Using Plugins to Spruce Up Your WordPress Site
Now that we’ve learned how to change the appearance of our WordPress installation through uploading themes, there is just one final thing we need to understand about WordPress – and why using it kicks so much butt – the use of free “plug-ins” to change the way WordPress works.
Sometimes referred to as “add-ons”, WordPress plugins are folders of files (or sometimes just single files) that changes the way WordPress performs certain functions, or completely adds new functions to WordPress that otherwise didn’t exist.
Now, anyone can hire a web developer to change the php code of your WordPress installation to do something new or different; what’s so neat about the WordPress community, however, is that there are thousands of web developers who have taken their custom code, written it as a plug-in, and offered it free to use. Thus is the way with the open source movement.
Installing a plugin is pretty much the same as installing a theme – download and unzip the file, upload it to your plugins folder (also located in your wp-content folder). Then in the “Plugins” section in your WordPress dashboard, you can activate the plugin.
Now, some plugins are easier to install than others – i.e., some plugins only require activation to make them work. Others have a settings page that needs to be configured; even others require you to add small bits of code in certain areas for them to work properly. Luckily, most if not all plugins have installation pages that walk you through the process.
Also note that just like themes, you can easily auto-install plugins through your dashboard (“add new”) if they exist in the WordPress plugin database. Not all of the plugins I use are in there so I’m going to provide you with links to each plugin’s download and documentation page. You can also directly upload .zip files of plugins here if you don’t want to FTP them.
If you want to quickly download ALL of the following plugins, I’ve done all the work for you and have them saved in a single folder. Download all of these plugins here at once!
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it.
Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog.
Adds rel=”canonical” links to the head of your site. (SEO)
Generates a fully customizable sitemap. (Navigation & SEO)
WP Contact Form is a drop in form for users to contact you. In the message it sends to you it gives the page the user visited before the contact page, as well as the original outside referrer. It can be implemented on a page or a post.
This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics with extra search engines and automatic clickout and download tracking to your WordPress blog.
This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. (SEO)
Post Teaser generates a preview or “teaser” of a post for the main, archive and category pages, with a link underneath to go to the full post page. It includes features to generate a word count, image count, and an estimated reading time. (SEO)
Returns a list of the related entries based on active/passive keyword matches. (Internal Linking – SEO)
Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites.
On-demand backup of your WordPress database.
Outputs a fully customizable breadcrumb path. (Navigation)
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