I now manage several blogs which also includes NuclearBlogger (this blog you are reading) as well as a number of others in various niches. As each blog is different, the plugins I use vary from blog to blog although there’s a few that I have installed as standard on any WordPress installs I do. The list below comprises of my WordPress plugin recommendations with a few extras thrown in which you might find useful.

WordPress Plugin Recommendations

Akismet: Akismet comes installed as standard on WordPress although it needs to be activated. I recommend this is one of the first plugins you activate. Once activated, you’ll need to visit the Akismet site and grab a key so you can use it. Keys are free of charge for some uses although for business and high traffic sites there is a small charge. The reason I use Akismet is that it blocks spam comments before they get published on your blog. Details of how much spam can be blocked as well as full install instructions can be found on this post over here.

DiggDigg: DiggDigg is a fantastic plugin that allows you to easily put various social media buttons around your site (see the left sidebar, below this post etc…). Manually adding buttons isn’t the most complex of tasks but can be a pain when trying to track all the changes you have made. By using DiggDigg, you simply activate the social networks you want and tell it where to put the buttons. Peter did a write up on DiggDigg a while back which is worth a read.

FD FeedBurner Plugin: The FD FeedBurner Plugin is a plugin that works behind the scenes. One important aspect of a blog is getting subscribers via RSS, mailing list and on the social networks. The FD FeedBurner plugin allows you to easily redirect ALL outbound feed links to FeedBurner so that you can track statistics via the Google feedburner tool. We’ve written a couple of times before about Feedburner here and here. Take a read of them both to see how to setup a feedburner account and how to configure the plugin to work with it.

Google XML Sitemaps: The Google XML Sitemaps plugin is a great way to let Google know that the content of your website has changed. By providing an XML feed to Google it allows them to pick up on this and index your posts. For established websites there isn’t too much of a need for this as Google has a lot of interest in your site and generally detects changes without the feed, but for new sites with a low amount of links coming in, it can provide a hint to Google on what to index on your site. It also helps Google to learn what content is priority. The standard settings with this plugin will suffice. I haven’t written about Google XML Sitemaps yet but will do in the next couple of weeks. Install it, make sure it’s active and then forget about it. One word of caution though… if you run a large blog (perhaps 9000+ blog entries, then you might run in to some performance issues. At that point, just disable it or set it to manual updates only).

W3 Total Cache: This is one of the high priorities on my list. Although this plugin might not actually make much difference for the first few months of your blogs existence, I still recommend strongly that you install it. The reason for this is that if you suddenly get a large influx of traffic (perhaps a national news paper links or your site gets listed on a popular social network page), then you will regret not having this plugin installed. W3 Total Cache is a plugin that caches your web pages which in turn, eases off usage on the MySQL database. On a typical server a WordPress blog runs great until a large amount of visitors need to get to your site quickly. At that point the database generally gets crippled and is unable to respond to all the requests. Having caching in place means that the pages are stored on disk (or in memory) and can be accessed hundreds/thousands of times without the server showing much strain. Install it, configure it correctly and forget about this plugin. Here is a simple overview on how to install W3 Total Cache although if you run a large site, there’s a few things to take in to consideration.

WP Smush.it: This plugin is a fantastic bit of code that squashes the filesize of any image you uploaded to the smallest possible. It works by using a number of algorithms that strip out data that the user will not see. Savings can typically be in the 25% or more range. The benefit of this is that web pages load quicker which in turn, keeps users happier. It also cuts down on your transfer allowance if you have a restricted plan.

Other Plugins

Although the above list is what generally gets installed on my basic WP installs, I also use extras depending on the circumstances. For example, NuclearBlogger uses a plugin called Simple Hooks. This allows us to modify the site with hooks rather than modifying the code directly. But, this plugin is specific to the Genesis Framework we use here. On my other blogs I use Thesis and for that, I use another hooks plugin specifically made for that. On my tech blog, I use an affiliate links plugin that scans outbound links and converts them in to affiliate links.

The key with plugins is to not go over the top and install everything, but at the same time, make sure you know what you want to achieve and if a plugin can do what you want, install it.

Feel free to post a list of plugins that you currently use on your websites.

Subscribe to NuclearBlogger here and get a free eBook worth $17 My WordPress Plugin Recommendations is a post from: Nuclear Blogger

Configuring WordPress

When you have your WordPress blog installed, the next step is to log in to the wp-admin area of the site. Do this by going to www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin and then enter the username and password that was provided to you at install.

When you are in the admin area, hover over the Settings menu item and then click “Permalinks”. In this section you’ll be able to control the structure of the site and how people load up sites. By default visitors will go to http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=123 with 123 changing depending on what post is being viewed. This is classed as being unfriendly for search engines. A better option would be http://www.yourdomain.com/how-to-configure-wordpress/. This is more friendly for the user to read and also more friendly for some search engines which struggle with the former version ?p=123 format. To make this change, select the custom structure box and paste in “/%postname%/” without the quotes. Hit save and that’s your permalinks sorted.

Next, go to Settings > General. Here, you set the title of your site along with a tagline. Most other options can stay the same although you are more than welcome to test changing to see if you can further refine your settings.

Next step is to visit Settings > Writing. At this point you’ll set the site of the post box. I have mine set to about 30 lines on most blogs. Experiment with this setting and do what you can to fill most of the screen with the text editor for when writing posts. It’s far easier to work with a larger area than cram it in to a small area although I prefer to keep it within the limits of the screen to prevent more scrolling. I uncheck both formatting options on my blogs as I prefer not to use smilies such as :) :p etc… If you want to use a 3rd party tool to connect up to your admin area from an iPad for example, check the XML-RPC box so that you can connect in.

Settings > Reading is where you specify how your home page will work along with how many posts to show per page. I opt for Full text with about 10 posts usually although sometimes I go for less posts. I also choose “Your Latest Posts” as my home page although depending on your blog, you might want to specify a different page here. Note that you’ll need to create a page before selecting it on this option.

Settings > Discussion is fairly self explanatory. If you allow default WordPress comments then you use this section to set the rules on how people post, what is held back for moderation as well as avatars that are set.

Settings > Media is an interesting section. When you upload images in to your posts, WordPress actually creates 4 or so copies of the image so that several different sizes are available. The smallest is default at 150 x 150 and is classed as a Thumbnail image. My own personal settings keep the 150 x 150 thumbnail. I then create a 300 x 600 max size image so that if I upload an image that is 350 x 400 pixels it is squashed down in size to 300 pixels wide at the most. Specifying 300 x 600 simply means that the X and Y axis cannot go over the specified limit. All images resized maintain their aspect. The 300 wide images are used to embed in posts with content wrapped around (like seen above). I then choose a 650 x 1000 ish (or 600 x 1000) depending on the width of my post column on the blog. This size of image is often used to break up content. Text doesn’t wrap around these, so I usually put them between paragraphs. The max size is the original image size which can be embedded but would mess up your site layout if you haven’t accounted for that. Generally you don’t need to use the actual size image.

Settings > Privacy can often be left alone. I opt to let Google see my site. For those who are just making a private blog, this option may have some value although note that Google still might index the odd page here and there. Leave it as default by standard so that Google and other search engines can index your content.

Basic Settings Now Complete

This menu comprises all the basic settings of your blog. If you install plugins then more menus will become available and you will need to configure those plugins as per the instructions provided by the developer.

As mentioned earlier, it is important to make these changes at the beginning so that you start off on the correct foot. If you have already started and want to go back to make changes, it really isn’t a huge deal, but I often find it easier to work with the correct settings from the start.

Subscribe to NuclearBlogger here and get a free eBook worth $17 How to Configure WordPress is a post from: Nuclear Blogger

When signing up for a free WordPress account you can opt in to paying for a domain through WordPress and if you want to go that route, you can follow the instructions on the post linked above other than selecting the “domain” option when signing up.

For those who want to set up a blog with their own domain on their own webhosting, you’ll be glad to know that it isn’t all that difficult to achieve if you follow the instructions below:

Setting up a Hosting Account and Buying a Domain Name

The first step is to sign up for a web hosting account as well as a domain name. The “web hosting account” is where you store your blog contents online so that others can access it and the “domain name” is the name of your website such as www.nuclearblogger.com.

The first thing to do is get a hosting account (Bluehost currently have a deal on at $4.95/month) which will allow you to host your website as well as give you plenty of space and bandwidth/transfer to keep your site online even when it gets busy. You may also opt for HostGator which is also a well known company with experience at keeping websites up and running.

The signup process allows you to get one domain name for free. Enter a name which you want your website to be called. If available, you’ll move on to the next step. If the domain is already in use by someone else the service will offer a number of alternatives that you can choose from. Make your selection and then move on to the next section of the signup page which looks like the below image: Note that the pricing is on contract which means you are committing to pay for a certain period of time. Change this to 12 months if you want to commit to just a year. Also, the extras are not really needed but you can select them if you wish.

After that, your account will be setup and you will receive an email with your login details. If you selected a .com domain name then these are generally ready within a few minutes of registering although due to technical reasons and how the naming system works on the internet, there can be a few hour delay.

Installing WordPress on Bluehost

When you receive your new hosting account details via email, log in to the cPanel account with the supplied username and password. When here, look for the “Simple Scripts” icon and click on it.

You’ll then see a window like the one to the left. Select WordPress and then follow the onscreen instructions. The instructions are very simple and simply ask where you would like the blog installing. If this is a brand new domain you will probably be safe to put it on root which means at www.yourdomain.com/. Alternatively, if you already have a website and want to add a blog to it, you might put it in www.yourdomain.com/blog.

After the basic options are configured you can hit Continue and WordPress is installed and you will be provided with a username and password to access your blog as an administrator so that you can begin writing posts.

In my next tutorials I’ll go over some simple plugins that you might want to use which will be followed by a tutorial on how to configure WordPress so that it works how you want it to work. After that, I’ll go over the basics of creating a post, embedding images, linking out, embedding video and publishing the post for the world to see.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog (top right of the sidebar) where you’ll get free access for a short time to our members area which covers this topic and others in more detail.

Subscribe to NuclearBlogger here and get a free eBook worth $17 How to Start a WordPress Blog is a post from: Nuclear Blogger

Before you continue with this tutorial, note that this instruction is for setting up a free blog. This will have a domain name such as yourblog.wordpress.com. If you want to use yourdomain.com then I’ll post a detailed post about this and link to it when ready. There are several reasons why you will want to host your own blog with your own domain, but again… these will be covered later this week. If you are happy to proceed (remember that it’s free, so if you change your mind later this week then you have only lost time but gained some experience at working with a blog).

Setting up a free blog with WordPress

The first step is to navigate to the WordPress.com website and then on that site, click the orange button as seen below:

Your domain name will be in the format of blogname.wordpress.com. In the form, enter your desired blog name. If the name is already taken by someone else, you’ll get a message like pictured below:

If you get the message, you’ll need to come up with a different variation or a different name until you see that the name is acceptable.

When you select an available name, the next field down (username) will be automatically filled in. You can change this if you desire. After that, set a password, provide your email address and under the free section, click “create blog”. If you are new to wordpress.com then you shouldn’t run in to any problems here. If you already have a wordpress.com account you will be asked to log in. When all is complete, you’ll get an email through asking you to activate your blog as seen below. You’ll also be taken to another page to enter your profile information.

Activate your blog and follow on to the next screen which allows you to set a theme. Note that some do cost money but that there’s the basic free theme (which actually looks quite good) as well as a few other free options to choose from:

Now that your theme is selected and activated you can now get on with getting content on your blog. To do this, click on New Post and fill in the title box and put some content online. After you are done you can click the Publish button and the post will go online for all to read.

Wrap Up

Starting a blog for free and getting content on to it is an extremely simple process. Just follow the instructions above and when you are done, repeat as often as possible the “New Post” procedure and keep adding content to your site. It doesn’t matter in the early days if you make a small mistake. In the first weeks there’s only a handful of people visiting your site which means you have a perfect opportunity to switch a theme around, add images, reorganise content and adapt it to yours and your readers needs.

As always, post any questions below. The remainder of this week I’ll cover setting up a blog on www.yourdomain.com as well as explain the pro’s and con’s of why you might want to pay for a domain and a hosting account.

As this post talks about the “free” way of doing it, this can prove to be a good testing ground. Good luck!

Subscribe to NuclearBlogger here and get a free eBook worth $17 How to Start a Blog for Free is a post from: Nuclear Blogger

Image Credit – Labnol.org traffic is listed above and shows the effects of Panda. Luckily they made a quick recovery.

The effect that Google Panda had was that some sites that were doing well suddenly disappeared from the search results (or got moved quite far down the list) while others were promoted to that spot. So, some people saw a bad decrease in traffic while others saw a very nice increase in search traffic.

Google is always striving to get the best results to the end users so that when they search for something, they get fast and high quality information back and not some scraping site covered with ads and content that makes no sense.

As well as looking for quality of content (with the Panda updates), Google also had a manual team that looked for violations of the Google webmaster guidelines. Those who were found stuffing hidden text on pages and those who used obscure linking practises received a penalty and didn’t get back in to the results until the bad stuff was cleared up. This leads on to the Google Penguin update. This particular update appears to be doing the job that Google has been manually doing for a number of years. Being specific, that means that if you do one of the following you were likely to have been caught in a bad way when Penguin rolled out in the past couple of weeks: (view the update in more details over here)

• Link manipulation
• Cloaking
• Malware
• Content stuffing
• Sneaky redirects
• Bad neighbourhoods
• Doorway pages
• Automated queries to Google

Google is now automatically trying to track these kinds of issues that it doesn’t agree with. If it works like Panda worked then there seems to be a threshold. In the case of Panda it appeared to work on a % of bad content and if a lot of your site was bad/poor quality content then you got hit site wide. If Penguin works the same way then you will either fall on the good side and get good traffic or fall on the bad side and get a lot less traffic.

Why Is This Good News

Depending on what side of the line you fall on this could be good news. If you have worked hard on your site and kept to the guidelines then you should see some good amounts of traffic. There’s of course some unfortunate errors (false positives) where a good site gets hit and a bad site doesn’t. These are ironed out in further iterations.

If you haven’t done well with this update which rolled out a few weeks back then step back and look at your site and the general Google guidelines. Are you doing anything sneaky? are you copying/pasting content and building up far too many links from poor quality sites? If so, look at ways you can get better and higher quality links.

The reason this is good news is that if Google has got the update correct then you should have a better chance at getting more traffic for your work. Post your observations in the comments, especially if you have been effected. My own site was hit by Panda and then several months later showed signs of recovery. For Penguin, I haven’t seen any chance at all just yet.

Subscribe to NuclearBlogger here and get a free eBook worth $17 Google Panda and Now Google Penguin – What To Do Next is a post from: Nuclear Blogger