adverts (which you must still create at Google) to your Wordpress admin area, and from there you can conveniently add them to any post by simply inserting a tiny piece of code that looks like this:
<!-adsense->
(Note: this can be modified if you run various campaigns on your site, i.e., <!-adsense#advertname->).
Naturally, in the HTML part of the Wordpress post/page editor you can easily wrap this inside some code so that it displays appropriately on your page. For example, if you wanted each advert to be aligned to the right and ‘padded’ by ten pixels, you could include the Adsense-Deluxe code inside DIV tags, like this:
<div style="float:right; padding:10px;"><!-adsense-></div>
If you use Adsense I recommended this plugin very highly. I haven’t had any problems with the adverts disappearing off my page since I switched it on. That’s obviously quite reassuring.
Askimet (Matt Mullenweg)
Askimet is a comment spam blocker that comes with each new Wordpress install and is absolutely essential. Even in the short time my blog has been running I’ve already clocked up 361 spam comments (over 79 posts) - the place would be littered with them if it wasn’t for Askimet, which has a success rate of about 99 per cent (in my experience).
The odd bit of spam still gets through, but because Wordpress won’t allow new comments from new visitors to be published without admin moderation, it’s a system that’s almost 100 per cent efficient. I’ve read reports from other bloggers (notably those who get thousands of weekly comments) that from time to time Askimet blocks comments that aren’t spam, but as you can educate it with the click of a button it’s a problem that is easily resolved.
If you haven’t already installed it, do so immediately.
(This plugin requires a Wordpress.com API key to work.)
aLinks (Sean Hickey)
aLinks is a Wordpress plugin that automatically links select keywords in your posts. For example, you might want to set your blog up so that each time you used the word ‘Amazon’ it would automatically make that a link to your affiliate page. This is convenient in that it saves you time - you don’t have to do the link manually yourself - and also prevents you from ever forgetting.
aLinks is used by many of the ‘make money online’ blogs and while I have it activated on here, I don’t currently have any keywords set up to auto-link. However, I’m sure I’ll find a use for it down the line and so have left it active for now.
All In One SEO Pack (uberdose)
Another essential download. The All In One SEO Pack is an ‘out of the box’ plugin that allows you to edit the page-ranking factors on each page in your blog - this includes the title of each page, the description, keywords and much, much more. Basically everything that Google et al look for when ranking your site.
I tend to only use it to edit the keywords on each page, and here’s why - while the tags within Wordpress are useful, I find that posts that have lots and lots of visible tags look unprofessional and even quite tacky. I like to only have one or two tags per post, but by editing the keywords using the All In One SEO Pack I can put all the ‘tags’ I want in there. As this is what Google actually sees, I get the best of both worlds. The intelligent use of keywords obviously can have a big impact on your traffic.
Blog Metrics
Blog Metrics is a neat little plugin that shows you personalised statistics for the contributions to your blog - for example, your average posts per month, average words per post, total words, average number of comments per post, etc.
It’s in no way essential, but is a useful reference tool that I refer to from time to time.
(Also needs an API key. Oh no it doesn’t. 
)
Contact Form 7 (Takayuki Miyoshi)
Contact Form 7 is - you guessed it - the seventh version of the original Contact Form. It’s incredibly easy to set-up and use and powers the contact area of my blog with a one-line insert.
Exec-PHP (Sören Weber)
Exex-PHP allows me to execute PHP code within my posts and pages. Without a plugin such as this Wordpress restricts you to basic HTML. This can be quite limiting, particularly if you wished to utilise the output of another plugin within a post.
Executable PHP Widget (Otto)
Similar to the above, Executable PHP Widget allows you to run snippets of PHP code in your sidebar.
FlickrRSS (Dave Kellam)
FlickrRSS powers the Flickr feed of images I have at the bottom-right of each page (on the sidebar). I found it needed a little bit of tweaking to get it to work as I liked.
Most Commented (Nick Momrik)
The Most Commented plugin retrieves a list of posts with the most comments. It is currently not active on my site, but I have used it in the past and keep toying with the idea of doing so again.
NoFollow Free (Michele Marcucci)
NoFollow Free removes the ‘nofollow’ tag from your blog’s comments area that Wordpress includes by default. The tag is invisible to you (and your visitors), but is quite a big deal.
With ‘nofollow’ in place, any links left within a comment by a user (i.e., in their name) will be ignored by the Google spiders and those of most of the other major search engines. What this means is that the commentator will not benefit from that link in terms of how Google (et al) ranks their page as a result of where the hyperlink originated.
The NoFollow Free plugin removes the ‘nofollow’ tag, which ensures everybody benefits from leaving a link.
The tag was implemented to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of web spam, and while the principle behind it is sound it has had a fairly negative impact on the blogging world. While the removal of the tag is far more beneficial on the really big blogs (a lot of which, incidentally, won’t remove it for their own reasons) it’s the right thing for all of us newcomers to do.
Popularity Contest (Alex King)
Pretty much everybody uses Alex King’s Popularity Contest, and for good reason - it’s really, really nice to know which of your posts your visitors like.
I don’t publish any of the output from Popularity Contest on my blog but as a reference tool in the admin area it’s extremely useful. It comes with a ton of stats.
Incidentally, I highly recommend you tweak your install (as per Alex’s instructions) so that the popularity of any given post (referenced by a percentage) and the link explaining what the means (reference by a question mark) does not display below each of your articles. It just looks bad, and screams ‘newbie’.
Quotes Collection (Srini G)
Quotes Collection is what powers the inspirational collection of quotes that runs in my sidebar. An absolute breeze to set-up and use.
ShareThis (ShareThis.com)
ShareThis lets your visitors share your posts with others. It supports email and posting to all the social bookmarking sites. It’s highly configurable.
(Requires a free account with ShareThis.com.)
Show Top Commentators (Nate Sanden)
Show Top Commentators encourages feedback and discussion from your regular visitors by rewarding them each time they post a comment. Readers with the most comments are displayed within your blog (in my case, on the sidebar) with their names linked to their own website (if provided).
The plugin can be configured so your own comments are ignored (as mine are), and can also automatically reset at a choice of definable points (i.e., weekly, monthly, etc).
Visitors to my iamsheamus.com frequently check out the other blogs in the Top Commentators list.
Smart Archives (Justin Blanton)
Smart Archives powers the archives page on iamsheamus.com.
I had to tweak the output a bit (it originally ran headers through the H2 tag which looked awful within my CSS) but otherwise it’s a doddle to set up.
Smart YouTube (Vladimir Prelovac)
Smart YouTube lets you insert YouTube videos into your post quickly and easily. Simply copy the full URL of the YouTube video you wish to use, add a ‘v’ to the ‘http’ part of the link, and paste it into your articles, i.e., add the ‘v’ to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOVGVMiwPSA
and it produces
It’s convenient but I’ve found that videos inserted using Smart YouTube don’t always show up in the RSS feed, so I’ve been inserting them manually of late. I’m sure there’s a solution for this, and it’s only my own forgetfulness that is holding me back from a fix. I haven’t experimented with the media options that come with Wordpress 2.5, but this kind of plugin may not be necessary any more.
Subscribe To Comments (Mark Jaquith)
Subscribe To Comments is one of the most useful plugins you can have. It allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.
You’d be amazed how popular this feature is. I used it all the time on blogs myself but dozens and dozens of people have signed up for dozens and dozens of the articles on iamsheamus.com, typically after they’ve posted a comment themselves. After all, we all like to check back and see what others might have said, don’t we?
What Would Seth Godin Do? (Richard K. Miller)
Here it is - the one everybody asks about.
What Would Seth Godin Do? was created following comments made by Seth Godin himself about how a site could use cookies to distinguish between new and returning visitors.
What’s great about this tool is that the welcome box only displays the first couple of times a person visits the site before disappearing for good. This obviously stops it becoming an annoyance.
The text used by the plugin is totally configurable and you’ll want to suit it to match your site. I’m considering adding a mini-feed that shows my top five most popular posts, and maybe one or two other features. It’s a great way to grab a new visitor’s attention and encourages them to get involved from the start.
Wordpress.com Stats (Andy Skelton)
Wordpress.com Stats tracks views, posts/page views, referrers and clicks to your blog. The data is displayed in your admin area.
I use this plugin a lot. However, since updating to Wordpress 2.5 I’ve found it’s become a little bit buggy. Also, the numbers it reports on page views and things like that are quite different to those of the tracking software that is provided by my ISP, which is also very different to those of Google Analytics, which is different to those of Sitemeter, which also doesn’t match up with Popularity Contest. Yes, I have all of these trackers running on iamsheamus.com - and can also access the data provided by Feedburner, MyBlogLog and Technorati - and somewhere between them all I get a rough idea on my traffic. And it’s very rough. I’ll be doing a post on this soon as I find the whole business of tracking visitors a frustrating experience, simply because of the sometimes massive variation in totals that different products report. Who do you trust? And does it matter?
Wordpress.com Stats still comes recommended, if only because once installed it’s ‘built in’ to your admin dashboard and is therefore very convenient. (Requires a Wordpress.com API Key).
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade (Keith Dsouza)
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade makes upgrading to the latest version of Wordpress a very simple process. Obviously you’ll use this rarely but it’s worth its weight when that big day comes. In the meantime, I should probably deactivate it to save on loading times.
WP-UserOnline (Lester Chan)
I installed this very recently. WP-UserOnline functions like the ‘Who’s Online?’ option on most bulletin board forums. It’s a useful tool when you’re analysing your current traffic, the things people are reading, etc, but comes into its own when you want immediate feedback after one of your articles has been submitted to a social bookmarking site.
The plugin tracks members, guests and bots. It appears to remember the names of repeat visitors who have posted comments.
See Who Is Online? on iamsheamus.com right now.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine)
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin returns a list of related entries based on keyword matches at the bottom of your articles. You can see it in action on any post on iamsheamus.com.
The ‘relatedness’ threshold is highly configurable. Indeed, there’s an element of trial and error about it in the early days to obtain the best results, but it’s worth it in the end. Related posts are popular and keep visitors on your site.
And we’re done. I’d be very interested in knowing about any other cool plugins you run on your own blogs (especially the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff), and if you have found any superior alternatives to the ones I use myself.
Which Wordpress plugins do you use?
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