27 Comments

1. shirley says:

   August 20, 2009 at 2:15 pm

   o finally, thanks so much. I lost that WP to Twitter plugin last time when my blog crashed. And I couldnt remember what was the name of that plugin.

   thanks for sharing the list and I found it !!!!

   /shirl

   Reply
   • Paul Lear says:

     August 20, 2009 at 11:56 pm

     Hey Shirley,

     That’s great to hear that my list has helped you find a long lost plugin.

     Thanks for stopping by,

     Paul.

     Reply
2. Glenn says:

   August 23, 2009 at 6:12 pm

   Hey Paul
   As another one on Alex’s students just wanted to say thank you for the video on plugins. I am starting to update my blog and sometimes I get lost in which plugin I need or want. You have help clarify that
   Glenn

   Reply
   • Paul Lear says:

     August 24, 2009 at 2:39 am

     Hi Glenn,

     Thanks for letting me know I have helped you, that is always nice to hear.

     Thanks for visiting me,

     Paul.

     Reply
3. Heidi Passey says:

   September 3, 2009 at 2:46 pm

   Hi Paul,

   I was wondering how everyone has the “estimated reading time” listed on their posts. I wouldn’t have a clue what plug ins I should be using if it wasn’t for learning what others use. Thanks!

   Reply
   • Paul Lear says:

     September 3, 2009 at 5:32 pm

     Hey Heidi,

     Yeah I had the same problem about a month ago, so after finding most of the cool plugins, I automatically knew that I should write up a post about it showing everyone the plugins I use. That way we can all have cool looking blogs.

     Thanks for stopping by,

     Paul.

     Reply
4. Jacinta Dean says:

   September 9, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   Hi Paul,

   Thank you so much for doing this page on your blog with the list of plugins.

   I was actually doing a search last night trying to find a basic ebook on what plugins are best to use and add to our blogs.

   Now all I have to do is pop past and learn from you! Happy Dance you have just made my search easier and saved me time! Thank you

   I will definitely be back to learn more.

   Kind Regards

   Jacinta

   P.S I will let you know when I do the post on smiley icons. I wonder if there is a plugin for them

   Reply
   • Paul Lear says:

     September 9, 2009 at 8:03 pm

     Hi Jacinta,

     Good to hear from you, glad to see this page has helped you out.

     And thanks, that would be great if you could let me know when you’ve made that post on smilies.

     I’m not sure if there’s a plugin for them or not, but there seems to be plugins for everything these days, so maybe there is. I’ll have to have a look.

     Thanks for visiting,

     Paul.

     Reply
5. Jacinta Dean says:

   September 17, 2009 at 5:18 am

   Hi Paul,

   I have a quick question on plugins. Which tagging plugin have you used to be able to place the tags at the bottom of each post? Or have you done this yourself?

   Also I have found some smilie plugins! Apparently there are 18 default ones we get with basic wordpress and there are some plugins that give you access to over 200. I am going to experiment and let you know how I go.

   Hope you can help with my question.

   Jacinta

   Reply
   • Paul Lear says:

     September 17, 2009 at 3:34 pm

     Hi Jacinta,

     The Show Tags below each post setting is a special setting for the flexibility theme, it was under Appearance -> ‘Flexibility Theme Options’.

     Sorry I can’t help further on this, but I think It all depends if the theme you are using has the setting.

     What I would suggest is, go into Widgets, and drag/add the ‘Tag Cloud’ into your your sidebar, and add it at the bottom. I think it helps with SEO to have a tag cloud, or so I’ve heard.

     And yes please do let me know when you find the best smilie plugin, it would be good if there’s one with an option to make them show up for visitors who comment. You know, like they have in forums?

     Paul.

     Reply
6. Jacinta Dean says:

   September 18, 2009 at 12:25 am

   Hi Paul,

   Thank you for answering my question. I have read about using “tag to technorati”. I will have a look at that one as well.

   I have found a few smilie plugins. I installed the “Tango Smileys Extended” but I didn’t like the look of the smilies. They are smaller than the default ones.

   I found a simple plugin called “Custom Smileys v2.7″. This plugin allows you to set it up so people can use them in the comments field. It also sets up so there is a drop down menu when you write a post so you can use a choice of 22 different smilies. I still need to configure the settings for the comment box, I actually have to add in code to do that.

   I will let you know how I go with the tagging.

   Kind Regards

   Jacinta

   Reply
   • Paul Lear says:

     September 18, 2009 at 3:30 am

     Hey Jacinta,

     Thanks for the info on the smilie plugin, I’ll have install it soon and have a play around with it.

     I’ve not heard of “tag to technorati” before, I’ll have to have a look into that myself too. And yes do keep me updated on how you get on with the tagging, if you need any help with anything just let me know, and I’ll see if I can help.

     Paul.

     Reply
7. Jeff Sargent says:

   September 27, 2009 at 5:12 pm

   Hey Paul,

   I like your list of plugins you’ve posted here. In fact I like them so much I’ve installed some of them.

   Post Teaser is something I’ve been toying with putting on my blog for some time now. I like the idea of having full posts appear on my blog for whatever reason. It’s just me I guess. But I’m going to give the teaser post a try.

   Top Commentators Widget is something I had on my blog before I changed to the new theme I have now and I removed it. But I think it definitely should be there to give notice to the people who comment and contribute most to my blog.

   Contact Form 7 is a great way to let people get in touch with me. If someone wants to ask me a question it’s so easy with this plugin. Before they would have had to go digging to find my email address and that’s just too much to expect anyone to do.

   TweetMeme Button is another great one. Let’s face it, Twitter is huge and if I can use a tool to make it easy for someone to get the word out on Twitter about one of my posts they like then I want to take full advantage of it.

   Thanks for bringing these to my attention Paul.

   Later,
   Jeff Sargent

   Reply
   • Paul Lear says:

     September 27, 2009 at 6:47 pm

     Hi Jeff,

     Thanks for the feedback, I’m really glad my list of plugins has helped you.

     Another good reason for the Contact Form 7 plugin, is so to stop your email address getting into the wrong hands, i.e, spammers.

     Thanks for visiting,

     Paul.

     Reply
8. Steve Wakefield says:

   October 12, 2009 at 8:39 pm

   Great post Paul,

   I now have most installed… wish I’d have seen this post a few days ago before I spent ages searching for them all online and trying lots of rubbish ones first, DOH!

   Didn’t know about the WordPress Backup one though… very useful that one – I dread manually backing up via cpanel, so that’s a great find… it even allows me to schedule an automatic weekly backup – I love stuff that lets you set and forget so thanks for sharing mate!

   Speak soon,

   Steve

   Reply
   • Paul Lear says:

     October 12, 2009 at 11:43 pm

     Hey Steve,

     Glad you find it useful.

     I like the WordPress Backup plugin too, I have it email me a backup every day.

     Thanks for visiting,

     Paul.

     Reply
9. Tina says:

   January 26, 2010 at 3:24 pm

   Hello Paul
   can i get the odiogo listen button on my wordpress.com blog? it’s a wp hosted blog…also, i wanted to know if it’s good for poetry reading?
   thanks for the list.

   Reply
   • Paul Lear says:

     January 28, 2010 at 12:22 am

     Hi Tina,

     I’m not sure if you will be able to have the odiogo listen button on your wordpress.com blog, the free hosted blogs at wordpress are somewhat limited and a lot of plugins don’t work.

     You could give it a try though, the instruction on odiogo.com are pretty clear and easy to follow… Here’s the link to the instruction page http://www.odiogo.com/listen_button_wordpress.php

     With the voice sounding a bit like a robot it might not be that good for poetry reading.

     The good thing about wordpress.com blogs is that you can transfer all your posts over to a self hosted blog when you can afford it.

     I use Hostgator to host my blog, it’s very cheap and has great customer support and help videos.

     Sorry I can’t help you further on this matter, but let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.

     Paul

     Reply
     • Tina says:

       January 28, 2010 at 8:02 pm

       hey Paul

       Thank you so much for a quick and informative reply. and ya! for the backlink on my blog…else, i was lost.

       thanks for teh odiogo review..i checked the odiogo blog. odiogo button doesn’t work with wp.com blog.

       well, i have a lot of reasons to change my .com blog to a self hosted ones…you are tight, a lot of plugins don’t wok on the free version. but, the techincal stuff involved with shifting and maintaing self hosted blogs scare me…may be when i have some time i would love to learn and understand its complications.

       the robotic bit made me smile…wouldn’t care to click the link. anyways, thanks for it. please let me know if you find an alternative…a finer voice for poetry reading…may be sensitive human like

       thanks.

       Reply
10. Aline Munsch says:

    February 9, 2010 at 10:46 am

    Hello Paul,
    This morning I downloaded your Traffic Guide for Newbies and I am just now in the process of reading it, when I clicked on your plug-in link and fell on that post. Thanks for that, will experiment with it. I still have to muster up the courage to ftp my wordpress.com site to my hosted .org site. Got that one installed a few months ago and then stopped. Your neatly organized book is most helpful. For the last two years I used to accumulate knowledge without ever digesting it, it seems that I am moving into the ‘implementing knowledge age’ now and your ebook comes in handy since you explain it for newbies. Up to now constantly overwhelmed with information I never even dreamt of visiting other people’s blog, scared by the new information I would have no room to further take in. That seems to be changing. There probably is a way to keep track of those blogs you want to go back to. I have bookmarked so much stuff that I can’t seem to find stuff there anymore. In the last two days having checked some sites I got the impression that there must be a better way. Any suggestions? Aline

    Reply
    • Paul Lear says:

      March 11, 2010 at 1:13 am

      Hi Aline,

      I find a good way to keep track of my favourite blogs, is to subscribe to their RSS Feeds.

      You will usually find the RSS feed URL in the top right corner, in the header of most blogs, you can see my RSS logo is a mug a6t the moment.

      Here’s my RSS Feed URL if you want to subscribe –
      http://paul-lear.com/feed/

      Hope that helps, and glad you enjoyed reading my book.

      Paul

      Reply
11. jody says:

    March 9, 2010 at 8:03 pm

    I have a custom theme wordpress. If I update wordpress or update plugins, will I loose the theme? I once did that and lost my theme…thanks much for your help

    Reply
    • Paul Lear says:

      March 10, 2010 at 11:55 pm

      Hi Jody,

      The best thing to do is, make a backup before you update wordpress, then if anything goes wrong you can restore it back to how it was.

      Updating plugins will be fine, and you’ll prbably find everything ok updating WordPress, I’ve never had problems with this theme.

      If you do run into any trouble you’ll have to contact the person who created your custom theme, and they will be able to update it to work with the new version of WordPress.

      So just give it a try after you’ve made a backup.

      Paul

      Reply
12. Lisa says:

    March 17, 2010 at 7:09 pm

    Hi Paul
    You are the first person I have felt comfortable leaving a comment. I read your book. It is the first book that I have really read through and acted upon. Never even dawned on me to look at other blogs and leave comments. Thanks for the great info. My question is how do I advertise on Twitter, Facebook and my blog without actually advertiseing? In an artecle I read not to spam anybody by posting infor about my products and then the next paragraph says to put your company, brand and product and paste it on twitter, facebook and my blog. I don’t get it. This is the reason I have not worked on my blog or other social networking sites. What if I do it wrong? They say you only get on shot to make it work. I have a website with horse products I am selling so what do I do? Thank you for ready my long reply.

    Reply
    • Paul Lear says:

      March 18, 2010 at 4:44 am

      Hi Lisa,

      Thanks for getting in touch, and it’s great to hear you enjoyed reading my ebook, and that you found the information useful.

      The trick to advertising on Social networks is, start building a subscriber list by signing up to Aweber or similar, and then offer free downloadable products related to your niche, requiring a name and email to download…

      In return you will start to get some subscribers that you can then email whenever you like, or until they unsubscribe at least…

      That’s how I do it anyway, but if your niche isn’t the sort where you can have downloadable products, you could always create special deals and discounts, and advertise those on your profiles.

      I wouldn’t worry about doing it wrong, as long as you DON’T post an advert every few minutes/seconds I’m sure you’ll be fine, and a lot of companies use Twitter as a advertising platform, it might be an idea to follow some of them and see how they do it…

      You can have multiple accounts on Twitter too, for instance if you have more than one niche, you can have a different account for each niche. Just so long as you are not cross posting the same duplicate posts over both accounts, then you should be fine.

      Aim for something like 1 post per hour and use a site like SocialOomph.com, that will autopost for you at the time you want, and mix it up with some non-commercial posts, for instance some of your favourite quotes, or horsey type facts.

      As you are in the horse product niche, then you will want to search those social network sites for people talking about horses on Twitter, and search for people who say they like horses on their profiles for Facebook.

      When you find those people on Twitter start to tweet at them using @username , and also follow them and they might just follow you back. If they follow you back then they will see all your future tweets and may decide to look at a link to your site oneday.

      For Facebook you would need to friend request them by telling them you have similar interests in horses, and perhaps they will add you as a friend.. If they do then they will see your posts in the friend feed, and with them being interested in horses, they may decide to check your site out.

      I’m sure you get the idea now, and there’s more tips in my book, on how to use both of those sites further.

      Hope that helps,

      Paul

      Reply
      • Lisa says:

        March 18, 2010 at 5:48 pm

        Thank you so much for the advice. I am now on facebook and have freinds thanks to your book.

        Reply
13. dhan says:

    April 1, 2010 at 7:18 am

    thank you so much, it can really help me.

    Reply

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