WordPress Must Haves

WordPress is a rage, and why not? With it’s awesome features and amazing potential, it has taken the blogging world by storm.

What’s the best part about it?

It is totally user friendly and that is the main reason why people opt for it. Another reason why people opt for it is that WordPress is well known for the variety of plug-ins it offers its users. All you need to do is upload the plug-ins you want and Hey Presto……You have a great website ready!

One of the main reasons why people blog, is because it is a totally interactive means of communication. Now what is communication if your visitors are not allowed to comment? With WordPress plug-ins, both commenting and managing comments becomes much easier for you.

Plug-Ins, Plug-Ins and More Plug-Ins

Some of the plug-ins to watch out for, for better commenting, are “Better Comments Manager”, which allows the blog creator or the administrator to respond to comments through the administrator panel, rather than going onto the website itself

Subscribe to Comments”, which allows users to be notified, via email, when new comments are posted and “No Self Pings”, which prevents you from including a link to a post within your own blog!

What’s a Blog without its content?

If you don’t have fresh, new and interesting content, you’re not going to get anywhere with your blog. WordPress makes things much easier for you with their exciting plug-ins!

Some of these are “Similar Posts”, which basically displays posts that are relevant to the post being browsed by the user and “Popular Posts”, which draws up a list of your blog’s most viewed entries.

“Lightbox”, is a plug-in which enhances the appearance of your pages. For example, if you have thumbnail versions of a particular image and want to allow your visitors to look at the enlarged version, without having to go to another blank page, this comes in very handy.

Another plug-in, called, “GD Star Rating”, allows your visitors to set up a rating and system whereby which they can rate your content with the help of rating stars. This is very important, because you’ll get to know what you need to work on, in your next entry!

For Search Engine Optimization, WordPress offers two plug-ins: the “All-in-One SEO Pack” and the “Google XML Sitemaps”. Both these plug-ins contribute a whole lot in making your life much easier, you don’t have to spend hours and hours figuring out how best to optimize your pages!

All in all, the incredible array of plug-ins offered by WordPress is extremely useful if you want to make an interesting blog, so don’t pass up the opportunity!