J David Macor

You have just installed WordPress for your brand new blog and you are ready to start writing that killer content and make tons of money, right? WRONG! As fantastic as WordPress is right out of the box, it is far from complete. Even for the most basic blog, you really need to install some key plugins and sign up for some crucial services before you can get the ball rolling. After reading this guide, you and your site will be ready for the rough world that is the internet. I hope that this read is useful to you and I wish you good luck!

Who is this Guide for?

Strictly speaking, I wrote this guide for the person who literally just finished installing WordPress. You should note that I didn’t say someone new to WordPress; just someone with a fresh installation (now that title is starting to come into play). Quite frankly, you could be a blogging veteran and still find this guide pretty useful. I tried to find the best way to get you started with a new blog.

Now, this guide will not help you with the actual content or any sort of inspiration; I will leave that to the pros, like Copyblogger and Problogger. I will also not be discussing designs or themes. These are all important aspects for any new blog, but they are not the focus here.

Plugins are you Friend

Plugins are the little bits of code that add flavor to your blog. They serve all kinds of functions and are extremely useful. They are the fastest and easiest way to implement great features that for one reason or another aren’t built into the fantastic WordPress system. Now, it is true that you can have too much of a good. When you activate a plugin, it adds a snippet of code to your blog, and when you activate many of them, that snippet turns into a monster, which can slow down the overall performance of your blog. But let’s just not let it get there. I am going to give you the necessities here, in a variety of categories. Now some categories may not be useful for your blog. If that is the case, just go ahead and skip the plugins in that category. It is entirely up to you.

Now, if you need help installing a plugin, I will provide some simple instructions here, which I copied from WordPress.org. These are the basics for installing a plugin:

1. Upload the plugin to the wp-content/plugins folder in your WordPress directory online.
2. Make any changes to templates or files as required by the Plugin instructions including adding Plugin template tags.
3. Activate the Plugin:
   • Access the Plugin Panel in your Admin Panel
   • Scroll down through the list of Plugins to find the newly installed Plugin (if not visible, start from the beginning to check to see if you followed the instructions properly and uploaded the file correctly).
   • Click on the Activate link to turn the Plugin on.
4. Continue making any modifications necessary from the “readme” file instructions to make the plugin’s actions meet your needs.

That last step is important, because you need to keep in mind that each plugin may require slightly different installations, so be sure to read the documentation that goes along with the plugin.

Spam Protection

• Akismet: This should be obvious. And it should be easy as well, because this little doozy of a plugin comes pre-installed with WordPress. Of course, the folks over at Automattic want you to have a WordPress API key, which adds a tricky little step. But all you have to do is sign up for an account at WordPress.com and they will send you one. Download
• Simple Spam Filter: This bad boy plugin claims to block 90% of your spam right off the bat (just imagine how much you are blocking when using this in combination with the previous 2 tools). It acts as a pre-filter that immediately rejects spam comments before they are even sent into the Wordpress system. This actually saves your server some (minimal) work. Oh, and it does play nice with Akismet. Download
• WP-Gatekeeper: This will add a really simple question that has to be answered before a comment can be submitted. The question will be obvious to a person, but a spam program will not be able to answer it. You can customize the question and the styling, so this is really a win/win situation. Download
• Comment Timeout: This plugin will close your comments on posts after a certain amount of time. This will help your spam issues, because spammers like to prey on older, more ignored posts. Download

Search Engine Optimization

• All in One SEO Pack: This plugin will help you optimize you blog’s titles and write keywords for every post. This Meta data is ignored by the default installation of WordPress, so this plugin is a lifesaver. With all of the functions that it provides, what doesn’t this plugin do? Download
• Enfore WWW Preference: Well, one thing that the plugin above does not do is make sure that you have a preferred address. You see, it is possible that Google is interpreting 2 separate version of your blog: yoursite.com and www.yoursite.com. This will hurt you PageRank, so use this plugin to alleviate that problem. Download
• Google Sitemap Generator: This plugin generates and XML sitemap of your blog that not only Google uses, but Yahoo and MSN as well. Just use Google’s Webmaster Tools and upload the sitemap address that was generated by this little plugin. Download
• Ultimate Tag Warrior: While it has a ton of features, the key one is tagging. I have no idea why this hasn’t been built into WordPress yet, but this tag will take care of the problem for you. It can also turn you tags into Meta keywords, so that helps even more. Download

Community Building

• FeedBurner FeedSmith: This is by far the best way to monitor and optimize your blog’s feed. You sign up for a free account and FeedBurner, make sure to click the box that say Pro (now free, thanks to Google), and use this plugin to direct your feeds to FeedBurner. Download
• Do Follow: This plugin will disable the automatic rel=”nofollow” attributes added to external links (like in your comments). This allows Google to count the links of people in your comments, adding an incentive to commenting. But be sure you have good spam protection, or else spammers will take advantage of your generosity. Download
• Popularity Contest: To really help new readers get a sense of your blog, you should provide a list of your most popular posts. This plugin will even let you display the most popular posts by category. Trust me when I say that your reader’s will appreciate this gesture. Download
• Show Top Commentators: Give some love to your most vocal fans! This is a plugin that is good for the blog and the commentator. You proudly display links to your top commentators and they actively participate to get a link. Good stuff. Download
• Subscribe To Comments: Another key missing feature in WordPress is a way to know when your comment has been responded to; of course, the owner of the blog knows that, but the other commentators don’t. This plugin allows readers to subscribe to comments and receive email notifications. Download

Monetize

*** I recommend holding this off until you have at least 1,000 page views per day ***

• Adsense Deluxe: Sure, you probably know how to pop some code into your theme to get ads to display, but what if you want to display them inline in a post? This plugin comes to the rescue, by doing that and it helps you organize different ad blocks. Download
• Text Link Ads: Sign up for this advertising service and it will sell links on your site and give you half of the revenue. It’s not a bad deal if you don’t have the time or will to sell you own ads. When you install the plugin, you can easily display the purchased links. It will even give you a sidebar widget if you want one! Download

Crucial Memberships

So, your blog is pretty hooked up, plugins wise. Now we need to make sure everything is being tracked and monitored in the best way possible. I am talking stats and optimization and directory submissions. These memberships will help you monitor your readers and publicize your blog. And the price tag? Free, of course! Now, there are many options in these categories, but I have listed my personal favorites.

Stats Packages

Google Analytics: For me, this is the best stats package. It gives you details about visits and users. It also tells you where they came from, what they did, and how they left. I don’t use any other stats tracking anymore. Analytics also goes great with AdWords, allowing you to see how your campaigns are doing. Sign Up

Google Webmaster Tools: This is the package I mentioned earlier. With this suite of tools, you can upload your sitemaps and see some rudimentary statistics about your site. You can also look at where your pages rank in Google’s search engine for specific queries. To that end, it is a great keyword analysis tool. Sign Up

Directories

Blogskinny: Directories are great, because they give you a free link (usually in exchange for displaying some kind of chicklet), but this one goes a step further. Besides giving you a link, they provide a massive list of directories that you can sign up for. Just register with them, and you will get access to this useful list of well over 200 directories. Sign Up

Now that you have your blog set up and listed, don’t forget to add that killer content! Let me know if I missed anything!