Starter Plugins Set

Every successful blog has the right plugins that maximises the blog’s usability.  From site speed, to generating traffic, there is almost a plugin for everything, so it’s important to have the right ones. At Profit Blog Formula we’ve gathered the ones every blog should have and to help you get started.

1. AA’s Digg Digg Alternative (Renamed: Social Share Bar)

This plugin adds a cool little floating bar to the site of your posts for easy sharing and social media submitting. It also allows one click submission to social news sites like reddit.com and stumbleupon.com.

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1. Search for Digg Digg Alternative in the “add plugin” section.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Choose your options via “Settings -> Digg Digg Alternative”

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2. Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently.

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1. Search for Google XML Sitemaps in the “add plugin” section
2. Activate the plugin at the plugin administration page
3. If you want: Open the plugin configuration page, which is located under Settings -> XML-Sitemap and customize settings like priorities and change frequencies.
4. The plugin will automatically update your sitemap of you publish a post, so there is nothing more to do 🙂

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3. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache improves the user experience of your site by increasing server performance, reducing the download times and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration.

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1. Search for “w3 Total Cache” in the “add plugin” section.
2. Activate the plugin and head to the settings area on the sidebar itself,
3. For more detailed instructions click here.

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4. WordPress SEO by Yoast

Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin.

 

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1. Search for “WordPress SEO by Yoast” in the “add plugin” section
2. Activate the WordPress SEO plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Configure the plugin by going to the SEO menu that appears in your admin menu

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5. Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

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1. Search for “Contact Form 7” in the “add plugins” section
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.

You will find ‘Contact’ menu in your WordPress admin panel.

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6. Disqus Comments

Disqus, pronounced “discuss”, is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.

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1. Search for “Disqus Comments System” in the search bar of the “add plugin” section.
2. Maintain the directory structure of the archive (all extracted files should exist in ‘wp-content/plugins/disqus-comment-system/’
3. From your blog administration, click on Comments to change settings (WordPress 2.0 users can find the settings under Options > Disqus.)

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7. YARPP

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) displays pages, posts, and custom post types related to the current entry, introducing your readers to other relevant content on your site.

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1. Search for “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin” in the “add plugins” section.
2. Go to the “Related Posts (YARPP)” settings page to customize YARPP.

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8. Easy Facebook Likebox

Displays a Facebook Like Box. The Facebook Like Box is a social plugin that enables Facebook Page owners to attract and gain Likes from their own website. Easy facebook like box display fan page posts, like button, and connections on your website using widget, shortcode or in Auto PopUp.

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1. Search for “Easy Facebook Likebox” in the add plugin section.
2. Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
3. Navigate to “Appearance > Widgets” and drag and drop “Easy Facebook Likebox” in desired widget area or use the shortcode in page/post generated by widget.

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