Pimp My Wordpress Blog - WP Plugins Every Site Needs

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Wordpress Plugins take your blog from a Buick to a Corvette. They’re both GM products, but one is just so much cooler than the other! This is the main reason people move their blog from the free Wordpress.com platform to the self-hosted Wordpress.org platform. You have more control to “Pimp Your Wordpress Blog!”

WP Plugins aren’t just “cool,” but they supercharge your Blog for better SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing), and SMM (social media marketing). This alpha bet soup of internet marketing jargon simply means more free traffic equals more blog readers equals more money from your blog cash machine!!!

So what are the best Wordpress plugins? Well, at the time of this writing, there are over 8,000 WP Plugins and growing. So how is the blogger to cut through the internet noise? This Best Wordpress Plugin List Review is a little different than others because instead of telling you what specific WP plugins to install, I’m going to tell you how-to search for the best Wordpress plugins. So instead of teaching you what to think I’m going to teach you how-to think.

I did this for several reasons. Number one there are going to be some die hard plugin fans that will argue that Add to Any WP Social Bookmark Plugin is better than Share This WP Social Bookmark Plugin or vice-versa. So instead of getting in to that debate, I just want you to do a wordpress plugin search for “bookmark” and download what YOU think is the best. The second reason I did this is because what if a certain wp plugin that I list stop supporting the most recent version of Wordpress upgrades or another plugin comes along that truly is better? Then this blog post becomes out-of-date. So instead of creating The Best 2010 Wordpress Plugin Review List, I created a list of wp plugin search terms. That way this blog post can withstand the test of time (which in internet terms is about 6 months)!

Enjoy and leave a comment below to your favorite Wordpress Themes.

How-to Install WP Plugin Steps

Log into your self-hosted Wordpress Blog
Go to Plugins/Add New/Search (Term)
Search for the terms listed below
Install Plugin
Activate Plugin
Configure Plugin
Enjoy Plugin
Rinse, Wash, & Repeat

Best SEO WP Plugin Review List

If you want to get on page one of Google, you better know how-to play by the seo rules. Search engine optimization plugins help you tweak your site to get indexed and ranked in Google better and faster.

SEO Pack – There are dozens of search engine optimization Wordpress Plugins tools that do one or more seo task. But the simplest and quickest way to get started is to download an All In One Pack, then add the rest later.
Sitemap - An essential tool in any webmaster’s armory of SEO Tool. This plugin creates an XML-sitemap that can be read by Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing, and Ask search engines to quickly index your site.
SEO Link – Half of SEO is about backlinks, both internal and external backlinks. This plugin will help tweak your site to give the search engines what they want.
Broken Link – This is probably more for end-users than search engines, but nothing kills your readers’ user experience faster than a website with broken links. As you add more content to your blog you’re going to need some tools to help keep your site “clean.”
Meta Data or Meta Tag (ie. HeadSpace2) – Back in the “old days” of SEO, meta tags were the golden nugget to getting ranked. But the search engines got smart to people “keyword stuffing” and stopped weighing meta tags as heavily. But it is still worth your time to properly complete your meta tags.
Meta Robot - The robot.txt file is a more advanced seo tool. If you’re not familiar with it don’t worry about it because the default WP settings are fine.
Other SEO Wordpress Plugins – The above list will get you started, but click here for a more advanced list of WP SEO Plugin Tools, like seo images and and seo headers; all apart of the seo game.

Best SEM WP Plugin Review List

After (or before) you tweak your site to be robot/crawler friendly, which is what seo focuses on, you also want to tweak your blog to focus on the human user experience. And if you treat your readers right, your blog will pay cash ROI!

Bookmark - If you want your website to go viral you better install a social bookmarking wp plugin so people can share your post for you!
Greet or Thank – You’ll want to greet your readers for visiting and thank your commenters for commenting to make them feel warm and welcome.
Related Post – Eventually your blog is going to grow bigger than you ever thought it would be. You’re going to have more content than any reader could ever digest. You may think this is a good thing, but unfortunately this is a very bad thing! Because internet users have a short attention span and information overload will only cause them to click out of your site. But a related post plugin helps them find related content. I don’t know how many times I found a 5 minute-to-read article on a website, but stayed there for hours because the related post kept me hooked! Create that same user experience on your own blog.
Stat - Were is the best place to spend your advertising time and money? Well I don’t know, but your current readers that come to your blog do! Stats help you track where your users are coming from and what they are doing on your blog when they are there. That way you can do MORE of it!!!
Google Analytic – You’ll probably end up with several wp stat plugins before you settle on one. But it’s okay to have multiple .
Ad or Adsense or Advertising or Banner – This is a major income source for many Wordpress blogs, so of course we couldn’t leave this out.

Best SMM WP Plugin Review List

Part of the reason Google Search Engine love Blogs so much is because it provides an interactive community environment between content creator and content users. And not only do search engines love it, but so will your readers. Social Media Marketing focuses on creating a conversation between your community.

Spam - As your blog attracts more traffic, you’ll also attract more spam. Save time with wp spam assassin tools.
Rating – You’re going to want a post rating wp plugin and a comment rating wp plugin to really get that interactive community going.
Disqus Commenting System – Disqus is a more advanced commenting wp plugin that turbo charges the standard Wordpress comment box. There is also IntenseDebate. But the pro of Disqus is that it integrates Facebook; which is more viral marketing.
Lifestream - Lifestream is an social media aggregator or an all-in-one tool for your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, and 50 other social networks. You can also search for these individually.
Poll - Polls are always fun to survey your readers and pick their brain.
Contact Form – You’ll probably want a secure way for users to contact you or complete forms.
Other SMM WP Plugins – The above list will get you started, but click here for more advanced list of WP SMM Plugin Tools.

Best Maintenance WP Plugins Review List

I couldn’t leave without giving you some basic WP Maintenance Plugins to keep your blog running smooth.

Cache - Loads your blog faster to improve user experience.
Captcha - “Are you a human?” Prevents robots from spamming your site.
Backup - The one (and only) disadvantage to the self-hosted Wordpress platform is that you are responsible for all the IT stuff like backup. But a Backup WP Plugin can help simplify the job.
Wordpress Admin Bar – Personally I like the Admin bar on Wordpress.com, so this is one I always install on my blog for quick access.

Did I miss one? Here is a list of 300+ Tools for Running Your Wordpress Blog. Or leave a comment below of your favorite Wordpress plugin.

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