In my previous post in this Blog Expert Series, I discussed the Mandatory WordPress Plugins Your Blog Should Have installed.
In this post, I shall share with you the plugins I have installed that I feel are ‘definitely worth adding to your blog’
Clean Slugs
You have to sign-up to Yoast’s newsletter to get this one but it is worthwhile. It removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from a post’s slug (url) and helps with SEO.
CommentLuv
It shows a link to the last post from the commenters blog. It rewards your readers and encourages more comments.
Do Follow
Makes your blog a ‘dofollow’ one and complements the CommentLuv and KeywordLuv plugins.
Exec-PHP
Allows you to use <?php ?> code in your posts, pages and text widgets.
Flash Video Player
Simplifies the process of adding video to your posts / pages.
KeywordLuv
Reward your commenters by separating their name from their keywords – complements DoFollow and CommentLuv above.
MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate
Let’s you automatically set-up backlinks and affiliate links (including retrospectively).
See my review post here:
Affiliate Commission: Make More With This Plugin
MaxBlogPress Subscribers Magnet
If you are building your list and you don’t have this plugin…you are missing out.
See my review post:
Subscribers Magnet Gave Me A 205% Increase In Opt-ins
RSS Bomber
Creates a unique RSS feed for every Post and Page. I then submit the feed to the RSS Directories. This is a premium plugin and this is my affiliate link:
https://www.webuildyourblog.com/rssbomber.htm
RSS Footer
Allows you to add a line of content to the end of your RSS feed articles. By having this in place and by adding your blog’s feed to the RSS Directories you get automatic backlinks each time you publish a post.
Scribe SEO
Quickly and easily checks your content against SEO best practices utilizing the Scribe Content Optimizer.
See my review:
Search Engine Optimization Made Easy
SEO Super Comments
Turns the comments into individual pages on your site which are then indexed and can help with SEO.
Sharebar
Adds a dynamic bar with social media icons (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
Twitter Tools
Seamlessly links your blog with your Twitter account.
Wptouch
A plugin which formats your site to be used on mobile devices.
Which plugins would you add / remove under this category of ‘Definitely Worth Adding To Your Blog’?
Please share your views in the comments below.
Previous posts in this series:
16 Mandatory WordPress Plugins Your Blog Should Have
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Nice list Andrew! SEO Super comments was somewhat confusing to me at first. Then one of my readers questioned me about why his link was going back to my blog instead of his site – that’s when it hit me exactly how the plugin worked and after mulling it over for a day or two I decided to get rid of it. Primarily because it was too hard to explain LOL!! And since my blog is DoFollow somehow I felt like that was defeating the purpose.
What I mean by that is I felt like I was sitting on the fence between DoFollow and NoFollow. But then again maybe I “am” on the fence about that one…
Well anyway – I might put it back later but for now it’s disabled.
Talk to you soon Andrew! Thanks for sharing your list.
ileane
I see the main benefit of SEO comments as being it creates a page for your comments which are then ‘crawled’ by Google. That way you comments are also added to the search engines.
Andrew
Andrew, I’m curious about your thoughts on using DoFollow in combination with this plugin. Yes, SEO Super comments does have a lot of SEO value, but is there any value to the commenter who thinks the links are going back to their blogs?
I just found out from Andy that CommentLuv wasn’t behaving properly in terms of NoFollow, so he made a little update so that we can choose (DoFollow or NoFollow) when it comes to CommentLuv links. So I’m really curious to know your thoughts on this one. Personally all of this “Follow” stuff makes me dizzy 🙂
ileane
I believe you get a link back from the comments page created by SEO comments but not directly from the comment.
Andrew
Andrew, if you click on my name from my comment, it goes to another page in your site that lists “Recent Posts” and “Recent Comments” but nothing that links back to my site. Honestly, when I had the plugin installed I didn’t realize this was happening, but I finally discovered, that the plugin doesn’t take you back to the commenters site – only the CommentLuv link goes back to the commenters site.
Hi Andrew,
You always come up with new and different plug-ins that I haven’t tried yet. exec php has thrown me for a loop. I’m not sure how I would use it or whether I need it.
What is the benefit to me as a basic blogger?
Cheryl,
The plugin allows you to add PHP type code in widgets. For instance you may wish to use ‘IF’ type logic to only display certain content on certain blog posts or pages.
To use ‘IF’ type logic (i.e. If true…do this) you need to use PHP code have that plugin installed.
I hope that makes sense!
Andrew
Hey is it fine to use RSS Bomber plugin and in how many directories it will submit our posts , can we select in which category it must be submitted . Because of google strict action I stay away from Automatic plugins but I am interested to know more about this plugin and is it 100 safe according to Google rules . Like no automatic link generating etc …
Hi,
Was you just trying to chat with me via my Zopim service?
I was trying to respond but for some reason it wasn’t taking my response…so sorry about that!
Re: RSS Bomber Plugin.
The plugin only provides the feed for each page and post you publish…nothing else.
If you want to submit the feed to the RSS Directories (I do), you have to submit the feed either manually or via another tool. I use the RSSBot tool.
I hope that helps and I’ll do my best to ‘chat’ next time!
Andrew
I love some of these, but still I try to add the fewest number of plugins I can. Maintainance and upgrading issues happen pretty frequently.
Alison
I totally understand where you are coming from. It getting the balance between number of plugins and functionality right.
I sometimes struggle!
Andrew
Hello Andrew,
This is more like a SEO part of the plugins, and some are necessary for better promotion.
But I am a bit worried about Exec-PHP, because I can imagine someone finding your blogs password, and by having it installed they can execute php code to read your config file or something similar (is it available for guest posters? because they can further exploit it). But if they crack your password it doesn’t matter anymore because they can install it anyway :).
Alex,
But they would need my password, right?
No one has access to my dashboard except me.
Andrew
Two plugins I’d suggest every (WordPress) blogger include are Maintenance Mode, which gives your reader a splash page while you’re updating stuff on the front end; and Ping Optimizer, which doesn’t ping search engines every time you edit a blog post.
See http://ariherzog.com/about-this-blog/plugins/ to get those links and see other plugins I’m currently using.
Ari,
The Maintenance one is a good one and will be listed in my next post on plugins.
I class the Ping Optimizer (I use the Max Blog Press version) as mandatory and that was listed in the previous blog post in this series.
Andrew
Hey Andrew,
Thanks for the awesome list of plugins!
I already have about half of them, but it looks like I have some more to add to my aresonal of wonderful plugins! I love plugins, because they make your blog so much better and professional. The keyword plugin sounds like a good one to have!
God bless,
William Veasley
William,
I’m glad you love plugins…just don’t love them too much! They can slow down you site.
Andrew
I don’t know if it was Yoasts, but I had A clean slugs plugin; had to remove it though, it was removing either too many or wrong words…some totally changed the meaning of the post.
I don’t think your super comments plugin is working properly, it’s all going to the same age.
Dennis,
Yeah – I think the SEO Super Comments plugin is not right – I shall have to check.
Andrew
Good. You know if I have to stop commenting, ooooo bad things may happen. 😉
Hey, Dennis! I couldn’t agree more.
I’m trying to build up a personal brand through blog commenting and it has been working out great so far. If I ever stop commenting on blogs — people won’t get to know who the h*ll I am! 🙂
About the post, theres a few plugins I believe you’ve missed that are mandatory such as Auto Twitter, Recent Comments with Gravatar and Thank Me Later.
/Nabil, from Sweden.
I missed or Andrew missed?
Nabil
And this is NOT the mandatory plugin list!
Andrew
Hey Andrew,
You have enlisted some very useful plugins in this post and your previous post. But you have not mentioned the URL of some plugins from where these can be obtained; Share Bar, WPtouch…
Just do a search and you’ll find them.
Andrew
@Ileane
I don;t think I have the SEO Super Comments plugin installed properly. I shall have to check.
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I use most of the plugins you’ve mentioned here. I will look into the SEO Super Comments and Clean Slugs.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Andrew
The one plugin I add to all my site is a common one tiny MCE is adds more buttons.
Neil
Neil,
What does that plugin do?
Thanks.
Andrew
What plugin do you use in comment to make an automatic link to your old post? That a must have plugin too…. 🙂
Zezebel
It’s the MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate one.
Andrew
Great find. I use almost every plugin you listed, save probably for SEO Super Comments since this is the first time I’ve heard of it. Will check it out. Clickbump SEO and Pingback Optimizer are also couple of my favorite plugins.
Tom,
I also like clickbumpSEO. Not heard of Pingback Optimizer – I will have to check that one out.
Thanks for sharing.
Andrew
Andrew, I have recently installed SEO Super Comments plugin and have written a post about it. Now someone has asked me if you can have too many dynamic pages.
I don’t have a clue. Do you know the answer to this?
By the way for some reason the CommentLuv is not working here for me.
Sandy
I’ve since uninstalled the SEO Super Comments plugin – it was causing me problems.
Re: Dynamic pages. I don’t see the problem unless they are duplicates in any way.
Re: CommentLuv. Must have been a ‘blip’. Working now?
Andrew
I have tried rss bomber and commentluv, it has been a great help to me when it comes to SEO and good thing that I discovered do follow which will complement commentluv and might as well add keywordluv to it. Everything looks good and will see what it can do to my site. A big thanks to you!:)
Wilton
Great – I’m glad the plugins are making a difference.
Andrew
Hey Andrew Really impressive article about the wordpress plugins.I am using Genesis theme and would like to know whether Commentluv plugin will make any difference on my blog?
Joel
Commentluv plugin encourages people to comment – so if you want more comments, it will make a difference.
Andrew