There is not another blogging platform quite like WordPress, as a program it is very versatile and flexible. WordPress offers you a great many useful features. However, one of the most outstanding features is that it allows you to store and use WordPress plugins.

You can enhance your website and blogging experience greatly by adding a small application of a WordPress plugin. You will find there is a vast array of WordPress plugins that are useful, such as posting audio to your blog using your cell phone and even eliminating spam.

 
There are numerous amounts of WordPress plugins to be found on the Internet, and most of them are free to use. In this article, you will find the top five free WordPress plugins that are essential when building a blog.

• Google Sitemap Generator Plugin

 
If driving web traffic to your blog, as well as indexing your blog into the search engines, especially Google, is one of your top priorities. This WordPress plugin will automatically generate a Google Sitemap of your blog. Using it will create ease for the search engine spiders to navigate your website.

 Every time you update your blog, this plugin will update your Sitemap as it also pings Google with the update as well. You can download a Google Sitemap Generator Plugin here.

 http://www.arnebrachhold.de/2005/06/05/google-sitemaps-generator-v2-final.

 Search Everything Plugin

 Including a Search Everything Plugin to your WordPress blog aids in the improvement of your websites navigation, thereby creating an easier to use search function for your guests. The Search Everything WordPress plugin places a search engine on your blog that will sort through all your posts, pages and comments as well as more. To download this plugin go here.

 http://dancameron.org/wordpress/wordpress-plugins/search-everything-wordpress-plugin.

• Akismet Comment Spam Plugin

Spam seems to be a big problem for many people and they usually spend a great deal of time trying to delete some comments manually. The Akismet Comment Spam Plugin will scan the database for past spam comments to analyze whether comments left on your blog are spam or not, then if a spam comment does get past, Akismet will automatically add it for reference to the database.  You can download an Akismet Comment Spam Plugin here.

http://akismet.com/download.

• WP-Contact Form Plugin

Since there is so much spam online these days, you really do not want to display your email address in public on your blog site. However if you add the WP-Contact Form Plugin, it will create a contact form on your blog, so you readers can indeed contact you, although they are not offered sight of your email address. The WP-Contact Form Plugin is invaluable in saving you the time and stress of having to manually code a contact form on your own for your blog. The WP-Contact Form Plugin can be downloaded here.

http://ryanduff.net/projects/wp-contactform.

• WordPress Related Entries Plugin

The WordPress Related Entries Plugin offers a list of related entries below specific posts, which will encourage more value to your online blog by giving your readers more of what they are craving. The WordPress Related Entries Plugin is able to aid you in organizing your blog with regards to the search engines. This can potentially lead you and your blog to a higher search engine rank, which means being featured on the first few pages of a search engine results. You can download the WordPress Related Entries Plugin here.

http://www.w-a-s-a-b-i.com/archives/2006/02/02/wordpress-related-entries-20.

Be sure to get your own free WordPress blog.

Are you using Wordpress to blog? If so, you are more than likely familiar, with some basic search engine optimization and plugins. Rather than going over most previously covered information on Wordpress usage, we shall take a new point of view of how profitable you want your Wordpress blog to be.

If you plan to become successful with blogging, you will have to create you own thriving blueprint to achieving your dreams. You may already know the many advantages that Wordpress has over most other conventional online blogging software.  To move your blogs to the next level you must fully use all of the plugins available to you. These six important Wordpress success tips will be of assistance to you.

• The Strategic Approach 

To add quality content to your blog you will need a strategy. Some things you should do are, prepare your quality content 1 month in advance, so that your website visitors have a daily read of good content. If you do not, you are not taking full advantage of the scheduling feature inside Wordpress. The scheduling feature of Wordpress will save you the incessant physical work of posting an article each day.

• Building an Association

You build an association with others and their blogs by visiting those that are related to your niche market, or a market blog that would find interest in your products. While you are there, show an interest in their blogs and leave some comments. Before long, there will be traffic to your blog, as they return the favor as well as other surfers who come across your link web blog link embedded in your comment post. It is natural to build up online friendships, take the link for their blog, post it in yours, and then ask them for a link back to your own blog. This works like a partnership of sorts for web traffic surfing the internet.

• Visit the Blog Community

It is both reassuring and wonderful to visit with a community of people each day. You want to be visible and active in your blogging community, you want to draw interesting attention and have others who visit your blogging community to talk about you and your services. Keep everything as upbeat as possible while visiting with your blogging community as it is in your best interest to do so. You see the other bloggers are not going to your blog because you have great quality content; rather they go there for the community participation in commenting on what you have written as well as any other contributor’s comments. All successful blogs have a success trail of being able to create a topic that keeps people interested and talking or arguing about something.

• Building Your List

A subscriber list is the most essential fundamental in marketing your service. You must build your list with an active communication with your visitors. You will need to write articles that are rich with unique content in the form of newsletters, ezines or ebooks for your website visitors. Take some time to read up on the many articles offered online about building your list.

• Credibility

For anyone to seriously consider, returning to a blog, they will need to be able to see and understand the sincerity of credibility, from whoever is speaking. Gaining credibility is easy since you can borrow the credibility from experts in your niche market. All you have to do is your research. Ask questions and read. It is that simple.

• Promote, Promote, Promote

If you have, the assurance for success and many people do. As they carry within themselves the committed passion to their success online. They take responsibility upon themselves and do the work that needs to be done. Then they go about promoting their blog whether they are offline or online, makes no difference, they do it. Remember as a marketer you always do the most important thing first and that is in the promotion of your blog.

Although WordPress is software for blogging, some individuals are also using it as a Content Management System. However, many plugins can be useful as a CMS. WordPress is highly recommended it you just want to blog on it and it is easily installed through your C-Panel. To install WordPress, please follow these instructions.

1. Login.

2. Click on Fantastico Link. 

3. Under Blogs click on WordPress. 

4. Click on New Installation.

5. The next page requires you to fill in the details for WordPress. I will walk you through each field. 

Installation Location – Install on Domain

Install in Directory – If you want WordPress to install in the Root Directory then you leave this field blank. If you would like to place it in its own directory, you will enter the name of the new directory here. As long as there is no existing directory, you can name it anything you want.

Admin Access Data – Drop down the box and select the domain where you want to install WordPress.

Administrator-Username – Enter the Username that you will use to access the Admin Panel.

Password – Enter the password that you will use to access the Admin Panel.

Base configuration

Admin Nickname – This name will display when you post a blog.

Admin Email – Enter your email address in this field.

Site Name – This Name will display at the top of your web pages.

Description – Enter a short description of your site.

E-mail Account Configuration

Here you will set up an email account so that you can send and receive email through the WordPress program.

E-mail Account Username – Create and enter a username.

E-mail Account Password – Enter a password.

The other two fields should be filled in. If they are not then type in the following:

POP/SMTP server – Your domain name goes in this field.

POP/SMTP server port – type in 110

6. Now, click the Install WordPress button.

7. Click on the Finish Installation button.

WordPress has been successfully installed. The last page will offer you your username and password to access the admin area. It will also give you the URL to access your admin panel. You should print this page out or bookmark it.

Are you trying to choose between WordPress or Joomla? It is a hard choice to make. I have tried both. I first began with Blogger and then soon moved onto WordPress once I was able to get my paid web hosting up and running. Since then I have discovered Joomla and I have been using it ever since, however, the question remains, WordPress or Joomla?

More than likely, there are thousands of bloggers or aspiring bloggers that would like to start their own online blog and make money. Many of them do rely on WordPress and for good reason.

WordPress

WordPress is easy to install and use. When you rent your own web host, they will generally have a list of free to use software available for installing and use. You will find WordPress among them. It only takes a few minutes to install and then it is ready for your use. To add additional functions and features with WordPress, you will require some technical or IT skills. You will also have the use of readily available free templates, which are found just about anywhere online.

However, WordPress does have a limit with adding some new functions as well as extras. Moreover, you really do not have complete control of your content management, since sometimes you may want to keep a post on top, without the function to support it.

 
WordPress is also limited from adding functions when editing the template’s HTML source codes. When you re-edit a new template to add additional functions, you will have to change the template to a new one. However, there may be other ways to do this.

Joomla

It does take some time to learn and master Joomla, as it will normally take a few hours to do so. However, this software may only suit those who are experienced bloggers with a moderate understanding of HTML.

The content management of Joomla is awesome and you can easily add new functions. You also have full control over the appearance and the content of your website. However, awesome Joomla is it does pose a few problems. For instance, their coding uses too many frames that may not display properly in some browsers. Once I received complaints from a forum when I asked them for a blog review, as some individuals claimed that the text was not readable from their browser. In addition, some to the overly complicated coding in most of the templates did not pass the WC3’s XHTML tests. I received literally, hundreds of flawed codes.

Keep in mind that some of the templates that are downloaded might not work correctly and may very well negatively affect other functions such as when embedding a YouTube video. Text editor functions may also be interrupted when using these templates.

In addition, you may notice that when using Joomla, a website with many posts or article content may begin to take a long time function correctly. In addition, it may seem to take a long time to upload your photos or add an article, than you expect.

Of course, these lists can go on, however I am still using Joomla and enjoy it very much, so I will stick with it until something better is developed.

Get Joomla or Wordpress and enjoy! This choice is really yours.

Spammers find WordPress to be one of its prime targets. Spammers love to get on our websites and start posting away their spam messages. If you have a blog, you have more than likely already been spammed. Most Spammers have software that does all their dirty work for them. It can be very frustrating to endure an attack of spamming trolls.

There is no need use up all your precious time trying to delete all the negative comments from your WordPress blog one by one. Instead, I offer you the directions for deleting them all at once. 

Yes, it is irritating to have to take care of; however, this can save you a great deal of time, especially if you have received many spam messages.

Yet before you can delete them, you will have to set those particular comments up, so that you approve them, before they even appear on your website. To do this, follow these simple steps.

1. Login. 

2. Click on Options at the top of your WordPress window.

3. Under Options, Click on Discussion.

4.  Find on that page – Before a comment appears: 

5. Check, An administrator must approve the comment (regardless of any matches below).

6. Click Update Options. 

You have just setup your comments option so that no one can send a message through, without it being moderated for spam.

To delete the comments follow these steps.

1. Login. 

2. Click on Manage.

3. Click on Awaiting Moderation.

4. To delete all, scroll to the bottom and click Mark all for Deletion. 

5. Click Moderate Comments.

This will delete them all.

If there are any you do not want deleted uncheck them before clicking Moderate Comments. As you can go through and keep certain comments by clicking the button of your choice. Each comment offers the options of Approve, Defer until later as well as Delete and Spam.

The choice is yours, which comments you would like to keep, and which comments you want to delete. I do hope that this tutorial is helpful to you.