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25 Must Have Plugins for Bloggers

Think Taylor — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:34:37 +0000

1) Askismet - This one is a no brainer because everyone hates spam on your blog. The wild thing is that you don’t really realize how much spam you get until you install this plugin and actually see what it catches. Amazing! Simply a must have for all blogs and bloggers, period. No link because Askismet comes on your blog automatically.

2) Comment Luv - If you have a desire of building a community on you blog, then Comment Luv is a must. This plugin encourages readers to participate by listing their most recent article post (most of the time) beneath their comment. It gives them a better chance of receiving traffic from their comments because their latest article may intrigue another reader enough for them to visit. Thus the increase in potential readers means an increase in comments for you. Besides, I think the Blogosphere basically expects you to have this plugin by now.

3) Keyword luv - This is basically an extension of the comment luv feature and allows your users to include keywords that relate to their site and hyperlink them back to their site. This is again great for community building blogs. But to be honest, I rarely use this feature when I am commenting because I am usually just trying to engage the blogger or get a link back to my site, so sometimes it appears to be a bit of over kill for me.

4) Related Post – If you ask me this is a must for all blogs. The related post plugin provides a list of post that might be similar to the one that the reader is reading. This is great because if the post was eye catching and enjoyable, the reader may want something similar to that one. This plugin gives that to them. You can put this plugin into your side bar or footer, but my favorite place for it is at the bottom of individual post, or on the Single.php page, usually. That is the optimal place for it because if a reader gets all the way through the post, then it may mean that they liked or was intrigued by it….maybe even enough to stay on your site to read something similar or related.

5) WP Print – This is a standard plugin that allows all of your readers to download and print your articles in a printable format. If you are taking the time to produce quality content, many of your readers are going to want to print them out to read later. Everyone doesn’t like to read on a computer screen believe it or not.

6) Sociable – I love the sociable plugin because it allows your readers to spread the word about your great post anytime they want. Usually, you will find this plugin at the bottom of an article so when the reader makes their way through it they will be able to click a button and Digg, Propeller, Stumble, Redd it, Mixx and more your article to all of the best social book marking websites out there. And believe me, all of them are included in this plugin. You can mark a check box next to the ones that you want to utilize or not.

7) Tube Press – This is a great plugin for grabbing relevant YouTube videos and putting them into your blog. I use this plugin a lot when flipping websites as it ads great content, looks very professional, and does the job very well. Did I mention how simple it is to install? No, well, it is and you should be sure to check it out.

8 ) WordBay – Here is another simple plugin that I use on flip sites as well. It could be great for niche sites if you are into them as well. All that is require is you download the plugin, get a free ebay developers account, plugin your account number, and use the WordBay plugin to display relevant ebay auctions right inside your website. When a browser clicks on a listing, they are taking to the ebay website and if they make the purchase, you get the credit. Simple, easy way to cash in on the power of ebay.

9) AW Stats – Yes, everyone and their mother are using Google Analytics, but sometimes you might want some stats that are a little different and right there on your server. AW Stats give you that option. And you can use it as a check to see how accurate GA is from time to time. It is free, so check it out.

10) Contact (cforms) - How are you going to have a blog without a contact form? What if you readers want to contact you? After all, blogging is a contact sport. Download this plugin and you will be amazed how easy it is to implement a customized contact form into your website. There are so many websites out there that do not have a contact for that it is sickening, especially when it is so easy to get. It will take two minutes to put a form into your site and that is if you are being picky!

11) Google XML Site Map – Download this now! Don’t ask questions about what it is, just do it! If you have any desire at all to gain search engine rank positions, SERPs, then this is a must for search engine optimization. Google XML site map keeps the Big G, Google, updated on the site map of your website site. Very important plugin, even if you are not really into plugins.

12) My Page Order – This is a nifty little plugin that allows you to change the order of your web pages. Sometimes you might want more important pages to the left of your page navigation and this plugin will allow you to do that as well. Moving around the pages is so easy with this plugin that I highly recommend it if that is what you are looking for. This is great for personal blogs and interest blogs as well.

13) All in One SEO - Here is another plugin that you should just download right now. Don’t worry about it, just get it. Again, if search engine optimization is anywhere in your future, then you need this plugin. It is the best for updating your title and description tags automatically based on the nature of the content. You got to love that. You can customize further if you need, but this plugin really takes the work out of SEO work in my opinion. It goes into every blog I produce. Must have!

14) Head Space – Head space is another one of these SEO plugins that you can use. I have been using it less and less since really understanding the functions of All in One SEO, but it is another option as well for you to use when customizing the head section of your blogs.

15) Random Post – Random post is great for creating addition internal links within your website and even keeping the reading interesting for your readers as it will suggest random post that they may not have ordinarily clicked in the first place. Typically, you will find the random post plug at the end of an article, enticing the reader to take another round through your material.

16) Subscribe to Comments - If your blog is about community building and your trying to encourage participation amongst your readers, then you have to take a moment to install this plugin as it will allow your readers to subscribe to comments and receive an email when someone else has said something on a post them might have interest. Again, great for building the community and keeping the participation going.

17) Ozh-Admin Drop Down Menus – This is a must have. You might be thinking drop down menus on a blog is no big deal, but this is drop down menus in the WP-Admin area for your internal use!!! I got hip to this plugin by Joe from ImWithJoe.com and have been addicted to it every since. There is no blogs that I own that don’t have this plugin into it because of how it will increase your work flow and time spent on a site. You might not understand now, but download this one and you will quickly wonder how you ever got along with out it. Trust me on this one, I will never blog again without it.

18) WP Back Up – Got to back up your material. All it takes is one time to lose everything you have been working on to understand the importance of this plugin. The idea is to never experience that pain in the first place, so download this one now.

19) OIO Publisher - Ok, this plugin cost a little money to use, but if you are after advertisers on your website, then you got to have it. OIO manages the advertising for you and ensures that you are paid before ads are posted on your website, freeing you to move on to bigger and more important issues concerning your blog. Get the OIO publisher today.

20) Easy Pay Pal - If you wan to sell items on your blog, you might have found it impossible to link to PayPal with Wordpress. Well this plugin does the trick for you.

However, since I have started this list, I discovered a way to make this happen without the use of a plugin. If you are interested in that, then check out this article I wrote entitled, How to Link to PayPal Payment from Wordpress without a Plugin.

21) Feedburner Feedsmith - Feed burner Feedsmith is another way to integrate your feedburner and Rss material into your site and syndicated around the world. There is no need doing all of this typing if you are not going to make it as easy as possible for people to use it and enjoy it. Give this one a shot today.

22) Technorati Incoming Links – Technorati has become an important part of the blogging world. If it has taken over your life as well, then consider using the incoming link monitor to help determine how many links you are generating that is coming into your blog that Technorati will give you credit for.

23) Top Commentator Plugin – Community style blogs must have this plugin. It rewards people that communicate in your blog by commenting with a listing on the your site and a backlink to their blog. This back link is counted by Technorati and is a way to generate traffic to the commentors blog as well as encourages participation in your blog. It is a win-win for all parties involved.

24) Gd-Star Rating – Often times, your readers like to rate various comments and your blogging as well. GD star rating allows them to do this. If you are producing practical and useful articles, then you might want to allow your readership to rate your work, but if you are producing crap, then I would suggest that you spare your feelings cause your readers are going to be honest with you.

25) What’s your suggestion? - I like to hear from you. What plugins not on this list would you recommend for bloggers to use? Let’s continue the conversation and I will post some of them here.

Closing Comments

At the end of day, there are hundreds even thousands of useful plugins available for your to utilize. My suggestion would be to find the ones that are doing the most for you and the growth of your blog and try not to use them all. That is the think about the plugin market, there are so many, but too many on your blog will begin to slow it down. Keep this in mind when you are adding every plugin you find to your blog that you need to focus on the ones that will bring you the most benefit and get you closer to your goals. There is no prizes for using plugins, only prizes for using them effectively.

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Capitalize on the Long Tail

Think Taylor — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:27:33 +0000

Greetings Blog Family,

It is time to get down to business. There is so much I want to share with you, but this is what has been on my mind this week, the Long Tail. Before we get into the concept and information, let me just say that I am excited because I know how to brand and position my blog out here in the blogosphere and having a solid direction is a tremendous start to success. I will share the details in my Sunday’s Goal Setting post this week. Just know that it is going to be beneficial and we are going to have some fun. No, I am not ditching the motivational theme that I have running at all, just adding some much needed relevancy and focus.

The Long Tail

If you are not familiar with the concept of the Long Tail by now, then I will politely ask you to choke yourself. How could you be a blogger in late 2008 and not have heard of this concept? Ok, ok, ok, that is harsh and I shouldn’t fault you for that, but assist you with a little education.

It’s a Book, Concept, and Phenominon

Well the concept is an intriguing one that was developed or popularized by the author, Chris Anderson. Hats off to this individual because he is onto something that can make you some serious money. The blogosphere has been saturated with information about this piece and yes, I am going to add one more piece of analysis.

What is the Long Tail?

According to Wikipedia:

The phrase The Long Tail (as a proper noun with capitalized letters) was first coined by Chris Andersonin an October 2004 Wired magazine article[1] to describe the niche strategy of businesses, such asAmazon.com or Netflix, that sell a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities.

A Little Explanation

In the book, Anderson uses Amazon.com as the major example in the book because they are the first Internet business most people think of and is a perfect example because they make the majority of their money from the Long Tail.

Ok, the Long Tail is represented by this curve that is prevalent in sales of most business that have products to offer, like Amazon. (Thumbnail taken from Wikipedia’s website)

The vertical or X axis of the graph is for the number of sales. The horizontal or Y axis of the graph represents the multitude of products being sold by the retailer. Notice how most sales occur in the green section of this graph. This green section represents the major hits or best selling products. The yellow section literally stretches into towards infinity in Amazons business and represents many obscure products that Amazon sells, but makes a profit on.

Because Amazon is a virtual retailer, they don’t have to have the physical on site inventory that a typical retail might have to have. Therefore, they can list thousands even millions of products for sale in just about every conceptual niche imaginable. You will have to read the book to get all the facts and figures, but know Anderson has a ton of research and information for you torture your eyes with, ….but it’s good info and he really drives home the point that it is all about the Long Tail.

Now for the Amazing Part

Amazon actually makes more money from the sale of these obscure, niche items than there best selling, mega hits as you might expect. In the book, Anderson goes into great detail about these facts and figures, but that is not what I want to bore you with today.

I Didn’t Even Finish the Book

LOL! That is wild right. This guy is giving an overview and didn’t even read the book.

Yes, I am, but allow me to explain. See I came into contact with this book because I stumbled across a website called Hittail.com, that I recommend you not only look at, but put the script on your site. Anyway, this Hittail.com website really gave some great insight into how this all works, but I rushed out and got the book thinking it was going to build my understand.

Well, it did, but it went wwaaaaayyyyyyyyyy beyond what I need to understand to take this concept and apply it back to my Internet Marketing business. And if you read my post on urgency, you would know that I am trying to make it happen NOW, not later, so I needed to get to work and apply the information to my business. So, I ditched the book in favor of action! Not always the best decision, but hey, I made one and moved on. Let’s deal with it?

The Long Tail and Internet Marketing.

Actually, it is quite simple as soon as I mention it you are going to be like, “Yeah, yeah, I can see that being very beneficial.

The Long Tail in relation to Internet Marketing has everything to do with the keyword phrases that are being searched for on the search engines like Google. If you would think of the most highly searched phrases being like Amazon’s top selling items and the more obscure search phrases as their niche products that they only sell a few, you should be able to understand the comparison.

In line with Anderson’s thinking, more traffic is actually delivered to a website from the Long Tail keyword phrases, than the mega hot keyword phrase that you might be trying to position your business for. These maga hot phrases or best searched terms have an enormous amount of competition and may be difficult to rank on the first or second page of Google. Not impossible, but difficult to gain placement in front of the most searched terms.

How Can Internet Marketers Use the Long Tail

1) Target Niche Keyword Phrases

What ever your blog or website is about, I can garentee there are an abundance of keyword phrases that don’t have very much competition that you could position your site to dominate and gain the organic traffic from this positioning.

It doesn’t matter, there are all types of search phrases available out there that you can have. Maybe medicine is difficult to get on the first page for, but natural healing organic toothpaste (made up phrase) might be fair game. You will have to do a bit of homework to do to identify these niche keyword phrases, bu they are out there and easily identifiable.

2) Build Niche Sites Around Phrases

- Taking this concept into your business. There are opportunities to build completely new websites around these words that deep in the long tail of search phrases.

This is the technique I am going after with my new niche sites that led to this post here. I want to discuss the things that I recently learned and am putting into practice with you on a weekly basis. That is one of my goals. I am not giving away my niche, the concept is up for grabs. Use it!

3) Continuously Dig for Keyword Phrases

If you decide to take this course of action, which only makes sense to me. You should constantly be on the search for more and better keyword phrases that you can target. There are a variety of option to choose from to help with identifying more keyword phrases that can work for you in your business. They are out there and can be quite profitable.

We will get into many of these ideas at another time. As mentioned in the video, I have a wonderful script to help you with this process that I will go over in the future.

Share with the Group

If you go down this route or are already using this in your business, share some of your insight with us. I am sure many of the readers would love to hear from you and so would I.

Until next time, know that I am building niche sites that are Adsensed up and constantly looking for more obscure niches to dominate and gain the organic traffic from to build my business and achieve my goal of becoming a full time Internet Marketer!

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