If you have a WordPress blog, you know that plug-ins add functions to your site that really allow you to customize the blog to what you want it to do. Here are some of my favourite plug-ins.
Google Analytics Dashboard WordPress Widget lets you see your Google Analytics at a glance from your WordPress Dashboard. It doesn’t give you everything, but you can top posts, top searches and top referrers. These are all important things to see every day.
The Link Within plug-in gives you the related posts you see at the bottom of my blog posts. It’s a nice way to encourage visitors to go to more pages on your site.
The Maintenance Mode plug-in allows you to make major changes to your site without having visitors see a mess. Instead, visitors will get a message telling them the site is undergoing maintenance and when they can expect the site to be back, including date, time and how long. You wouldn’t want to do this often, but if you’re implementing a major overhaul of your site, this is handy to have.
For automatically Tweeting new blog posts I use Twitter Tools. It was easy to set up and works well. You can also add hashtags to any Tweet you want to send.
If you’re selling digital products on your site but don’t have enough sales to make buying a fancy shopping cart a financially viable option, try the eStore Plug-in. It’s easy to use, easy to install and will integrate with your email list and PayPal. Best of all, rather than a monthly fee, you just pay one price.
Please share your favourites by leaving a comment on the blog.
