2007 - my blogging year that was
Well since we’re now a couple of days into the new year (at least here in Aust.) and I’m sick as a dog at the moment (not a good way to start the year off in my opinion) I thought now was as good a time as any to go back over some my favourite plugins and posts here in this blog along with any other blogging related stuff.
It was early in 2007 that I really got stuck into blogging - very late in 2006 I discovered WordPress - first through WordPress.com then on free hosting providers and then I took the plunge and actually got my own domain and hosting - and once I did that I never looked back. While it’s just my opinion and preference for those out there that are thinking about starting a blog or considering moving their blog(s) to the next level - getting your own domain and hosting is certainly the way to go - mainly because you have so much more control over things (I had a bad experience with one free host I used where my blog suddenly disappeared and linked to an adult site - though I do still have one of my old blogs on a free host and never had a problem with it)
My Favourite Posts:
Listed below are some of what I consider the top posts on this blog - either because I think they actually provide some useful information or they’ve received either the majority of comments or other sites have linked to them because they’re related/helpful etc.
Where to host your blog - covers free and paid hosting
Setting up your first WordPress blog - covers using fantastico or ftp etc with a quick video guide
Editing Your WordPress 404 page - shows how to quickly edit your default page not found message. A continuation of that post is how to create your own 404 page if your template doesn’t come with a default 404.php file
Backing up your blog - there’s several ways to do this - this post covers a couple of them - and it’s something we should all do regularly - I know I’m slack and should do it more often
My Favourite Plugins
Listed below are a few of my favourite plugins
First and most important is Akismet - while it comes standard with a WordPress installation you can find out more about it here a must have when it comes to spam
Adding Amazon Products to blog posts - sometimes adding an Amazon product is a lot easier said than done - particularly when it comes to WordPress as the code can often make things go all wacky - well this post covers a cool plugin that makes it really easy - though the one downfall of it is that you only get three products per category (at least as far as I know)
All In One SEO - great when it comes to optimising your blog posts for the search engines
Vipers Video Quick Tags - I wrote a post awhile ago showing how to add YouTube etc videos to your blog, not long after that I came across this cool plugin that allows you to add YouTube, Google videos etc with the click of a button
CommentLuv - a plugin that helps you to appreciate those that take the time to comment on your blog. After the commentor has left a comment it automatically adds their most recent blog post to their comment
Comment Relish - while on the subject of commentors this plugin allows you to send a one off message to those that have commented on your blog for the first time - a great way to say thanks
There are of course plenty of other great plugins around the place - some of which I’ve written about already, some of which I’m yet to write about and some of which I’ve either not used yet or haven’t discovered (feel free to let me know if you think I’m missing some important ones)
Well that’ll probably do for my round-up - hope you all have a great and productive 2008
If you liked this post you can buy me a coffee :-)
January 7th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
That’s a nice round-up. I currently have “CommentLuv” bookmarked and I fully intend on installing it when I get a second. And your “editing 404 page” would have done me wonders when my blog was crashing every few days, but we’ve only just over last weekend figured out what it was that was making it die and we fixed it. I’m sure my readers would have appreciated something a little more informational and personal instead of the generic error page!
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January 7th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Hi Katie,
I really like the CommentLuv Plugin - I’ve actually come across some interesting posts since I installed it. And thanks for the comment on the 404 post (glad you got your blog fixed) it’s something I’ve found to be very useful for myself and try to make sure I remember to edit on any new blog I start. It’s handy to have (even when your blog works) for those times where you may have deleted a post or a url is mistyped etc.
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
2007 was my first year to get into blogging. Started with changing a family website over to a blog format with Wordpress. It made it so much easier to add content and easier to allow family members to add content. Then changed another website I had started over to blog format also with Wordpress. Traffic shot up almost immediately. And then I started a news and commentary blog for the state I live in. That’s been fun to do also. I love the Wordpress format with all the themes and plugins that are available.
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