Before we get to the good stuff, it’s important to touch on some of the issues which negatively impact your SEO and resulting traffic. The following are issues I encounter almost all of the time (and mostly because the blog owner does not realize the following issues).

Negative SEO Issues:

• Make sure you retain the services of a professional web hosting provider. If the server hosting your account is often unavailable, that means Googlebot also cannot access it. The more often this occurs, the less traffic will be referred to you (because your blog will not be as prominent in search results, as it could be).

• Don’t participate in “keyword stuffing” when writing your content. Keyword stuffing is the action of adding keywords to your content, beyond what  in context, renders as reasonable. Excessive repetition of any particular word or phrasing via  content description, title tags, (any other) meta tags and the post content tends to raise a red flag with the search engines. Read what Google has to say about keyword stuffing and if you have suffered a negative as a result, you can resubmit your blog (after fixing the issues first) for consideration.

• Do not link to or exchange links with lower quality spam or splog sites. To be quite blunt, doing this associates (and places) your blog in a bad neighbourhood. Here is a direct quote from Google:

…Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links…

• Don’t duplicate your content or the content of another blog or web site. Distinctive and original, in demand content will serve you best. Copying content from another source, even with permission, is nothing more than a copy. The original site with the original copy will garner search engine traffic – Not the copied content.

Blogs Links and SEO:

In my opinion, an important aspect of improving your blog’s value (to Google as well as readers) is ensuring valuable (high ranking) inbound links point to your blog – and that you in turn link (outbound) to valuable, relevant content. Below are some of the aspects I’d commonly advise and blog (or site) owner.

• Allow your links to develop some age. The older a link is, generally, the more circulated it becomes. Old, well established links are ideal for your blog.

• The popularity of the inbound link also has a positive effect on your ranking. For example, a blog with a PR (Page Rank) of 6 provides more benefit that one that has a PR of 3. But don’t rule out the value of lower PR inbound links. I’d enjoy the value of one or two hundred inbound links from a PR3 blog anytime. So what I’m I suggesting? Consider the value of the inbound links by also examining their PR. One tool I use to accomplish this is a Firefox plugin called SEOQuake. It’s a simple tool that allows you to see the page rank of any site you wish. You get get the plugin directly from Mozilla’s SeoQuake SEO extension page.

• One thing (you may have less control over) is the anchor text of the inbound link. Anchor text is the text used for the link itself and… the text immediately surrounding it. That text should be relevant to the content it is linking too. Anchor text of “Baking” pointing to a page about painting is just not going to work well.

• Again, remember that outbound links are important. According to Google’s official blog “Linking out: Often it’s just applying common sense“.

Your Blog and Your Domain:

Many are not aware that your domain name registration now appears to have an effect on your SEO.  To backtrack, in 2005, Google’s patent application specifically addressed this issue by saying:

“…Domains can be renewed up to a period of 10 years. Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith…”

• So it is probably a good idea to register your domain name for a longer period (than just 1 or 2 years). Incidentally, you can read United States Patent Application #20050071741. The gist of the pertinent sections of that patent application allude to the following additional issues for domain SEO:

“…the age, or other information, regarding a name server associated with a domain may be used to predict the legitimacy of the domain. A “good” name server may have a mix of different domains from different registrars and have a history of hosting those domains, while a “bad” name server might host mainly pornography or doorway domains, domains with commercial words (a common indicator of spam), or primarily bulk domains from a single registrar, or might be brand new. The newness of a name server might not automatically be a negative factor in determining the legitimacy of the associated domain, but in combination with other factors, such as ones described herein, it could be…”

• This essentially suggests that Name Servers (DNS) hosting your domain record is better contaning  a mix of different domains from different registrars. It appears Google considers this “Good”.

Finally, further advice is to ensure that you keep your domain on focus. For example, if your domain name contains keywords such as trees, weddings, real estate, law, or some other topic; ensure that your content is specific to the subject matter that your domain name suggests. If for example, you plan on launching content that is not directly related to the subject of the domain, then it may be advisable to launch it under a domain name that is more suited to the subject matter.

Keywords:

One aspect I think most of us are aware of is the issue of keywords. Specifically that we should place appropriate keywords in our document Meta Tags. (What is a keyword meta tag? – You can find out by reading Phil Bradley’s  “Meta tags – what, where, when, why?“). However did you know that the Meta tags for keyword, description and so forth do not have the effect they once did? Quite frankly, in my opinion they are a waste of time, and only useful for smaller search engines or directories, etc. that still use them – Which is why I still use meta tags.

In my opinion the only valuable use of keywords is to place the within your content! The post from Search Engine Watch, “How To Use HTML Meta Tags” says it best with their quote “Meta tags are not a magic solution”.

If you produce valuable content, Google and other search engines will be able to gather all they keyword information without any coded directions (such as meta tags).

SEO Tools for Your Blog:

In order to facilitate better SEO, there are some blog tools (WordPress plugins) that I use (and which you may want to put to good use as well). Two of the best free ones (in my opinion are:

• All in One SEO Pack provides automated (SEO) out of the box. Specifically, it takes care of titles, descriptions, keywords and duplicate content.
• Google XML Sitemaps generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap for your blog. This helps googlebot better crawl your blog. It reduces the crawl time and improves speed.

In conclusion, I’d like to remind everyone who is new to SEO (and blogging). The focus should be to provide quality and in demand content. Having said this, don’t misunderstand me. Quality content is critical (that what readers are looking for) – But quality content isn’t the “key” to blog success. However, this is another topic for another day; which I have touched on in an earlier post Quality Content is Not “The” Key to a Blog Success.

Before I forget, there is one tool I really should mention, it’s the Canonical URL’s plugin. What this does is help resolve the issue of someone visiting your blog using a different URL. This is also common fro individuals who have registered more that one domain, but have them all pointing to one hosting account. Because they are different domains, this could suggest “Duplicate Content” – Not good. To learn a bit more, check out the Google video below:

What issues have you encountered with regards to Blog SEO? What do you do that I didn’t include here? Have a thought? A comment? Let us know below! – Cheers!

Well, there’s a hook to this story, some time ago I touched on the subject of disaster recovery with an earlier post about saving your data when disaster strikes. In that post we explored the issue of software and hardware solutions. In my case I invested in an affordable network storage unit. It’s a proactive solution because all my data is regularly duplicated (automatically – I don’t have to do anything) to the network accessible storage unit. After reinstalling a robust operating system (this was my last remaining Windows based PC, now every PC is Linux – Including this one), all I had to do was copy the data back off the storage unit. It even had all my email, email settings, folders, calender, etc. (I was using Thunderbird as the email client as I found I could do much more with it than with other email clients – But that’s simply my opinion).

The point of my post? Don’t negate the probability of a disaster, prepare for it now, to avoid pain later. In my case I was fortunate in that I’m a heavy user of social media to support my business, that and the contributers for some of my other blogs was an issue that kept further stress at bay. Additionally, all blogs (your’s included) should also have an automated backup system. In the case of blogging, your (self hosted) wordpress based blog can make good use of  the WP-DBManager plugin. It (as described by the developer):

“…Manages your WordPress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database…”

In my case, the automatic backup feature is in use, in fact all databases of all my blogs are regularly emailed to a central (external) email account. Therefore, if the server itself goes down and the backups (on another server) also happen to go down as well, the database backups are still available. An additional note is that the backup unit I installed for my PC’s will also access the Internet (automatically) and download backup copies of my web sites. (Not bad for a little box!)

Don’t get me wrong, being without my main computer for a few days (because the operating system and applications needed to be installed) was inconvenient, I felt secure and stress free as the valuable data of my business and client blogs and/or web sites was safeguarded.

Again, not to belabour the issue, but to those reading this post (and to clients reading this post), please do seriously consider obtaining an automated, network attached data storage unit. When disaster decides to pay you a visit, you’ll be glad to took the proactive approach!

Have you had a disaster? What were some of the issues you faced? What types of solutions have you used (or are considering). Comment below and share in the discussion.

The #1 strategy to garnering more traffic to your blog is:

“Write good quality, in-demand content“. (Remember you are writing too people, not at them).

And of course some of the activities I successfully use are:

• Use social networking tools such as: StumbleUpon. Run an advertising campaign via StumbleUpon. Use twitter. Ensure you provide tweets of value and customize your twitter page to match the branding of your blog. Never complain needlessly on twitter (do you want to spend your day with a whining sour-puss?) Invite people to follow you on twitter.  You may find my earlier post “Common Blog Traffic Sources?” to be of interest – Hint… Google is NOT my biggest traffic source .
• Include information about your blog in the signature of every email you send (including the URL).
• Use subscription systems on your blog. Plugins such as Comment Approved Notifier and Subscribe2 can help you accomplish this. More useful plugins can be found in the post “25 Most Beneficial WordPress Plugins“.
• Enhance your update services. When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the site update services you configured. Here is a robust list of 145 Update Services for Blogs.
• Use your blog information and URL in forum signatures.
• Comment on other blogs. However, don’t comment just for the sake of obtaining a link, doing so is often very obvious, instead, provide valuable feedback, thoughts and ideas.
• eMail readers and thank them for visiting.
• Post new, quality content regularly. Doing so keeps readers interested and momentum going. Additionally, ensure you provide valuable links to external resources as well as those within your blog.
• Trust your readers. Often it is very annoying (and a bit of a turn off) to wait for comment approval every single time, when they participate (comment) on your blog. Instead, it may be better to “lift the embargo” for those who have provided valuable comments before. If a comment from those individuals is inappropriate, you can always edit or remove it later.
• Use lists on your blog. Lists are attractive as they are scannable,  easy to use and link to; and easy to add to later.

I’ve been following a fair bit of the happenings in the blogsphere (and for me some of them are new). Of note is the changing landscape where word of mouth seems to be successful whereas viral marketing appears to be waning.

Most importantly, we’d like to know what some of the new strategies are, that you use or recommend. How do you approach them? What do you do or recommend? What’s your perspective in new blog promotion strategies? Comment below. Also, for a bit of link love, comments added to this post will have the no-follow tag removed as I move them into the post with your credit. So… don’t be shy.

In my opinion, one issue is to maintain your own server. Do not host your blog on a shared server hosting account. Shared hosting accounts mean just that – other people (whom you don’t know) also have accounts on the same server, it can increase the likelihood of an incident. To give you one simple example, I was using a shared server for a quick small web site development project about six years ago. The hosting company had some issues with the server and left it in an unprotected state (they were working on it at the time). I remember logging in (via FTP) that afternoon and had full access to the files of every single account! I terminated my service the same afternoon. Using a dedicated server (or at the very least a VPS server) avoids such issues as you are in control of your own server.

All too often it seems we are so involved in how to grow, promote, enhance, etc. our blogs, yet seldom do we give serious thought to safeguarding our valuable investment.

Having said this, the question remains, for most of us (who are not network administrators), what can we do to help avoid (being proactive is more effective than reactive) security related issues? The following six tips should help you. Some may require a little more knowledge, but they are pretty easy steps to take. So, without further ado, here are the helpful tips:

1) Make sure you ALWAYS have an off-site backup.

I use a plugin called WP-DBManager, which emails me a scheduled backup of my database and also store several versions on my server. I should note that these database backups in turn are backed up by the server based software. The critical point here is that you have a CURRENT copy of your database (and blog files) offline in YOUR possession. Never ever assume that the server software (backup) is working as expected.

2) Keep your blog software updated – Always.

Updates often include bug and security fixes that plug potential exploits. One good feature of WordPress for example is that the administrative area will tell you when an update is available. It’s a simple matter to backup all your data and files, perform the update and continue blogging. If needed, you can find the update (upgrade) steps directly from WordPress’ post “Upgrading WordPress“.

3) Change your password – Do so often.

When you forget your WordPress password (or have just installed WordPress), it sends you a password. That password is short and fairly easy to crack – Change it to something more difficult. Also, there is a plugin you can use to help you lock out visitors who are trying to guess your password (to break into the administrative area), it’s called Login LockDown. Login LockDown will lock out the IP addresses of incorrect password submissions for whatever time period you choose.

4) Disable indexing of your files.

Search engines do not need to index all your WordPress files. Use a robots.txt file to disable such indexing. SImply add the statement:

Disallow: /wp-*

to your robots.txt file. The above statement tells the search engines that any directory beginning with “wp-” should not be indexed.

5) Disable viewing of your folders.

Anyone attempting to access your system may be able to see your files (such as plugins). In your web browser, try to visit your wordpress plugins by going to:

http://www. Your-Domain-Name.com/wp-content/plugins

If you can see a list of files and/or directories, that’s not good. You can create an index page that redirects visitors trying to see those directories, back your blog. Here is the code I use:


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://bloggersavvy.com/" />
<title>Nothing Here</title>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>


Name the file “index.html” and place a copy of it (with the above code) in your plugins folder. Now if you try to view the contents of the plugin folder, you will be redirected to your blog’s home page. Note: Obviously, you will want to substitute the URL of my blog for your own. This tip is important because it prevents authorized visitors from inspecting your plugins and finding an exploit.

6) Deny access to your administrator login.

I use an .htaccess (among other things) to accomplish this. An .htaccess file allows me to customize how a folder is “treated”. In this case I want to deny access to all IP addresses except my own. If you find one day that you are locked out, simply edit the .htaccess file and re-upload it the the “wp-admin” folder of WordPress.

Here is an example of the code I use:

AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Access Control"
AuthType Basic
<LIMIT GET>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 206.138.140.97
</LIMIT>

Again, change the IP address to your own. Don’t know your IP address? I’ve included a handy tool below. It does not store any data, it just shows you your current IP address (which means everyone else will only see their own IP address below). You can use this post whenever you quickly want to see your current (new) IP address:

This is your connection:
(For the technically adept, these addresses are not logged by the script that displays the IP address above, it simply finds the variable “REMOTE_ADDR” and displays it to you).

While there are several more advanced things network administrators can do to help protect your blog, the above are six simple tips that you may implement as soon as possible. Have any input, ideas, questions? Feel free to include them in your comments below.

• Enhanced blog visitor experience.
• Increased traffic and blog promotion.
• Improved security and blog performance.
• Simplified blog management and productivity.
• Better visitor communication.
• More effective search engine optimization.
• Greater integration with popular Internet communities and services.

In my post “Why Every Business Can Benefit From a Blog“, I discussed some of the tangible benefits inherent to businesses and people who maintain a blog. How blogs can improve your business growth. These plugins further enhance the effectiveness and usability of your blog.

All these plugins work with WordPress 2.6.3. Without further ado, below is my top 25, most beneficial plugins list (in alphabetical order).

1) Admin Management Xtended

Extends admin functionality by introducing: toggling post/page visibility inline, changing page order with drag and drop, inline category management, inline tag management, changing publication date inline, changing post slug inline, toggling comment status open/closed, hide draft posts, change media order, change media description inline, toggling link visibility, changing link categories.

Why I like it:

I can manage page/post visibility, order and more all from one single page – Easy and fast! It improves productivity.

Where to get it:

For WordPress 2.5+ only. http://www.schloebe.de/wordpress/admin-management-xtended-plugin/#english

2) Akismet

It checks each comment visitors type on your blog against the Akismet web service. If any of them appear to be spam, they are automatically marked as spam and automatically deleted after one month.

Why I like it:v

Automated spam removal and blocking. I don’t spend time filtering out spam. It keeps blog comments spam free, which improves visitor experience and reduce blog administration.

Where to get it:

It’s automatically included in the source files for WordPress. You just need to get a WordPress.com API key for it to work.

3) All in One SEO Pack

It automatically improves each post or page SEO by improving Titles, Descriptions, Keywords and Duplicate Content issues on a per post basis.

Why I like it:

You can leave it running on automatic, or more importantly tweak the SEO aspects of each page or post individually as you create and publish content. Also, you can return latter and make tweaks to improve SEO performance for each page. It helps build more targeted search engine traffic.

Where to get it:

http://semperfiwebdesign.com/portfolio/wordpress/wordpress-plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

4) Avatars

Makes it simple to include local Avatars. WordPress (from version 2.5) includes native support for global avatars. But, what about adding local (private) avatars for your users? Maybe your users don’t want a global avatar or are not able to set a gravatar up.

Why I like it:

It makes setting up user Avatars a snap. Avatars are a good way to not only add a bit of artistic flair to a blog, but more importantly to make it easier to spot comments from a specific individual (as his or her avatar will always be the same).

Where to get it:v

http://www.sterling-adventures.co.uk/blog/2008/03/01/avatars-plugin/

5) Better Comments Manager

Better Comments manager allows you to view your comments post wise, it also allows you to reply to your comments from within admin panel without you having to visit the site to respond to comments.

Why I like it:

Simple comment management and response from one page. Again, it improves productivity in that I can communicate with visitors (responding to comments and questions) from one page.

Where to get it:

http://techie-buzz.com/wordpress-plugins/better-comments-manager-wordpress-plugin-release.html

6) Better Howdy

Removes the “Howdy” and restructure the “Howdy” line in the administrative interface.

Why I like it:

We don’t say “Howdy” where I live, that’s lame. Also It provides better links and information (logged in user) on the Howdy line.

Where to get it:v

http://sivel.net/2008/10/better-howdy/

7) cforms

It’s a very flexible tool to deploy contact (and other) forms across your blog. It supports captcha, Spam protection, tracking and more. It was be a bit tricky for me to get working properly.

Why I like it:

It made the building of my contact page very easy as I needed a captcha feature to filter out spam messages emailed to me. It save me time.

Where to get it:

http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin

8) Chunk Urls for WordPress

Shortens URLs in comments so that they won’t break your site design.

Why I like it:

Keeps things neat and professional looking. Shortens URLs automatically. An readers don’t see excessively long URLs in comments.

Where to get it:

http://www.village-idiot.org/archives/2006/06/29/wp-chunk/

9) Comment Approved Notifier

Sends an email to your commenter when you approve their comment.

Why I like it:

It allows me to communicate with readers. They see their comment was approved and are invited to return. Also, it’s automatic! That way, a reader can return and add more if they wish, or follow up on responses.

Where to get it:

http://www.yakupgovler.com/?p=291

10) Dashboard Editor

Allows you to edit the dashboard in the administrative interface.

Why I like it:
Keeps the dashboard clean, only showing what I really need to see.

Where to get it:

http://anthologyoi.com/plugins

11) FD Feedburner Plugin

Redirects to feeds to Feedburner.

Why I like it:

I can change the location of my feed without losing subscribers. Browser friendly and keeps count of my subscribers.

Where to get it:

http://flagrantdisregard.com/feedburner/

12) Google XML Sitemaps

Generates a sitemap which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and Yahoo. Each time you add a page or post, it regenerates the sitemap and then pings (notifies) the search engines to tell them you have updated content.

Why I like it:

It’s automated and I can also tweak the post priorities, change frequencies, etc. I can even exclude specific posts or pages from the sitemap. it’s a nice tool to let Google know the blog is “alive”.

Where to get it:

http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/

13) MySpace Crossposter

It enables automatic crossposting from your blog to Myspace.

Why I like it:

It’s automatic, I don’t have to keep manually logging into Myspace to add blog my posts. It’s a good to to help build blog traffic.

Where to get it:

http://noumenon.roderickrussell.com/wordpress-to-myspace-auto-crossposting

14) Register Plus

Enhances your blog’s Registration Page. You can add a custom Logo, password field, invitation codes, disclaimers, captcha validation, email validation, user moderation, profile fields and more.

Why I like it:

In addition to branding the registration/login to be consistent with the blog theme, it also avoids duplicate email registration. A big plus is that it also helps build blog traffic via the use of invitations, etc.

Where to get it:

WordPress 2.5+ only. http://skullbit.com/wordpress-plugin/register-plus/

15) Simple Tags

Extends the tagging in your blog.  Includes autocompletion, suggested tags, tag cloud widgets, related posts, mass edit tags, etc.

Why I like it:

When posting, I don’t have to manually type all the tags, just click the pertinent ones. If a tag does not exist, I can add it on the fly. It drives the tag cloud automatically – Simple to use! It’s another nice way to help promote to search engines. Viewing the tag cloud gives visitors an idea of the busiest topics on your blog.

Where to get it:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-tags

16) Sociable

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

Why I like it:

It does not slow your site down like some other related plugins do. I tested several of them and some of the better ones were very slow as they always connected to another web site first. This plugin is fast (local) and inobtrusive. It’s a great way to help get more exposure on some of the social sites, to let people know you have content they may be interested in. It can also be disabled on specific posts if need.

Where to get it:

http://yoast.com/wordpress/sociable/

17) Subscribe2

Notifies an email list of subscribed visitors when new entries are posted. Visitors can subscribe or unsubscribe to be notified at any time.

Why I like it:

It helps busy visitors with time management. Why visit a blog to see if there’s new content when you can be notified? Granted, another option is to use RSS, but I’ve found that email (like newsletters) is a great way to keep in touch and let visitors know what’s happening, and not everyone uses RSS. It’s also a traffic builder.

Where to get it:

http://subscribe2.wordpress.com/

18) Twitme

Automatically tweets your new posts on the twitter.

Why I like it:

Again, it’s an automatic cross poster, but more importantly, helps you keep in touch with your community and build traffic by letting twitter users know there is content of value for them.

Where to get it:

http://www.phpvrouwen.nl/twitme

19) WP-DBManager

Manages your WordPress database. Allows you to optimize the database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.

Why I like it:

It improves my blog’s security by automatically emailing me a backup of my database every day. I don’t even have to do anything, just set it up and it runs. That’s a nice feature. If something happens, I can simply go to me email and restore the most recent database. You and your visitors don’t lose a lot of valuable content.

Where to get it:

http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-dbmanager

20) WP-PostRatings

Adds an AJAX rating system for your WordPress blog’s post/page.

Why I like it:

It allows visitors to rate content, which helps you to see what is most in demand. As such, you’re better able to provide the content that visitors want. In a way, it’s another traffic building tool.

Where to get it:

http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-postratings

21) WP-PostRatings Widget

Works in conjunction with WP-PostRatings above. Displays the most rated and/or highest rated posts and/or pages on your sidebar.

Why I like it:

It helps visitors queue into the most highly rated content. It helps them find the hotest content right away.

Where to get it:

Remember to install and activate WP-PostRatings first. http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-postratings

22) WP-Sticky

Adds a sticky post feature to your WordPress’s blog.

Why I like it:

I can display announcement and sticky posts only when viewing categories or not. I can display an announcement banner or display the date instead of the announcement banner (on announcement posts).

Where to get it:

http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-sticky

23) WP Super Cache

It’s a very fast caching module to help improve blog performance. Why have the server create your pages every time there’s a visitor? This plugin will cache previously created pages, to speed up surfing through your blog.

Why I like it:

I can turn it on or off as needed (even partially on). I can specify how long to keep cached content for. I can even prepare the blog for an expected spike in traffic by enabling the lock down feature. When this is enabled, new comments on a post will not refresh the cached static files. The lockdown feature is only useful if you are expecting a major Digg or Slashdot level of traffic to one of your posts or pages.

Where to get it:

http://ocaoimh.ie/wp-super-cache/

24) Wordbook

Allows you to cross post your blog posts to your Facebook Wall. Your Facebook “Boxes” tab will show your most recent blog posts.

Why I like it:

It’s automated and helps build traffic while letting Facebook visitors know when valuable content has been posted.

Where to get it:

http://www.tsaiberspace.net/blog/2007/07/29/wordbook/

25) Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Returns a list of the related entries under each blog post,  (based on a unique algorithm) using titles, post bodies, tags and categories; with RSS feed support.

Why I like it:

It easily helps visitors find other content that may be of interest to them, and it’s also works automatically.

Where to get it:

http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/

Again, these are the 25 I’ve found to be most beneficial not just to this blog, but others as well. Of course there are tons of other WordPress plugins that benefit us. Have a suggestion? Use a good plugin that I’ve not listed? Please, include the links in your comments below.

Update:

I’ve tested another plugin and it’s working great. It’s called What Would Seth Godin Do.

Why I like it:

It displays a custom welcome message to new visitors and another to return visitors; and I can place it at the top of posts and pages. I also like it because it automatic. (I like automated tools). Needless to say, it’s a good tool to promote features on a site, inform visitors, make announcements and lots of other benefits.

Where to get it:

http://richardkmiller.com/wordpress-plugin-what-would-seth-godin-do