Plugins

There are a few critical plugins that every good WordPress blog should have. The first one is the Google sitemaps plugin. Install the plugin then head to Settings > XML-sitemap and run the plugin. It will automatically generate a sitemap and submit it to Google for you. This will help your search ranking as your new blog grows. It works in the background and you can leave it be after creating your sitemap.

The next plugin I install is the All in one SEO plugin. I’ve tried a couple SEO plugins, but this one is by far the best. Once you install it, head over to Settings > All in One SEO to activate it. There are a number of options you can pick from to configure you plugin. It’s a good idea to leave most of them as is. However, I prefer to check off the option that automatically converts any post tags to meta keywords. To use the plugin, start a new post and scroll down to the bottom. You’ll see some fields there that you need to fill in: one for a title, and one for a description. I usually copy my post title into the title field. Then I enter a good description about the post content. Make sure you do that on every one of your blog posts.

Another useful plugin I’d recommend installing is maintenance mode. This plugin allows you to throw up a splash page if you are, for example, working on your theme and you want to hide your blog from the public.

The next plugin I install on every new blog is the WordPress database backup. Believe me, this is very handy if your database becomes corrupted down the road, or you need to recover your posts for another reason. Install the plugin and head to Tools > Backup. Once you’re there, configure the plugin to email you a backup once a week. Then just keep your backup files somewhere safe, incase you need them.

The last plugin I recommend activating is Akismet. This plugin comes bundles with WordPress, so you simply have to activate it. You’ll have to get an API key from the Akismet website, and if you say your blog is for personal use, you can get one for free. I highly recommend using this plugin to filter out spam comments. I had a client recently launch a blog I designed for them. They didn’t activate the plugin and after a month they had over 1,000 spam comments which brought their blog to screeching halt! Not to mention the poor person who had to go through and delete them all. You’ve been warned! :)

If you’re planning on offering free downloads from your blog, I’d recommend signing up for a free CloudApp account. It’s not a plugin but it’s quite handy for hosting files, and it gives you a simple way to offer downloads to your readers. It also includes a count of how many times each file is downloaded which is handy. That’s about it for plugins that I would recommend installing for all new WordPress blogs. What do you think? Do you use any other plugins that are a must for your WordPress blog?

Use a descriptive naming convention

Let’s say your have 10 images you are building into a gallery. I know it’s tempting to just name them 01.jpg – 10.jpg (I’ve been guilty of it). Although this is a good convention to keep yourself organized, it’s terrible for search. Imagine how many images out there are named 01.jpg or 1.jpg. How is a search engine supposed to tell the difference?

Bad naming conventions:

• 01.jpg
• image1.jpg
• IMG0000021.jpg

The good news is the solution is simple, use a descriptive naming convention. Let’s say you are posting an image of a red Electra cruiser bike to your blog. Resist naming it red-bike.jpg (or something similar), and call it red-electra-cruiser-bike.jpg. Awesome! Now your image is optimized and will be easier to find. It’s also a good idea to use the “-” between each word in your file name. People don’t often search for redelectracruiserbike, they would search for red Electra cruiser bike. Splitting up the words allow you to optimize for keywords that the user has searched for.

Good naming conventions:

• red-electra-cruiser-bike.jpg
• electra-cruiser-bike-red.jpg
• electra-cruiser-bike-model.jpg (where “model” is the model name)

Don’t embed text within images

This is an important one, and it also applies to Flash. Any text that is embed in an image, therefore part of the image, isn’t searchable by search engines. Search engines only have the ability to crawl through the actual text on your website, code, and image alt=”" attribute(s). However, if you don’t have a choice here, make sure you paste the copy (that is part of the image) into the alt=”" description for that particular image.

This practice also holds true for Flash. At this point, I’m not going to get into all the problems for search that Flash has. However, I would recommend that you stay away from using Flash image galleries. All of your images are embedded within one file (.swf) and that makes it impossible to optimize them for search. Instead, I’d recommend you use some jquery for your gallery. Coda Slider is an excellent option that is pretty easy to get up and running.

Insert your images in the proper place

One of the most important things you can do, is to insert your image into your layout and surround it with relevant text. For example, when you’re inserting your red Electra cruiser bike image onto your page, make sure there is a title (above or below) for the bike. Also, include a description of the bike near the image. If you were to place an image of a Kona mountain bike on your Electra cruiser page, your going to be sending conflicting signals to the search engine. You need to keep a clear, consistent delivery of your message to optimize properly.

A few closing tips

Here’s a few quick tips you can use to further optimize your images for search:

• Place your images higher up on the page
• Spur on web designers to link into your pages by using great photos
• Consider creating a stand alone landing page for popular images
• Always specify a width and height for your images!
• Don’t stuff your alt=”" attribute with keywords

Features
» See what content is being copy and pasted off your blog or website.
» Provides a new type of user measurement.
» Pastes a credit and link back to your website when your content is copied.
» Generates more traffic to your website.

Here is a couple possible options. I’d like to hear your feedback on this question as I’m a little unsure myself to how to best handle this problem.

Individual Words

five, second, test

All One Word

fivesecondtest

Using Dashes

five-second-test

Looking forward to seeing what you all have to say. I have my money on one of the options but let’s see what everyone else thinks first.

When a search engine, like google, crawls your website it will be drawn to your keywords wrapped in <strong></strong> tags more so then if you don’t use them. Let’s take a look at Cardeo’s blog description for an example of this technique in practice:

<h2><strong>Matt Lambert</strong> is a <strong>Web Designer</strong> based in North <strong>Vancouver</strong>, BC, Canada. <strong>Cardeo</strong> is his studio and <strong>blog</strong>.</h2>

Note that I have wrapped the following keywords with <strong></strong> tags as these are the terms I’m choosing to promote for my website and it’s content: Matt Lambert, Web Designer, Vancouver, Cardeo, and Blog. I have also wrapped the entire description in a <h2> tag which further increases the search-ability of the copy.

Now that we have the HTML code complete, we need to add some styles to the <strong></strong> tags. By default, the keywords wrapped within the tags will display as bold type. If you would like to turn this off, enter the following code into your style sheet:

strong {
font-weight: normal;
}

One problem you may run into is wanting to use the <strong></strong> tag to bolden your copy in another section of your website. If this is the case, there are a few solutions to the problem.

The first would be to wrap your description copy into a div tag and declare an ID or CLASS for the section. Here’s an example of the CSS and HTML where we are declaring an ID:

Another solution would be to use the <em> tag instead. It will have the same effect, so this may be a quick fix for you.

A third solution would be to attach, as I have done on cardeo.ca, the <strong> selector to your <h2> tag. The CSS for that looks like this:

That’s it, that’s all! I hope this tutorial has been useful. Please feel free to comment below on other ways of increasing keyword strength for your website.

ALL IN ONE SEO PACK

The All In One SEO Pack is a must for any blogger that needs to drive traffic to their website. Once installed, it includes a panel on your Write Post page that allows you to: create a search engine friendly title, description, and keywords for each of your posts. Some other features include: title optimization, auto-generates Meta Tags, and it is backwards compatible with other WordPress SEO plugins.

» Download ALL IN ONE SEO PACK from WordPress.org

CONTACT FORM 7

This is one of my favorite plugins because it is really easy to use. Contact Form 7 allows you to easily create multiple forms for your WordPress Blog. The plugin also supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering, and multiple languages.

» Download CONTACT FORM 7 from WordPress.org

FEEDBURNER FEEDSMITH

Feedsmith is a handy plugin for redirecting your RSS feed to FeedBurner so you can track every possible subscriber to your blog.

» Download FEEDBURNER FEEDSMITH from google.com

GOOGLE XML SITEMAPS

This plugin is a great way to create your XML compliant Sitemap which search engines like Google use when crawling your website. Including a Sitemap is a excellent way to further optimize your blog for SEO. Every time your create or edit a post, your Sitemap is updated with all the major search engines.

» Download the GOOGLE XML SITEMAPS plugin from WordPress.org

MAINTENANCE MODE

Another must have plugin for when you are editing your blog layout. Maintenance Mode hides your blog from the public allowing you to make design changes, test new plugins, and perform other various website maintenance. The Admin(s) are still able to view the website but it is hidden to everyone else. You are also provided with a splash page that you can customize while your blog is down.

» Download the MAINTENANCE MODE plugin from WordPress.org

SUBSCRIBE TO COMMENTS

Another great plugin for keeping your readers informed. Subscribe to Comments allows your readers to sign-up for email notification once a post receives a new comment. The plugin also allows your commenters to unsubscribe to certain posts, block all notifications, and even change their notification email address.

» Download the SUBSCRIBE TO COMMENTS plugin from WordPress.org

ULTIMATE GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Another must have plugin for WordPress. Ultimate Google Analytics allows you to add Google Analytics JavaScript to each page of your blog without any changes to your template. The plugin also allows you to add tracking to outbound links, downloads, and mailto: links. You will require a free Google Analytics account to configure this plugin.

» Download the ULTIMATE GOOGLE ANALYTICS plugin from WordPress.org

WORDPRESS DATABASE BACKUP

This plugin provides a quick and easy way to backup your WordPress database. You have the option of downloading the backup, saving it to your server, or having it emailed to you.

» Download WORDPRESS DATABASE BACKUP plugin from ilfilosofo.com

WP125

This is a great plugin for managing the Ads on your blog. It features: one or two column ad display, show as many ads as you like, and you keep track of how many times each ad is clicked. The best feature of this plugin is that it allows you to set how many days each ad should be displayed and it will automatically remove the ad when the time comes.

» Download the WP125 plugin from WordPress.org