How Do I Set Up A Blog – Favorite Plugins
In the last section of How Do I Set Up A Blog we discussed themes and uploaded the theme that was going to be used for the Teenage Obesity blog. First of all let me remind you that I am not a seasoned expert. I have been blogging for a while and had moderate success. I am continuously searching for and reading about better ways of making money by blogging. As I have done up until now I will continue to share with you good information that I find including links to the sites of those where I continue to find information that has been helpful to me. I also look forward to your sharing so that we can help each other.
There are a lot of free plugins available for WordPress. Here are a few that I have found that are helpful for Money Making blogs. These are the plugins that I am going to be adding to the Teenage Obesity site at this time. In the future other good plugins will be discussed as I come across them and try them. If you now have or find some favorite plugins be sure to share that information. A quick check out the WordPress plugin directory will give you an idea of the many free plugins out there.
All in One SEO Pack: This plugin is used to optimize your site for search engines. Once you have installed and activated the plugin you will set it up.
Once the plugin has been uploaded go to the Admin panel of your WordPress site, and click on plugins, which is found at the top of the page. Locate the All In One SEO Pack and click on the word activate which is located on the right hand side of the screen. Once activated the box on the plugin page will now turn green. Now to configure the SEO pack you will go to settings and follow the directions below. These directions show what an expert has taught me to do and others may do it differently.
- Home Title: Enter the main keyword or keyword phrase you are going to target.
- Home Description: This is a short statement about the site.
- Home Keywords: List your main keyword or phrase along with a few others.
- Rewrite Titles: Leave box unchecked.
- Post Title Format, Page Title Format, Category Title Format, Archive Title Format, Tag Title Format, Search Title Format, Description Format, 404 Title Format and Paged Format leave all of them set up as they are.
Use Categories for Meta Keywords: Leave blank.
The following unchecked boxes allow the pages to be indexed.
- Use noindex for Categories: Leave box unchecked.
- Use noindex for Archives: Uncheck.
- Use noindex for Tag Archives: Leave box unchecked.
- Autogenerate Descriptions: Leave checked. By checking a meta description is created for each post page. While I get lost in all of this technical talk I only know that this is something good.
Additional Post Headers, Additional Home Headers, Log important events: Leave all of these blank
Finish by clicking Update Options.
Don’t ask me why I have configured The All In One SEO Pack this way? All I can tell you is that this is how I was told how to do it and the information entered now fills in the HTML Title Tag at the top of your blog with the keyword. On posts it creates an HTML tag out of the post titles and places the post title first, and then the title of your blog or main keyword depending upon the information you have placed in the Blog Title section of the WordPress setup. My own preference is to have my keyword in that area. The way this is done is to go to WP Settings and in the Blog Title box place your blog place your main keyword (phrase) that you want to target instead of the blog title. Working in conjunction with the SEO Pack it places the main keyword instead of the blog title.
Google XML Sitemaps: This type of Sitemap tells Google, Yahoo and a number of other search engines what pages are available on your site for crawling. It makes it much easier for the search engines to find your important content. The Google XML Sitemap makes it very easy for you to generate an XML compliant Sitemap.
Once you have downloaded the Sitemap plugin you will upload it to your site’s server. The plugin is activated at the plugin page of WordPress. You will then configure the plugin from the “Settings” page of WordPress. I use the default settings. Once the Sitemap is generated it will be accessible at http://www.[yourdomain]/sitemap.xml. You are now able to upload your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. These Google Webmaster tools provide extremely helpful information about your site.
Related Posts: This is an excellent plugin that you may want to consider. At the end of each of your posts this plugin automatically inserts related posts. This gives your readers some suggestions as to additional articles to read and helps to keep them at your site for a longer period of time. The longer they are there, the more they will be exposed you your advertising.
Privacy Policy: Google requires AdSense publishers to display a privacy policy on all sites that display AdSense ads or AdSense search boxes. Many WordPress blogs are monetized with AdSense and this plugin makes it easy for you to add a privacy policy.
How to Install WordPress Plugins
Installing a WordPress plugin is pretty much like installing a theme. If you need a refresher on that check out How Do I Set Up A Blog – WordPress Themes? Once you have downloaded the plugin to your hard drive the main difference is that you will need to place the plugin in wp-content/plugins instead of wp-content/themes.
In the next addition of How Do I Set Up A Blog we will talk a bit about writing content and finish setting up the teenage obesity site. I hop you will join me and please feel free to share any ideas you have.
Techless Terry
