Wordpress plugin -- electric outlet
It’s time once again to take a look at some great WordPress plugins which everyone should have installed on their blogs. These are a different batch entirely from the last roundup I did so be sure to pay close attention.
WP Security Scan
Recently, I’ve been reading about a lot of people who have seen their blogs hacked into by malicious people intent on causing them all kinds of problems. While there are a number of things you can do to protect your WordPress blog there are also some great plugins to help with this. One that I recently found which I’ve grown fond of is WP Security Scan
The nice thing about WP security scan is that it doesn’t really make changes to your blog that you don’t understand. Instead, it tells you exactly where you vulnerabilities may lie and how you can fix them. This is nice because it doesn’t assume you’re an idiot who needs everything done for them and who will then get annoyed when it does something unexpected.
Other security measures you can take include having a strong password which you change periodically, avoiding using the name “admin” for your administration panel and keeping a complete, off site backup of your blog to recover from in case of an emergency.
Tweet Old Post
Okay, so it’s not quite a universal plugin, nor is it an essential one. However, I’ve got to say that I really like this plugin a lot. If you have a big Twitter following, it’s an awesome way to get the word out about older posts on your blog. This plugin will pick posts that are more than 30 days old and randomly tweet them for you at set intervals.
WP Slide In
The money is in the list. That’s what everyone says regarding blogging. If you want to make money from your blog, it is simply imperative that you start building yourself an E-mail list. I wrote about this before and now here’s a great plugin to help you build your new list.
WP Slide In will create a slide in or slide up message which your viewers will see automatically when they visit the blog (here at the Quantum SEO blog, we have one which does just that for the newsletter). The nice thing about it is that it’s really noticeable without being nearly as annoying as the pop ups which dominates the entire screen.
OIO Publisher
Want to sell advertising on your blog? Of course you do. While this plugin isn’t free, it’s one of the best around and it’s one that’s simply a must if you plan to do your own advertising on your blog, whatever the niche is. The nice thing about it is that unlike Adsense, you don’t have to share the revenue with anyone else.
Smart YouTube
I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m getting more into video publishing and I’ve got to say, there are wicked cool WP plugins out there for video. One of the best is Smart YouTube which will let your visitors view and automatically comment on videos that you post directly onto your blog.