Dear Christina:

What are some WP plugins that you would recommend be added to a blog?

Janine -Your Virtual Wizard

Dear Janine,

When it comes to the plugins you need to install on your site, Bloggers and Company sites need different things.

Company sites, obviously, don’t need any comment, spam or social plugins.

Bloggers, on the other hand really need a good spam blocker, a way to make commenting (and following comments) easy and links to social networking sites.

I recommend the following specifically for bloggers:

Subscribe to Comments -  allows commenters on your blog to check a box before commenting and get e-mail notification of further comments.

dofollow -lets you remove the evil nofollow attribute from your comments.

Aksimet – make comment and trackback spam a non-issue.

Sociable – adds social media buttons to your posts.

TweetSuite – automatic Tweeting of new posts

FlickrRSS -  allows you to display Flickr photos on your weblog.

For all WordPress based sites I recommend:

Google XML Sitemaps Generator – generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog.

All in One SEO Pack -  Automatic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) out of the box for your wordpress blog.

WordPress Contact Form with Spam Protection -  self-explanatory

WordPress Database Backup – creates backups of your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your choice in the same database.

~Christina

There!
I said it and now everyone knows.

Many years ago I had a family blog, then a cooking blog, and then a business blog.

I got tired of trying to work with Blogger, didn’t even bother trying Typepad and heard about this amazing site called WordPress.

I ran and signed up for a free blog right away and tried it out. Back then, I knew very little about html/css and definitely had no idea what php was.
I learned very quickly that I was in over my head so, I deleted my account and went back to Blogger with a hung head.

About a year later I got serious. I needed to start my own business to get out from under “the man” (Corporate America). I can learn anything if it interests me and so I decided right then, html/css really interested me. Time to get a book.

Yeah, right. Those books were gonna cost $100 or more. Money we didn’t have.
I knew there had to be a way to learn without doling out the cash. I found instructions online on how to install WordPress on my own PC to test it out.

Ding!

I realized pretty fast that I could do this. Since that time I have built about 40 sites for myself, friends and people I’ve met online. I’ve learned how to take a WP template and make it look nothing like a “blog” and I learn more everyday.

I mentioned on Twitter recently that I felt like the “Dear Abby” of WordPress because I always try to answer any WP questions that people ask on Twitter.
If I don’t know the answer, I start looking for it right away.
You see, I have this quirk.
I HAVE TO KNOW!
I’ve spent hours looking for an answer for someone (or figuring it out myself) just so the person asking doesn’t feel left out in the cold.

So here we are.

‘Dear Christina’ has been born.
This site will be where I post the questions people are asking online and will provide the answers.

Ask Away!

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