I have been asked on a few occasions what plugins I use on my blog and the following is a list of all that I have installed.  Some have been installed for a long time and others only recently on recommendations I have been given by other bloggers.

Akismet – This one I installed right from the beginning to try and reduce the spam comments.  Akismet checks your incoming comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and then holds them for your attention.

All in One Adsense and YPN – This inserts Adsense or YPN code in your blog posts.  You can set the ad position to random or pre-defined.

All in One SEO Pack. – Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog, helps to optimise your blog for ranking with the search engines.

Dashboard Google Page Rank – Shows your Google pagerank on the Wordpress dashboard.  Mine is currently 1 on a scale of 0 -10.  I am told that 1 is pretty reasonable considering that I pay no attention to selecting keywords for optimisation of my blog.  Some of the experts only get a page rank of 4, 5 or 6.

Google Analyticator – Adds the necessary Javascript code to enable Google’s Analytics to operate.

Google XML Sitemaps - This plugin a sitemaps.org compatable sitemap of your wordpress blog which is supported by a number of the search engines.

My Blog Press Ping Optimizer – This saves your wordpress from getting tagged as a ping spammer.

My Tag Cloud – A widget to show your first 5 most popular tags on a list with the rest in a drop down menu.

New User Approve – This allows the administrator of your blog to approve users once they register.  Only approved users can access the blog.  I have found this helps to stop spammers taking over your blog and posting to it.

Nofollow Reciprocity – Searches for links to sites using ‘nofollow’ tags for external links and puts the same tag on links to those sites.  This means you are not going to link to sites who do not link back to your blog.

Page SEO – Display the Google pagerank of each page of your blog on one page.  This one I may deactivate as I have yet to find the page it puts the pageranks on.

Simple CAPTCHA – This prevent automatic systems from commenting on your posts and thus helps to prevent spam.  Since I installed this plugin Akismet has not picked up any spam comments at all.

Sociable – Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites.

Traffic Getting SEO Plugin TM Free - This finds the best free EO plugins available for wordpress and then optimises their settings so you don’t have to.  Saves you time and helps get you more traffic.

Twitter Counter – Places a twitter counter badge on your blog to display the number of followers you have on twitter.

Twitter Tools – A complete integration between your wordpress blog and twitter.  Bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to twitter all on autopilot.

Wordpress Database Backup – On demand backup of your wordpress database.

Wordpress Video PLugin - A filter for wordpress that displaye videos from a large number of video hosting sites.

WP Spam Free - An extremely powerful anti-spam plugin that virtually eliminates comment spam. I installed this at the same time as I installed the CAPTCHA plugin.

WP Auto Tagger – Automatically finds tags based on your post content.

WP Calais Auto Tagger – Suggests tags for your posts based on semantic analysis of your post content.  Both this plugin and the previous plugin save you having to try and decide what tags you should be using.

WP Easy Uploader – Easily upload any type of content withour the need for FTP.  You can even upload new plugins and themes directly from their zip files and have the files automatically extract into the plugin or theme folder.

WP Security Scan – Perform a security scan of your wordpress installation.

There are thousands more plugins available to enable you to customise your wordpress blog to suit your personal needs.  Some of thes I installed after having my blog hijacked and my password changed so that I had difficulty logging in and doing anything on my blog.

I have also noticed that some of the other students from the fortunate 500 also had their blogs attacked and hope that this post will help them prevent future attacks.  Any and all non spam comments welcome.

My e-book is in its final proofing stage at the moment and I expect it to be available very soon.

Richard

I have spent quite some time trying to get some plugins added to my blog. although they do appear in the wp content/plugins folder on my website they do not appear in the list of available plugins in the admin area here.  Anyone any suggestions?

I have moved the list of Alex Jeffrey’s students to a separate page as I now have over 120 listed.  Click the page Alex Jeffrey’s students and you can see them all.  If you are not in the list let me know and I will add you to it.

The names without Blog Links beside them are ones where the link I had did not work, if this is your link please check it out and if you wish to have the link added just let me know.

I have added a list of my other websites in the right hand column.  If any of the products interest you simply click on the title to go to the website for more information.

Have you joined the Fortunate 500 social network yet?  The last time I checked there were only 30 of the 500 students as members.  If you are not one of the few who have already signed up you should do so as soon as you possibly can.

Richard

Thomas Northrop has launched a social site for all of Alex’s students. You can sign up at

http://www.fortunate500.ning.com

I think it is a great idea and we can all ask questions and get answers to our problems without having to trawl through up to 500 blogs to see if anyone else has had the same problem answered already.

Richard

To Succeed With Social Bookmarking And To Get

Your SiteTo Go Viral You Will Need To

Follow These Simple Steps

1. Write Something Of Interest to Other People

If no one cares about your content even though you may have the best information for example on how to make and decorate a snowman. If no one is interested in what you are writing about, you will not get read much or get picked up socially. If you have written something that others like you will go viral.

2. Start off using Twitter

Those who have never used the service overlook twitter.  If you’ve haven’t tried Twitter why not give it a go. You can follow what others are doing and allow others to follow you. Ideally pick people to follow who are in your own market. You can sign up free at www.twitter.com

3. Tell Your Friends on Facebook

Do you have a Facebook presence? If not sign up for one at www.facebook.com again it is free. If you then ask all your Twitter followers to become your Facebook friends they in turn may bring loads more people to become your Facebook friends.

4.     Use The Social Bookmarking Sites

In this I mean sites like Stumble www.stumbleupon.com Digg www.digg.com Blog Catalogue www.blogcatalog.com My Blog Log www.mybloglog.com This can be the biggest source of traffic to your blog or website and will continue to drive users to it. If you are promoting anything web based spreading the word on the social bookmarks is essential.

5. Share Your New Post With Like Minded People

If you have written something that people would like to read make sure that you inform them of it. E.g. for a Twitter post for this article could be “New post about Social Bookmarking and how to go Viral go to www.richardmoloneyblog.com for details.”

There are probably many more ways to spread the word but I haven’t learnt them yet. If any readers wish to comment and add more detail there please do.

There are professionals out there who can assist in the above for a price.

I hope this is helpful to you all.

Richard