I wouldn’t say I’m an expert by any means but my brother decided he’d like to start a blog so he looked to me for advice. After we got him set up to share my hosting and got Wordpress installed on his domain, I told him that writing is the most important part of blogging but there are other parts to consider too like design, marketing, and back end management. I could either:
- Let him figure it out himself
- Give him a list of the resources I’m using and then he can figure out if he wants to and how to implement those resources on his own
- Set up what I’m using for him and then he can edit and play with things from there
He picked option number 2.
I’ve made a personal vow never to blog about blogging or making money online but since I was already compiling this list of resources anyway, we will consider a blog part of social networking and consider this post a how to get started with a type of social networking post.
Domain Name Registration
- mydomain.com I’ve been using these guys to buy domain names for many, many years. Great prices. Make sure you buy a .com name. If the name you want isn’t available as a .com then think of an even better name.
Hosting
- godaddy.com Once you’ve purchased your domain name you’ll need hosting. I get my hosting from Go Daddy. Go Daddy will provide you with DNS servers, enter that info back at mydomain.com and then install Wordpress via Go Daddy’s “Your Applications” panel.
Wordpress Plugins
- Akismet Comment spam protection also by the creators of Wordpress. You’ll need to create an account at wordpress.com to get an API key.
- Broken Link Checker No one likes to click on a link only to find it broken, this plugin will check for broken links every couple days and alert you to any new finds.
- Chitika Premium Chitika is an advertising program that only shows ads to people arriving to your site via Google searches. One of the three ad services I’ve actually received payment from.
- Clean Archives Reloaded Generates a chronological list of posts along with how many comments they have received.
- Future Calendar Marks the days you’ve already scheduled posts for in the future. Handy if you’re planning to be away from your computer for vacation or don’t have time to write new posts on a regular basis.
- RSS Footer A tool to put a message at the bottom of each of your RSS items. I use this to put a copyright notice and link back to the original post in case someone republishes my RSS feed on another site.
- SEO Slugs Filters out commonly used English words to make your post URLs shorter and more keyword focused. For this to be effective you need to be using a permalink structure (found in your Wordpress > Settings >Permalinks panel) that uses the post name, I have mine set to a custom structure that uses only the post name.
- Shockingly Simple Favicon Helps you get a small image of your choice to represent your website in browser tabs and bookmarks.
- Sociable Puts icons to submit your posts to social bookmarking and networking sites of your choice at the bottom of each post.
- Subscribe to Comments Let’s people get replies to their comments by email.
- Thesis Openhook You only need this plugin if you’re using the Thesis theme, but if you are using the Thesis theme this makes it very easy to customize.
- Wordpress.com Popular Posts & Wordpress.com Stats For Wordpress.com Popular Posts to work you need Wordpress.com Stats. These plugins require a wordpress.com API key like Akismet. I use these in combination to automatically generate the popular posts list in the left sidebar.
- Yet Another Related Posts Plugin Automatically generates a list of related posts at the bottom of each post.
Theme/Design/Layout
I’m using the Thesis theme for it’s ease of customization.
I purchase images and icons from istockphoto.com, I prefer vector illustrations for my design elements since they can be manipulated and scaled to different sizes and applications more easily than photographs. You will need knowledge of Adobe Illustrator or a lot of patience to learn Adobe Illustrator in order to take full advantage of vector illustrations. I choose istockphoto.com over any of the other available stock art options because I’ve been a contributor there for over 5 years now.
To really be able to customize your layout you’re going to need to know a bit of HTML. HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide from O’Reilly is, in my opinion, the best book available for learning HTML. I have the second edition (just HTML at that time, XHTML did not yet exist) which I got when I first got interested in web design in the mid-90s (back when you had to create the site entirely in code because what you see is what you get editors also didn’t exist) and it is the most used book of all the books I have ever owned.
Advertising/Affiliate Programs (this list is limited to only the programs I have actually received a payment from)
- Amazon Associates Use this to create links to products on Amazon.com.
- Chitika Use this to show ads to Google searchers only based on the keywords they used on Google to find your site.
- Linkshare The only affiliate program for iTunes and I love iTunes.
Widgets
Widgets are the items Wordpress displays in your sidebar (or sidebars depending on how you set up your theme). These are what I’m using on this site.
- Search
- Wordpress.com Popular Posts The plugin I talked about above will generate a list of posts by popularity according to the criteria you select.
- Recent Posts
- Tag Cloud
- RSS As I’m reading other blogs in Google Reader, I tag posts I read that are relevant to this blog with a particular tag. I have Google Reader set to share those posts and that creates an RSS feed that I pull up in my sidebar. I don’t want to post other bloggers’ content, only links to their content that I think my readers would find interesting so I only have it list the post titles.
- Text/HTML I manually write the HTML to display my 125×125 button along with the code other bloggers can use to link up to my site.
Google Tools
- Google Analytics For tracking stats (Google Analytics is not updated constantly and doesn’t track out clicks so I also use sitemeter.com).
- Feedburner Allows you much more control over your RSS feed than the Wordpress default. Also allows email subscriptions and allows you to track how many total subscribers you have.
- Google Webmaster Tools Use this to submit your site to Google so that they know to crawl and index your pages. Also allows you to see incoming links and the anchor text others are using to refer to your site.
- Google Reader To be a good writer you have to be a good reader. I use Google Reader to subscribe to the RSS feeds of hundreds of other blogs and to create my Link Love feed in my sidebar.
Promotion
- Whatever you do, don’t spam. Only promote yourself on sites where you are active in other ways and make sure that self promotion is never your #1 use of any service not meant for self promotion.
- On Twitter and Facebook, I post a status message about writing a new blog post with a link each time I post something new.
- Put your URL in your email signature (for any personal email addresses that is, I don’t promote my blog to my work contacts but depending on your employment situation it might be an option for you)
- Put your URL in any online profile or form that has a space for it
- Put your URL in forum signatures (keep your signatures short and sweet so they don’t come off spammy)
- Comment on other blogs when you have a meaningful, relevant comment to make. Don’t just post the comment for the purpose of garnering a link back to your own blog and don’t put your URL as your name or as part of your comment. Use your first name, nickname, or initials as your name so you don’t look spammy. Don’t use a keyword as your name when commenting on other blogs, I delete those comments immediately.
Pages
Pages are similar to posts but don’t show up in your blog entries timeline. Some pages you may want to create include:
- About (either about you or about your blog)
- Archives
- Contact
- Blog Roll A blog roll is a list of other blogs that you read and enjoy that may be relevant to the content of your own blog.
- Disclaimer and/or Privacy Policy
Additional Resources
- Copyblogger
- ProBlogger I particularly recommend his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog ebook, I find it highly useful to have a printed copy to work through from time to time. I put a post it note on each task, work through it at my own pace until all the post it notes are gone then put them back and repeat.
Do you have any absolute essentials that you think I’m missing out on?
Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links and I will receive a small compensation if you make a purchase or sign up for a service after clicking through them. Affiliate links are an easy way to support Carrie Actually at no additional cost to you.
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Great article Carrie! Ihave one question though – if I change the structure of my permalink, is that going to mess up what is already there? I have a lot of internal links on my blog and quite a few different aggregators pointing to my posts. I don’t want to break those links, so I hesitate to make that change, though I would like to do it. Thoughts?
09.14.2009 at 7:10 am
I believe it will break those links although I haven’t actually tried it. There’s another plugin I’ve heard of but not used called “Redirection” that can fix all those broken links.
Awesome list.
I have been playing with Wordpress and contemplating jumping across. These resources will definitly help since I have quite a complex layout that I need to design for Wordpress. Definitely worth bookmarking.
For your WordPress plugins there are a few that you didn’t mention that I use on just about every one of my blogs: Google Analytics for WordPress, Google XML Sitemaps, and All in One SEO. These three plugins help me track and enhance some of the backend of the site and makes the blog more SEO-friendly.
09.23.2009 at 11:53 am
I guess I have Google Analytics and SEO taken care of within my Thesis theme so I don’t feel the need for extra plugins but good advice for people using other themes. I tried Google XML Sitemaps and it seemed to give me a lot of errors so I got rid of it.
09.23.2009 at 12:54 pm
Great article! The list of WP plugins is really helpful, and I am already planning on using Thesis when I do my redesign, so glad to hear it plugged here.
Clicked through your recent tweet. I enjoy reading about the different plug-ins and widgets you are using, and feel the same way about not blogging about these kinds of details at my blog – it just doesn’t seem appropriate. Yet, I find myself wanting to trade information with others – for comparison purposes, as well as enhancement of my blog. I have started to keep a protected page for my own records of the changes I make to my site, the plug-ins I’ve found and am using and when I put them in and why. I have also listed my theme and some attributions for what I use on my About page – I may also begin listing the plug-ins I’m using just as an additional thank you to the creators. Oh, one thing I would add to this great post – regular backups. For any significant change (upgrading theme, upgrading Wordpress, sometimes when adding plug-ins) I’m making to my blog, I FTP in and back up the entire folder which holds my blog, to my hard drive. Mrs. Micah helped me migrate from Blogger to Wordpress, and she installed the plug-in Wordpress Database Backup which makes automatic updates of the “core Wordpress tables”. MM told me it doesn’t back up the folder, just the database with post content. So I backup before any changes. I have actually broken my blog and was so grateful that I did the manual backup before the change because I was able to fix my blog by replacing the folder. Great post!
11.13.2009 at 2:51 pm
I bookmarked this page!
01.20.2010 at 6:00 pm
Great article Carrie! I just started a blog with Wordpress and I still have a lot to learn. I had no idea that you could track Wordpress blogs with Google Analytics, thanks for the tip! I am going to have to look through each of those Plugins when I have some more time as well!
Hi Carrie,
This is a great post, but I do have a question about something you do but I don’t see it mentioned. You use redirects for your affiliate links (“recommends”), but what plugin are you using to accomplish that?
This is definitely a great list and I’m bookmarking!
Thanks!
Sharon
01.24.2010 at 12:45 pm
I use Ninja Affiliate for that. I’m not 100% sold that it’s worth the almost $100 it costs which is why it’s not on the list.
02.12.2010 at 3:16 pm
Hi Carrie,
I believe you said your white cell counts were down and that meant you’d feel yucky. Is that too personal to put on here? I hope not.
I have been going back and reading through some of your “educational” posts like this one and have been learning quite a bit! Thank you for the time and effort you put into posts like these. I also hope you’re not feeling to crummy.
Have a great weekend!
Heather