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Category: WordPress Tips

The Best (Blonde) WordPress Plug-ins Plugins

[ 22 ] May 27, 2011 | Shelley Zurek

Our Favorite WordPress Plugins and Why!

My Favorite Blogging Buddy, Simply Stacie is running her “Build a Better Blog Week” right now. Along with great Blogging giveaways (new site designs, free blog counseling sessions), Stacie is also posting great content that you can use to improve your blog. The best one for this week so far by Stacie is My Favourite Plugins (That Don’t Break My Blog) I highly recommend you go read it!

With Stacie’s approval for blatantly stealing her idea, I will now offer you my Best (Blonde) WordPress Plugins Plug-ins!

Reader Plugins

CommentLuv

Where you can see it on the blog: At the bottom of a comment or when you are commenting.
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or Comment Luv
Function: Plugin to show a link to the last post from the commenters blog by parsing the feed at their given URL when they leave a comment. Rewards your readers and encourage more comments.

LinkWithin Plugin

Where you can see it on the blog: At the end of each post, 4 thumbnail pictures and links to that post. Highly effective way to get clickthrough to new stories!
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or LinkWithin
Function: Displays recommended stories and associated thumbnails from your blog

ReplyMe

Where you can see it on the blog: Invisible to viewer
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or ReplyMe
Function: This Plugin sends an email to a commenter automatically when I reply to his comment. That way a commenter is sure to know you replied!

SEO/Analytics Plugins

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) Pack Plugin

Where you can see it on the blog: Invisible to viewer
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or All in one SEO Pack
Function: Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog. Almost everyone uses it…here is a great tutorial on how to set it up on your Blog : The BEST All in One SEO Pack Configuration How to Guide AIOSEO

Google Analytics Plugin

Where you can see it on the blog: Invisible to user
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or Google Analytics
Function:Enables Google Analytics on all pages.

Socialize Plugins

Easy Facebook Like Button Plugin

Where you can see it on the blog: At the bottom of a Blog post
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu
Function: The simplest way to add Facebook Like Buttons to your WordPress blog. One click setup and start getting Facebook likes for posts on your blog.

TweetMeme Retweet Button

Where you can see it on the blog: My TweetMeme button is in the top right hand corner of each blog post.
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or TweetMeme
Function: WordPress Plugin that adds a button which easily lets you retweet your blog posts.

Stumble Me

Where you can see it on the blog: My Stumble me button is in the top right hand corner of each blog post.
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or Stumble Me
Function: WordPress Plugin that allows your visitors to share your posts to Stumble Upon. This plugin displays stumble icon at the top right hand side of beginning of each post. Total Stumble views of that post are also shown.

Socialize

Where you can see it on the blog: My Socialize are in the lighter Pink box below my LinkWithin Plugin on each Blogpost
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or SOCIALIZE
Function: This Plugin adds actionable social bookmarking buttons to your site!

Blog Enhancing Plugins

Ad Squares Widget Plugin

Where you can see it on the blog: On my Right hand sidebar
Where You can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or Ad Squares Widget
Function: The Ad Squares Widget makes it possible for you to display 125×125 ad squares ( or some other configurable size ad, advertisement, banner ) into a widget-ready bar for WordPress®. It supports AdSense®, Javascript, XHTML and more. You can display 4 from each widget. You can have multiple widgets in your sidebar.

AnyFont Plugin

Where you can see it on the blog: Headings in Right Hand Sidebar (match my banner)
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or AnyFont
Function: AnyFont allows you to use any truetype or opentype font for post titles, menu items or anywhere else you want to use a custom font on your site.

Collapsing Archives

Where you can see it on the blog: Right Hand Sidebar. Many Designers recommend that you take archives off of your front page and/or create a separate page and keep the Archives there. I like this plugin as it collapses your archives all the way down to just years but if a reader (or You) want to find something on the blog like a giveaway or tip–and search just isn’t helping, then it’s nice to have this tool available. It’s especially convenient for me, it’s my blog and it stays. TEEHEE!
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or Collapsing Archives Plugin
Function: Allows WP users to expand and collapse archive links like Blogger.

Real WYSIWYG Plugin

Where you can see it on the blog: Invisible to viewer
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or Real WYSIWYG Plugin
Function: Turn the TinyMCE Visual Editor in to a real WYSIWYG editor. (What You see is what you get)

Shockingly Simple Favicon

Where you can see it on the blog: You will see a tiny picture of my Still Blonde head in the Toolbar tab when you are on my page or have a Tab open to my page
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or Shockingly Simple Favicon
Function: Most Professional websites and Blogs have a favicon and you should too!

WP Maintenance Mode

Where you can see it on the blog: Not visible to visitor unless in the you the blogger are performing Maintenance Mode
Where you can get it: Searching in your Plugins menu or WP Maintenance Mode
Function: The plugin adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in users get full access to the blog including the front-end, depends of the settings.