Starting Your Own Blog Part VI: Plugins
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This is the last post in my series about how to start your own blog. We’ve talked about free blogs vs. blogs where you own your domain name, how to set up both a free and self-hosted blog, and how to post pages and posts.
Today, we’ll talk about plugins. Plugins are pieces of code that add more features to your blog and also help it run more smoothly. There are tons of plugins available; Wordpress’ own site alone lists 8,079 and there are many more out there.
The plugins I use (and highly recommend) are:
- Akismet
- All in One SEO
- Contact Form
- Peter’s Random Anti-Spam
- Sociable
- Wordpress Database Backup
- Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
Akismet
Akismet is a spam blocker and comes with most Wordpress themes. It makes a huge difference when it comes to the amount of spam you receive (and you will receive spam messages if you don’t activate it, nobody can hide from them). In order to activate Akismet, you need an API key, which is a set of numbers that Wordpress.com. So even if you don’t want to set up a blog on Wordpress.com, you need to go to their site and create an account. Fill out the form like this and click on Next. If someone already has taken the username you wanted, they’ll let you know and you’ll have to enter new ones until you find one that’s unique.
You will then end up on a new page where they tell you you’ll get an email from them shortly. Open that email and click on the link to activate your account. It used to be that they sent you the API key in an email, but the last time I helped someone set up a blog, we had to go to the 
dashboard of her new wordpress.com account and look under the Profile tab. It should be right there up top on the page.
Once you have your API key, log into your blog and go to Plugins. If this is the first time you’re there, you will see two plugins – Akismet and Hello Dolly – both deactivated. You can do whatever you want with Hello Dolly, I usually delete it. On Akismet, you want to click on Activate, and you’ll see that it asks for the API key. Put that in, and you’re set.
| Find And Download The Other Plugins |
Now, to get the rest of the plugins onto your blog, you need to go online and search for them. Once you find them, download them, unzip and put the unzipped files in a folder for transfer to your blog. I have a folder right on my desktop named WP plugins where they all go so it’s easy to find them. You will most likely get a lot of results for each search (I just got 44,300,000 when I did a search for all in one seo), and I would recommend choosing the one that’s associated with Wordpress (usually the first one you see).
All in One SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization, and this plugin does just that: optimizes your blog for the search engines. It automatically generates META tags, optimizes your titles and tweaks a lot of other stuff “behind the scenes” which helps the search engines find your blog. Download, unzip and put in your plugins folder.
Contact Form
The Contact Form can be tricky. The one I use on this blog does not work on all themes, and I’ve had a hard time finding one I’m happy with. One that seems to work almost everywhere and gets good reviews from others is the “Fast and Secure Contact Form” created by Mike Challis. It looks good, is easy to install, and best of all, has a “captcha” field which helps prevent spamming. It’s in Wordpress.org’s directory and all you need to do is download it, unzip, and put in your plugins folder for transfer.
Peter’s Random Anti Spam
This is another spam blocker, and I consider it an absolute necessity. It really helps in cutting down on spam comments on your posts (you’ll get an email for each one, so that can really fill up your mailbox quickly). This one, I get straight from the author, and if you do a Google search for Peters random anti spam, it’s the first site that shows up. Download, unzip and put in the plugins folder.
Sociable
This one is optional but I think it’s good to have it. It adds those little buttons you see on almost every site so that people can share something easily on Facebook, del.icio.us, digg, etc.
You get to choose which ones to display (there are 99 of them) and I think it’s a smart marketing move to have it. When you do a search for sociable, the first one that pops up is the one in Wordpress’ directory, so go ahead and download, unzip, and save.
Wordpress Database Backup
Again, there are many to choose from, I use one from Wordpress’ directory called WP-DB-Backup. It’s set up so that I get an email once a week with a backup of my database and have been happy with it.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
This is a great plugin which automatically finds other posts on your site that might interest people who read a particular post. If you scroll down to the end of this post, you’ll see it in action – it thinks that maybe because you’re reading this post about blogging, you’d be interested in my other blogging posts. Download it from Wordpress’ directory.
| Transfer The Plugins To Your Blog |
Once you have all these unzipped and put in your plugin folder, open up Filezilla and connect to your blog. When your blog directory shows up on the right hand side, double click on public_html and then on wp-content. In that folder, you’ll see 3 folders: plugins, themes and uploads. Now, find the plugin folder on your desktop in the window on the left. Open it and one by one, drag the plugin folders over to the plugins folder on the right hand side. You’ll see them transfer in the window below.
When they have all transferred, go and log into your blog (if you’re already there in the plugins window, click on something else and then back to plugins to refresh). Go to plugins, and you should see them all listed there. If there’s one that doesn’t show up, it could be because the content was in a subfolder. If that’s the case, go back to Filezilla and double click on that plugin folder in the left hand window, and if that brings up a subfolder, transfer that one to your plugins folder on the right hand side. That should take care of it.
| How To Activate The Plugins |
All In One SEO
Before you activate it, click on the Settings menu (the last menu on the left hand side of your blog) and you’ll see it listed there. Click on it and change any settings you want. I suggest filling out the Home Title, Home Description (this is what shows up under your blog title in Google) and Home Keywords and you can leave the rest as is. Scroll down and click Save. Now, go back to the Plugins menu and activate it.
This is how your home description shows up
Contact Form
Click on activate and then create a new page (called Contact, Contact Me or something like that). Put the following code in the html window: [si-contact-form form='1'] (NOTE: this only works for this particular contact form, if you download another one, make sure you read the installation instructions). Scroll down a bit on the page and uncheck Allow Comments. Preview the page, and if you like what you see, publish it. That’s it, now every time anyone fills out the form, you’ll get an email.
Peter’s Random Anti Spam
All you need to do with this one is click on activate. All set.
Sociable
Click on activate and then go to Settings – Sociable to select the buttons you want to show up on your site. As you can see, there is a lot to choose from, I would probably not recommend using all of them, but instead the ones you recognize and think will benefit your blog. Leave everything else as is, scroll down and click on Save.
Wordpress Database Backup
In the Plugins menu, click on Activate. To edit the settings for this plugin, click on the “Manage – Backup” link in the text of the plugin.
This brings up a new window where you need to make some choices. I leave everything as it is, get the backup emailed to me (make sure the email address is right) once a week. Whatever works for you is good here. Once you’ve made your selections, click Submit.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
There are a lot of customization options with this one, but I leave all the settings on default and just activate it. It has worked great for me, but if you want to tweak it, just click on Settings – Related Posts (YARPP) and make your selections.
That’s it, your blog is now search engine optimized, people can contact you, share your blog on popular networking sites, you will hopefully avoid spam, and you’ll get a backup in your inbox once a week. Not bad for an hour’s worth of work. 
As I mentioned above, this concludes my series on how to start a blog. If you have any questions or get stuck on any of the steps, please feel free to contact me, and I’ll do my best to help you out.
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