» Plugins

One continued complaint that many bloggers routinely have is that they can’t get their visitors to comment on the blog postings. New blogs find this especially difficult. Is there a reason for this? Well, there are a few. New blogs run into this issue simply due to the lack of traffic. And of that traffic, many readers refuse to take that first step and post a comment. Why you ask? Well, you can compare the feeling of walking into a crowded room and announcing yourself to that of posting a blog comment. No, I don’t say that to make an extreme example - I’m being serious. Once you post that submit button, you’ve now not only made your opinion public, you’ve also put your opinion up for dissection. Not everybody is going to agree with you and sometimes that can be a difficult thing to swallow. We as a human nature don’t like to be told we’re wrong nor do many of us like to be the one to put the first step forward. We want somebody else to do it.

Another reason that blogs have trouble getting their readers to comment is simply the lack of features. If you venture around and visit other blogs, of those with high comments on the postings, you’ll notice they usually have a sophisticated blogging comment software and/or plugin installed. The problem with this type of method is that many of those softwares or plugins can be pretty intimidating to those not familiar with them.

So, with that said, I’ve come across IntenseDebate which is a very simple yet in-depth commenting plugin for Wordpress.org platformed blogs. It has all the bells and whistles of the most popular commenting software/plugins on the market, yet, it’s very simple in design and in no way would it be deemed intimidating to any novice blog reader. Some of the key features are comment threading, commenting via e-mail, allowing readers to have user accounts, comment voting, integrated Twitter and FriendFeed support which end up driving more traffic to your blog…along with many other features. Along with that, the comments are stored on your own Wordpress Server so you never need to worry about losing them if something goes wrong with your blog.

To download IntenseDebate, click here.

I like to consider myself pretty knowledgeable when it comes to blogs and the internet. By no stretch am I some uber genius, but, I do like to think I have a pretty vast knowledge of the blog-o-sphere. However, recently I was informed by a good friend of mine that I might have been doing something very wrong when it came to creating and maintaining blogs. Something so simple that could have a catastrophic effect on my blog. Something that most of us don’t even pay attention to.

You’ll notice that when you visit a website and/or blog, sometimes the blog URL will read “http://www.sitename.com and at other times it will read “http://sitename.com”. I never really thought this was much of an issue. I actually never even gave it a second thought. But apparently, I should have. The problem with this situation is that most search engines treat those addresses as two different domains, splitting your backlink count. That in turn effects a variety of things, especially your PageRank and where you place on search engine index’s. Now, be aware, not all websites and/or blogs have this issue but a fair amount do.

So the question begs - how do you fix it? Well, there are two ways to go about this. The more difficult way is to create a 301 Permanent Redirect using PHP which the average blogger simply lacks the knowledge to do. So, for those of us who need the easy road, there is Enforce www. Preference plugin. This plugin is extremely easy to use. Simply install it, activate it, and it will automatically create a 301 Permanent Redirect page for you and you’ll no longer need to worry about search engines confusing your website/blog as if it were two totally different webpages.

To find out more about Enforce www. Preference and/or to download it, click here.

I highly recommend this tool.

Today as I stumbled through some plugins on Wordpress.org, I came across a very unique and new plugin which is called WP Post Columns. Now, I know a lot of people might not be interested in this but if you’re somebody that writes very long blog postings this is a must have. With WP Post Columns, you can now make your blog have actual columns as opposed to the huge and massive paragraphs all blog platforms default to.

If you’ve ever read a very long blog posting, it’s one massive, long, column. And if you haven’t ever read one, chances are, the appearance of length scared you off. With the new WP Post Columns, not only will you improve the look of your article and overall blog theme you’ll also intice the readers with a much more readble article. You are free to create as many columns as the width of your blog posting will allow as well, which is an improvement over the past version which only allowed a maximum of two columns.

I should add for those concerned about the entire posting being two (or three) massive columns, don’t be. You can write  normal next above and below the columned writings. So, for an example, if you were reviewing a book you could write a normal paragraph, followed by two columns of text from the book and then normal paragraphs below. By no means are you restricted with this plugin.

WP Post Columns is perfect for any magazine/newspaper style themed blogs which are becoming more popular by the day.

To download WP Post Columns or to learn more, click here.

You can also find examples of the plugin on that above page as well.

Not that long ago, browsing the internet on your cell phone was reserved for only those with fancy Blackberry’s and other smart media phones. However with the introduction of the IPhone, Android, Voyager, and many other new phone releases the popularity of “mobile web browsing” has sky rocketed and it shows no signs of slowing down. With a new Android and IPhone in the works, along with many other improved cell phones releasing and the advancement in technology, it’s important that you as a blogger aren’t left behind.

Now, you’re most likely wondering what the advancement of cell phones really has to do with you blogging. Well, for anybody that’s ever attempted to visit a blog on a mobile phone - it’s not fun. I’d almost venture to say it’s pointless, or at least was until recently. A few developers have released some plugins for Wordpress.org users that will make their blog “mobile ready” so people can visit your blog while they’re on their phone. This might not seem like a huge deal but trust me, it is. Think about all the time that people spend on their phone, waiting around at doctor appointments, for a child’s party or practice, etc. People spend a lot of time on their phones and it’s important you cover all of your bases as a blogger. Below are a few plugins you can try out that will make your Wordpress.org blog into a mobile phone ready blog. And I should note, this does nothing to effect your overall appearance. Your blog will look exactly the same as it has. It simply fixes up the way it’s displayed on mobile phones.

To download one of the below plugins, click the plugin name.

Wordpress Mobile Edition - This is an extremely popular plugin that benefits from it’s super clean and simple interface. You can even change the settings for particular phones, such as the IPhone, etc.

WordpressMobile.mobi - Another popular choice, this version makes your blog more mobile friendly and reduces load times along with configuring your pages properly for a mobile display.

MobilePress - One thing that MobilePress does that I’ve never seen before is that it allows the user to create their own “theme/template” just for mobile surfers. If you’re looking for that sort of thing, this one is for you.

WP viewMobile - This Wordpress plugin has a variety of features included, one of my personal favorites is that it will attempt to resize pictures to fit your mobile page - and does so successfuly many times. While the other plugins attempt to do this, WP viewMobile seems to have the most success doing so. A very nice feature.

All in all, you can’t really go wrong with any of the above mentioned plugins. It’s simply a matter of personal preference, and as always, download them all and try them out. That’s the beauty of the Wordpress.org software.