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Plugin Potluck Boston Wordpress Meetup July 27, 2009

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Plugin Potluck. Boston Wordpress Meetup July 27, 2009. Who Am I?. Brian Krausz A.K.A. “The Kid in the Brown Shirt” Web Developer & Idea Man By Day & Night [email protected] @ bkrausz Warning: I tweet about boring things. Straw Poll. Personal Blog: Have Want Business Blog: - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Plugin  Potluck

Plugin PotluckBoston Wordpress Meetup

July 27, 2009

Page 2: Plugin  Potluck

Who Am I?Brian Krausz

A.K.A. “The Kid in the Brown Shirt”Web Developer & Idea Man

By Day & [email protected]@bkrausz

Warning: I tweet about boring things

Page 3: Plugin  Potluck

Straw PollPersonal Blog:

HaveWant

Business Blog:HaveWant

Write Code:CanWant to Learn

Page 4: Plugin  Potluck

General Advicehttp://lmgtfy.com/?q=Wordpress+PluginsDon’t be afraid to try things out

On a separate site!Don’t go nuts with plugins

Can overload the userLearn a tiny bit of PHP

Will help with installation of plugins/themes

Page 5: Plugin  Potluck

General Advice (cont’d)Try to find things for free

But consider donatingIf you can’t find it for free

Consider paying for it

Ask me questions!!!

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The Top 8http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/browse/popular

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1) SpamActivate Akismet

All done!“But Brian, I still get spam!”

Consider reCAPTCHA (Google it!)But be careful, can lose users1!

“But Brian, what about Honeypots”Usually uselessCan solve very specific problems

1) ~3.2% according to http://www.seomoz.org/blog/captchas-affect-on-conversion-rates

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2) SEOAll in One SEO Pack

Does exactly what it saysGoogle XML Sitemaps

Makes it easier for Google to parse your siteKey: Don’t try to cheat Google

Only try to make their lives easierDo NOT pay to “get your site on the first page of

Google…guaranteed!”

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3) User FeedbackContact Form 7

Simple form for users to contact youLess spammy than an email addressThere are hundreds of plugins like this, hunt

around for what fits your goals.Kampyle

Ask users directly “what can I do to improve the site”

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4) Social NetworkingSociable

Provide links to share your postsAlso has hundreds like it

Some kind of auto-tweeterAuto Tweet – Few optionsTwitter Blog – Just released

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5) LoadWP Super Cache

Can be hard to setupBetter: make sure your server can handle the load!

Cheap monthly hosting is just that: cheapBut expensive hosting isn’t necessarily better

Slow sites cost you users1

1) http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/bing-and-google-agree-slow-pag.html

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6) Set It & Forget ItPlugin Manager

Automates plugin installationNo real reason to use this

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”

Pay a kid to teach you to not need these types of plugins!Experiment on a separate website

Page 13: Plugin  Potluck

7) AnalyticsGoogle Analyticator

Or others…just get Google Analytics trackingFeedburner

Track RSS feeds

Page 14: Plugin  Potluck

8) RevenueEasy AdSense

Use adsense adsDon’t try to run your own ad network

If you’re big enough to need this, someone smarter than me is advising you on what plugins to use.

Warning: Don’t blog to make money. It’s a losing propositionYou can make money, but don’t expect it

Page 15: Plugin  Potluck

Cool Ideasor “Neat Things Brian Can Talk About”

Page 16: Plugin  Potluck

Big DisclaimerI sell plugins that do things hereThere may be free versions

If they had the same features I wouldn’t have written my version

The goal is to get the creative juices flowingNot sell things

Page 17: Plugin  Potluck

TaxonomiesPowerful and under-utilized WordPress featureExamples: Categories & TagsOther examples: Issues, People, Companies

Can associate anything about your post with any data

Custom Taxonomies (I wrote it, but it’s free)Has a few bugs (some mine, some WordPress’)

Simple TaxonomiesMore stable, fewer features

Page 18: Plugin  Potluck

NewslettersAssign posts to newsletters

Send out newsletters with summaries of posts“Newsletter” Plugin

Only sends newsletters, not postsBe careful about sending out a lot of email

Your host may get angry (consider MailChimp)Don’t get blacklisted or spam blocked!Observe double-opt-in & opt-out practices

Page 19: Plugin  Potluck

Download TrackingOffer downloads from your site

Require registrationTrack downloads

“Download Manager”Pretty featurefulNo permissions

Page 20: Plugin  Potluck

CMSYou just need a theme that emphasizes pagesWordPress has all the features needed for a CMS

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Any Other Cool Ideas?

Page 22: Plugin  Potluck

Questions?Brian Krausz

[email protected]