All Ping

MyBlogLog's Recent Readers - this widget can easily be called a hit amongst blog owners; its popularity even managed to convince Yahoo into buying MyBlogLog. The widget lets you see the avatars of recent visitors to your blog, provided they're also members of MyBlogLog.

Mashable - get the latest social networking news from this very site.

Flickr Flash Photo Stream Badge - display images from your Flickr profile with a handy Flash photo stream.

Preview Anywhere - see a live preview of outgoing links in a small popup which activates on mouseover. Some find this annoying, while others might find it useful.

Twitter Badge - if your life is so interesting that everyone must know what you're up to all the time, then a Twitter badge is the ideal counterpart to your blog. It'll proudly displays your recent tweets.

Digg News - display the latest Digg links on your blog. Themeable and fully customizable.

FEEDJIT - real time traffic data directly in your blog's sidebar.

LineBuzz - inline comments for your blog. Very handy for blogs with frequent lively discussions.

Flixn - display a stream directly from your webcam, so your blog visitors can always see what you're up to.

3Jam - lets your visitors send messages to your mobile phone, without them knowing your phone number.

Jaxtr - with Jaxtr, your visitors can actually call you to your mobile phone; again, your number stays private.

LinkedInABox - show off your LinkedIn profile. Perfect for personal blogs.

Box Widget - enable visitors to use box.net's online storage directly on your web site.

Price of gas - displaying gas prices on your blog might seem unnecessary to some, but it's cool if you have a traffic/travel related blog.

iBegin Weather Widget - Display weather information in your sidebar. Just like with Price of Gas, works great with travel-related blogs.

ClockLink - display time in various time zones with these nifty Flash clocks.

Film Loops - display the latest loops from your FilmLoops account.

Daily Painters - display paintings from famous painters on your blog.

WhoLinked - show your visitors which sites have recently linked to your web site. Works with all major blog platforms.

Criteo AutoRoll - displays links to blogs similar to your blog.

Bitty Browser - embed a cute, fully functional mini web browser to your blog.

Leafletter - create a mini website and embed it into your blog.

WikiSeek - search Wikipedia with this simple widget.

FeedCount - show off the number of visitors to your blog with this handy little button.

Technorati Link Count - display the number of links your website has from one of the biggest blog authorities - Technorati.

MyPageRank - another good way to show how "big" your blog is is to show off your Google PageRank.

CheckPageRank - in addition to showing your PageRank, this widget also shows your Alexa ranking.

BlinkxIt - embed a link to related videos directly into your website.

Skype button - display your Skype online/offline status on your blog.

RockYou Horoscope - not something I would personally use, but some people are into horoscope. Hell, most people are into horoscope. Anyway, this widget shows horoscope (doh!) and does it in a nicely designed colorful box.

del.icio.us Tagometer - display how many times have del.icio.us users saved your page.

del.icio.us Linkrolls - this badge shows your latest bookmarks from del.icio.us.

Timelines - need to create a timeline? Seek no further. This widget makes it really easy.

PollDaddy - PollDaddy lets you create beautiful polls in no time, and display them at your blog.

Vizu - another poll-making widget, compatible with all major blog platforms.

AnswerTips - display definitions from Answers.com for various terms on your blog. The definitions are shown in bubbles which are activated on doubleclick.

AnswerBoxes - give your visitors a chance to enter a term themselves, and get a definition from Answers.com

Now Playing - if you got to share your current playlist contents with the world, Sigamp will do the trick. Works with most popular music players, including Foobar, Winamp, iTunes and others.

BuzzBoost - display headlines from your RSS feed on any website.

LibraryThing - show off the latest books you've been reading.

Plaxo Address Book - let your most faithful visitors access their address books direclty from your site.

AuctionAds - a widget that displays auctioned items on eBay, and gives you a percentage of the price paid when sometimes buys an item.

aStore - similar to AuctionAds, only for Amazon. Create a mini-store on your site and receive profit when someone buys an item through your store.

Plazes - show your current location on a Plazes map.

Stockalicious - track your portfolio with this widget, and share it with others. Let everyone know how much money you've lost.

Yahoo! For Good - create a charity badge and ask for donations for a worthy cause.

Giftspace - your friends never know what to buy you for birthday? Let them know what you really want with this nifty widget.

MixMap - see where are the visitors to your MySpace profile from on a map.

Google Map Widget - display a searchable Google Map on your website.

Google Video Search - add a video search form and selected videos to your web site.

Odeo player - display an Odeo player for and podcast right there in your sidebar.

A few years ago, making money off blogging was unheard of. Blogs were simply threads of trivial information floating in cyberspace. Not until bloggers learned how to package their work and brand themselves did blogs become a popular, viable source of information.

Over the years, popular bloggers (vloggers too) have been able to generate a substantial income pipeline by attracting readers (viewers) through relevant content and landing endorsement deals and advertising opportunities.

If you’re a blogger, and have yet to generate a stream of income, you may be asking yourself what exactly needs to be done to make your blog a monetary success. Here are a few easy and creative ways you can begin hyping up your blog, building your personal brand and increasing viewership in order to generate some green.

Be Niche

If you have a blog, understand that you can’t be sporadic with your content. For example, covering everything from sports, movies and product reviews. Good blogs attract niche, or specific, audiences. If you’re going to write about sports, make sure it’s all about sports. However, even sports can be too general! An article on AskMen.com advises bloggers to be hyper-focused when picking out subjects for your blog. So instead of focusing on all sports, why not focus on sports in East Coast? Or college sports? Or even just hockey? Just remember, the secret to finding an audience and building viewership centers around finding your niche.

Be Relevant

Once you decide on a focus, remember to live and breathe this particular subject. If you have a movie blog, watch as many films as you can. Stay current with new releases. Know your stuff! This is why, it’s highly suggested for bloggers to choose a focus in which they’re experts. Also, remember not to clutter your pages with too much written content. Rich Gorman, professional marketer, suggests that the best web pages have an equal balance of content and space.

Sell Ad Space

One of the major forms of revenue for bloggers comes through ad space. Once you’ve found your niche, appealed to your audience and generating a decent following, you can begin auctioning space. Most bloggers usually use Google’s AdSense because of its simplicity. Basically, Google acts as a middleman between advertisers and bloggers, placing monthly ads without further effort by bloggers. Most of the time, ad prices will go up as viewership increases, making it an excellent way to generate decent revenue. So expect a monthly check from Google!

Branding and Merchandising

Your blog needs to have a solid identity, definitely something visually appealing to your viewers. Depending on the caliber of your content and your relationship with your audience, your viewers will want to promote your brand in their daily lives, especially if you’re trending. Take advantage of this! Sites like Cafepress.com offer bloggers merchandising packages to stamp their brands and logos on everything from t-shirts to bumpers stickers! Don’t be afraid to sell to your viewers!

Making cash from your blog can be quite easy if you know what to do, however, remember that results depend on the caliber of content and creativity and the amount of time you dedicate your blog. If you want quality results, you have to offer quality entertainment.

If however you have been struggling with how to make your blog search engine friendly, the below tips am about to unfold could be what is required of you to make your blog search engine friendly, and make your blog post indexed on time by most search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. 

1. Consider you blog title and URL

Many professional bloggers like John Chow, Matt Cutt, etc. don’t consider this is a blogging priority because they are professional but as a beginner, this is very crucial.

Your blog title and URL must contain some of your blog keywords, because it the best way to have a say over what your blog is ranked for.

2. Write quality content consistently

Writing quality content often is equal to last long blog traffic (LLBT). All search engine love something fresh, new and innovative.

The more fresh content you write on your blog either for search engine or your blog visitors, the more you get your blog indexed with the right keyword for a start, and this will stand as a chance for you to have constant blog traffic over the time even when you are on holiday, your blog quality content with rich keyword will do the traffic job on your behalf.

3. Blog category and keywords

Note that, if your blog is to be optimized for keywords, that will be what people will be search for, it is wise to categorize your blog content under your blog respective keywords.

The more you make your blog post familiar with your blog keywords categories, the better the rank in search engine.

For instance, if your blog is all about blogging, then, you are expected to have categories like, making money blogging, how to start a blog, blogging template, blogging tips, and all the like.

4. Post tag

Don’t just create blog categories without making use of them. Before hitting the publish button, make sure you tag each post to their respective categories and keywords that you are targeting your blog post to be ranked for, and this will motivate readers to find their ways on time when reading your blog post.

5. Constant ping

I love this aspect so much, this helps you to keep search engine inform that your blog has a new update.

Although there are many ping site that you may use and here are the best three I love using whenever I publish an article on my blog and you too can try them.

They are;

- Googleping.com

- Pingler.com

- Pingomatic.com

6. Blog backlink

There are ways of getting blog quality backlink like engaging in forum activities, submitting your blog to blog directories, engage in blog comment, guest blogging, and even paid backlink.

But the best of all that are worth placing priority on are forum, comment, and guest blogging if your writing skill is above average you can give guest blogging a trial.

Reason why I suggested those three backlink sources is just because Google search engine doesn’t frown eye on them because they are considered genuine way of building blog backlinks else search engine may consider you blog backlink as spam and you may be a victim of Google penguin either now or future which will have negative effect on your blog most especially on your blog traffic and search engine ranking.

Conclusion

Although, all the above steps may be somehow difficult and unattainable on time, but doing them the best way you can do them will definitely increase your blog search engine visibility.

1. Write Articles is one of the most powerful ways to generate traffic for your website. Here is a list of free article sites that I personally use at the given moment.

• Squidoo.com
• Hubpages.com
• Isnare.com
• Goarticles.com
• Getarticlesdone.com
• Ezinearticles.com
• Articlecity.com
• Technorati.com
• Buzzle.com
• Suite101.com
• Seekingalpha.com
• Associatedcontent.com
• Examiner.com
• Articlesbase.com
• Xomba.com
• Flixya.com
• Bukisa.com
• Triond.com
• Hellum.com
• Oondi.com
• Shetoldme.com
• Digitaljournal.com

2. Commenting on blogs is another great strategy for generating traffic. When leaving a comment on someone else website make sure the site is relevant to your niche. Other things to take in consideration for your comment to be approve is to provided content, be respectful, and know what your talking about.

3. Social bookmarking is another source for building traffic. Here are my favorite social bookmarking sites.

• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Facebook
• Google +
• MySpace
• StumbleUpon
• Reddit
• Delicious
• Digg
• Tweetmeme
• Fark
• Slashdot
• Friendfeed
• Clipmarks
• Newsvine
• LiveJournal
• Meet Up
• Orkut
• MyLife
• Ning
• Tagged
• Deviant Art

4. Facebook Fan Page is a tool to drive traffic to your website. Creating a Facebook Fan page is very easy process and free.

5. Facebook ads are a popular method of buying traffic for your site. Facebook ads provide targeted, demographic, and direct traffic.

6. YouTube is a free marketing channel that everyone should use to drive traffic to their websites. Did you know YouTube is the second largest search engine? YouTube is a free online tool we should be using for online marketing.

7. Referral Program is a great way to drive traffic through the word of mouth. Offer your potential customers a discount if they refer your services to their friends.

8. Facebook groups are a great way to promote your blog post to boost your traffic. I join other Facebook groups with relevant topics and start posting my blogs. I get tons of free traffic using Facebook groups.

9. Join a forum group to boost traffic to your site. In the forum group your able to post or answer questions. In a forum group, you can easily become an expert on your field and built credibility. 

They are forum sites for all types of niches. Here are a couple of forum groups I have using in the past and still use.

Top Forums for SEO

• forums.searchenginewatch.com
• sitepoint.com/forums/
• seoforums.org
• seomoz.org/community
• forums.digitalpoint.com/
• forums.seochat.com
• highrankings.com/forum
• seo-guy.com/forum/
• forums.site-reference.com
• seoblackhat.com/forum/

10. Ebay is a great source to drive traffic to your website. Ebay currently has over 60 million customers. How do you generate traffic from Ebay? All you need to do is create a good About Me Page in your Ebay account. In the about me, page Ebay allows to promote your website.

11. Newspaper Ads is another tool to drive traffic to your site. Contact your local newspaper and place an ad.

12. Search Engine Optimization is a terrific way to drive organic traffic. Make sure to optimize your site by taking advantage of keywords and excellent content.

13. Backlinks area great for search engine optimization and driving organic traffic. If your looking to buying high quality backlinks there are many companies where they can be purchase. Here are a couple of companies I have bought backlinks.

• Thehoth.com
• BruteforceSEO.com
• Buildmyrank.com
• 3waylinks.net
• Massarticlesubmitter.net
• Onlywire.com

14. Guest posting will help grow your brand and is a popular option to drive traffic. I have included a link with various sites with high ranking that allow guest posting.

http://blogging.org/blog/sites-that-allow-guest-posting/

15. Investing in E-mail listing will help your website drive tons of traffic. I have enlisted some of the organizations that provide E-mail listing services for a reasonable price.

• Aweber
• Get Response
• Mail Chimp
• Constant Contact
• Campaigner
• Benchmark Email
• IContact
• Campaign Monitor
• Jango Mail
• Boomerang
• Ezine Director
• Jango Mail

16. Free E-book is another way to drive traffic to your site. The e-book is a free incentive for customers to return to your site and add promotional links inside the book. There are many ways to create an e-book for a low cost. I have enlisted a couple of sites to buy or hire someone to create an e-book.

• Freelancer
• Fiverr
• Fastcinco

There are also companies that allow buying private label rights. These companies let you buy the e-book and let you change the title, content, author info, and even sell them and keep every penny.

• Master-resale-rights.com
• Plrebooks.co.uk
• Sallys-ebooks.co.uk
• Floodle.net
• Plwholesaler.com

17. Clickbank helps promote your product and increases your website traffic. Majority of the traffic will be from affiliate marketers. Affiliate marketers sign up to promote your product sending traffic to your website.

18. Flickr is a free tool to drive traffic to your site. Anyone that uses an image through your Flickr account has to give an image credit which will drive free traffic your site.

19. Create a blog and drive traffic to your website.

20. Sign up for answer websites. The answer websites are a place where people place questions about specific niches who are trying to find an answer. Becoming the expert at the answer websites will drive free traffic to your site. I have enlisted some of the sites you can sign up for free to drive organic traffic.

• Answers.yahoo.com
• Ask.com
• Allexperts.com
• Answers.com
• Blurit.com
• Anybodyoutthere.com
• Funadvice.com
• Askville.com
• Askmehelpdesk.com
• Answerbank.com
• Answerly.com
• Answerbag.com
• Friendfeed.com

21. Use Podcasting to drive traffic to your website. Podcasting is one of the newest crazes over the Internet. Podcasting is continually growing daily, and its a great way to get your website traffic.

22. RSS Feeds on your website will also help promote traffic. The RSS Feeds are one of the most powerful traffic driving tools a blogger can use to create backlinks and rank higher in the search engines. Feedburner allows blog owners to create and manage their RSS Feeds.

23. Web 2.0 Sites have huge traffic and are a great way to drive free organic traffic. I have enlisted some of my favorite Web 2.0 Sites.

• Ehow.com
• Typepad.com
• Yelp.com
• Blogger.com
• Photobucket.com
• Wordpress.com
• Craiglist.com
• Wikipedia.com
• Blogcode.com
• Blinklist.com
• Techcrunch.com

24. Email Signature. All of your emails should have your website address in the bottom.

25. Business Cards are another great form of getting free traffic. Provide everyone you meet with a business card with your website address. I have enlisted some of the top sites to buy business cards.

• Vista Print
• 123 Print
• Zazzle
• Businesscards 24
• Go Print
• Juke Box
• Overnight Prints
• Print Runner
• Uprinting

26. Search Engine Directory. Increase your visibility by adding your website to search engine directory. I have compose of the top search engines to add your website.

• Yahoo
• Google
• Bing
• DMOZ
• Alta Vista
• Go
• Hotbot
• Galazy
• Lycos
• Alexa Internet

27. Place ads on Micro Websites. Using micro websites to drive hoards of targeted traffic to your website. Here are my favorite micro websites.

• Fiverr
• Yooker
• Fascinco
• Tenbux
• Zeerk
• Gigbucks
• Dealerr
• Gighour
• Taskarmy
• Zeerk
• Mturk

28. Advertise on outsourcing sites. Offer your product or services to different countries. I have enlisted my favorite outsourcing companies.

• Freelancer
• Odesk
• Elance

29. Create an interactive community in your blog. Adding a blog comment field on your website will allow for everyone to join the conversation. In return make sure to respond to everyone comment Google loves interaction. 

30. Sign up for free Gravator account. Every time you leave a comment on blogs your picture and website address will automatically appear.

Rank Author Plugins Are A Must For Any Blog

For several months, experts have been commenting on the influence of the Author Rank in SEO, it is necessary to clear all possible doubts. What is Author Rank? The Author Rank or author brand is very important in any blog because, besides being our signature content author, it improves our personal brand on the Internet.

It is not just about displaying your image in Google results, not even a matter of personal ego; it is much more than that. The Author Rank allows the network to become visible to the author and out of the supposed shadow before simply signing an article with our name. It allows conveying confidence, professionalism to our readers and so on. Another important aspect is that it helps to increase the number of followers of our blog and social networking profiles.

Does Author Rank have an impact on SEO? The Author Rank positively influences the SEO and PageRank in our blog. For this reason, we must incorporate information authoring plugins. How do you start using the Author Rank on your blog? To insert the brand image is as simple as installing any of the following Rank Author plugins for Word Press. The configuration of each of these plugins Author Rank is very simple, and it requires no computer knowledge to get it ready.

Best Rank Author Plugins for Word Press

If you run a website or blog with a single author, this creates more of a headache, it is expected that the thing is complicated when managed by a team, so imagine alone. Clearly, the key to success is communication so after taking this into account just give some attention to details.

Thanks to the best Author Box Word Press plugins, you will be able to walk towards online success:

1. Author Sure: Build your brand on Google search results with this plugin.

Features:

• It’s easy to get the Google verification authoring.
• Supports multiple authors.
• Create links to social networking profiles Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn , Pinterest , YouTube and Skype and Google+.
• Creates a link to your Google+ page.
• Improve the SEO of your blog.

2. Author Information: It replaces the classic author link your Google+ profile.

Features:

• Establish the content authorship by linking to your Google+ profile.
• Very easy to configure.
• Improves the SEO of your blog.

3. Social WP SEO Booster: Activate this plugin and boost your position through a fantastic mix of strategies (SEO and Social).

Features:

• Shareable with Word Press SEO by Yoast and All in One SEO package.
• Integrates micro formats to enrich our content.
• Integrates content authoring for one or more authors.
• Improve the SEO of your blog.
• Includes the star rating associated with the author.
• Author Rank Plugin: WP Social SEO Booster.

4. Social Author Bio: Social Author Bio automatically adds a author bio box along with Gravatar and social icons.

Features:

• Easy configuration.
• Integrates content authoring for one or more authors.
• Improve the SEO of your blog.
• Integrates social networking profiles.

5. Editorial Calendar: It schedules entries visually.

Something strange in Word Press is its way of arranging tickets (drafts and schedules) more visually pleasing, not only in list form. Well, with Editorial Calendar can be displayed simultaneously all in a convenient calendar with quick editing functions and even drag and drop to rearrange Publication dates and times much easier.

6. Authors Plus: It allows multiple authors for an entry.

Two heads are better than one so that an item that combines the knowledge of two or more authors can look better and be more complete than one with a single creator. Allowing Co – Authors Plus is the allocation of several authors in editing an entry in its publication in the feed for each author. Each author will have permissions to perform actions on the site: delete entries, edit pages, post, moderate comments, upload media files, install themes and plugins, etc. This brings a couple of interesting alternatives to users. It even hides all menus and other unnecessary elements (such as forms of SEO plugins) for each author, creating an atmosphere of writing step easier.

7. Audit Trail: This is like the so-called Big Brother.

This plugin will record all activity within the site authors: new tickets, tickets issued by each and earlier drafts, time log in and log out, IP and solutions for suspicious or interested in knowing even the slightest movement.

It is all about finding the best plugins that will surely release headaches and concerns. Get to manage your posts one by one without a single problem. Plugins will help you hide what you don’t like and highlight what you do. Some are even more specific and practical without making the error window with the typical message “you are not authorized to edit this section”, etc.

The ultimate plugin goes along with social networks. To allow a better link between authors and readers, it may be good to facilitate links to social media profile. Apart of implementing author box plugins consider writing a short biography, useful for sites that do not have a special page for a more detailed review of the information collaborators. Author Profile Avatars, widgets, lists and many other tools will allow you to achieve your online goals.

Wrapping it up, a simple widget can make a significant difference. Some are similar to a block that is embedded with subscriptions of Facebook and has some minute detail editing as authors to exclude, the size of the profile pictures and the number of people to show.

You click on the link and what do you see?

Doink3298 says: “LMOA UR IDEAS R FING STOPID YO LOL WHO REEDS THIS CARP”

Your day is now ruined.

Rude, mean, and plain ol’ ignorant comments (otherwise known as “trolling”) are firmly intertwined with the Internet. They’re part of its history. Give a regular person anonymity and they take it as a free pass to spout off inanities like the above. Despite all the praise and love you can get throughout a day, often that one idiot is all you can think about!

As I see it, there are three routes to take when dealing with ignoramuses:

Moderate

Set your comments to where you must approve or deny them via e-mail. This way, you can weed out the obvious clowns like Doink3298 while still approving people that have very real things to contribute.

Our tendencies, of course, are to only let in the comments we feel are favorable to our blog post (and our egos). Make sure to keep this in check! Not everyone is trying to tear you down, and some negative comments can spark healthy debate.

Delete

Approving or denying every single post that comes through your site can get very aggravating. Instead, keep an eagle eye out on your posts and delete trolls with extreme prejudice!

Of course, your major problem here is timing. If you wait until a comment goes up on the site before killing it, you risk the chance of people seeing it and worse, commenting on it. Then, you have to delete THEIR comment as well, and the cycle continues.

Ignore

Let common sense and human decency prevail and let all the garbage through! The vast majority of Internet users are (though hard to believe) regular, decent people who have just as much interest in weeding out trolls as you do. Most people can be expected to know an ignorant comment when they see it and will either scroll past while rolling their eyes or will attack the person for you (the term for this is “white knighting”).

So in the interest of free speech, try and let the flow of conversation occur naturally and see what happens! Try to remember that moronic comments aren’t the end of the world and that their presence might even raise some sympathy from your readers.

What’s your policy for rude blog comments?

As mobile gains an edge, search engines are pushing for local, location-based results for queries. This way, users are able to utilize on board apps for tracking down a storefront, finding contact info and calling directly from a page, and checking out online reviews. One of the best ways to optimize for this market is to play up Google+ Local and Places.

The Place for Business

Google Places is a way to add business listings to search queries. More likely than not, any given business will already show up in one aspect or another. But like with any other Web-based marketing tactic, it is important for you to take complete control of how people find and view your company. First, Places has companies provide accurate contact information before entering a verification process.

Businesses also have the opportunity to register for AdWords directly through Place’s Business Bungalow, or control panel. AdWords is a pay-per-click service that can help a company’s inorganic search results by pulling up a listing in a query. You’re able to target demographics and adapt keywords to changing markets, but business’ will find these campaigns expensive without natural, organic search results power.

Check out Brand’s Command Center to see how they build a network of positive reviews and incoming news and links to their customers. Even if you aren't looking to improve your branding or online reputation through paid services, the chart below will still give you a good idea of how you can surround yourself and your blogs with positive articles and link building around your sites. Integrating new content, search engine tracking, knowing when/where your band is mentioned and continually building new incoming links are all great ways to improve your brand/blog awareness online.

Local Focal Points

Google+ Local is more of a social media platform than a listing service. However, every scrap of exposure helps in the long run. By creating a business page/profile, you are able to circle up with industry-related companies and connect with consumers just like you would on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. However, unlike these other social media platforms, Local is Google-friendly. When an everyday user queries a search for a clothing store in their area, for example, results with Local tie-ins increases the chance of upping page rankings. But as mentioned before, it is important for companies to cover all of their bases instead of counting on one service rather than another.

The Rule of Two

For almost every enterprise out there, it is helpful to register both Local profiles and Place listings. The more control you have over your own brand’s positive online exposure the better. In essence, both platforms allow companies to share business NAP info (as in name, address, and phone numbers), company images, comments, and reviews. According to Search Engine Watch, the most important feature out of the two are Google Map listings, an advantage even Web-based businesses can use by adding URLs and consumer ratings.

Whether you are an online blog, personal brand or a land based local business, be sure to take advantage of all the link building and branding opportunities you have at hand to better improve your reach and reputation online.

WordPress is famous for many reasons , but the plugins and themes plays the main game.

WordPress themes plays a vital role in the appearance of a blog and plugins in the management of the blog. These two thing makes a WordPress blog admirable. WordPress plugins are of two types free and premium , there is a little difference between them.

Free plugins provides you with some limited features whereas premium will fulfills your needs.

Choosing a best plugin for your blog is bit difficult , but don’t worry I’m here to help you out. After a hard work, I’ve listed down some the best plugins which will definitely sparkle up your blog. I’ve categorized them into different segment to help choose the better one , so mate are you ready ?

So let’s start up and make your blog sparkle

#1: Security Plugins :-

Security is the main problem of a WordPress blogs. Recently many of the WordPress blogs were hacked due to some loopholes in their security. There are some awesome plugins which will keep your blog 99 % safe from hackers .

1. WP Better Security:

Better WP Security takes the best WordPress security features and techniques and combines them in a single plugin thereby ensuring that as many security holes as possible are patched without having to worry about conflicting features or the possibility of missing anything on your site. The best part of this plugin is that it’s 100% Free. This plugin got 4.8 out of 5 Ratings , It’s it Amazing ? So I’ll prefer this plugin for security.

2. Wordfence Security:

Wordfence Security is a free enterprise class security plugin that includes a firewall, anti-virus scanning, cellphone sign-in (two factor authentication), malicious URL scanning and live traffic including crawlers. Wordfence is the only WordPress security plugin that can verify and repair your core, theme and plugin files, even if you don’t have backups.

3. Bullet Proof Security:

This plugins gives you a all round WordPress website security protection. Website security protection against: XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection and SQL Injection hacking and lots More .. This Plugin Ranks 3rd in the Security Category.

So , the top 3 security plugins are listed above and I ensure that all of them will be working. Lets now start the comments category.

#2: Spam Comments

The commenting feature on WordPress is proven to be the best as it links up your website or blog with your name! But there is a small disadvantage, the spam .

The Spam comments always spoils the game , I just hate spams , you too ? That’s good. But you cannot spend all the time deleting the spam comments yourself , you’ll need a help and that too a strong help, so here is the helping plugins :-

1. Anti-Spam:

Anti-spam plugin blocks spam in comments automatically, invisibly for users and for admins. This Plugin got 4.6 out of 5 Rating.

2. Spam Free WordPress:

Comment spam blocking plugin that blocks automated spam with zero false positives.

3. Akismet:

Akismet is the best spam prevention plugin for WordPress. Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. This Plugin got the maximums Hits ( downloads ) 16,789,373 , Isn’t this Cool ? You can get the API key for the plugin for free.

#3: SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the key factor to make our blog stand out to crowd. Setting up of SEO needs takes lot’s of time. But WordPress has some plugins that saves your time , Let’s have a look 

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast:

Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. WordPress SEO by Yoast is one of the best and easy to use SEO plugin which helps you getting out of the box SEO results . this is a free plugin and awesome one too.

2. All in One SEO:

WordPress SEO plugin to automatically optimize your WordPress blog for search engines. One the best SEO plugin after WordPress SEO. This Plugin got a download hits of 15,403,441 and 3.8 out of 5 Rating. This Plugin has free version and premium version too.

3. SEOPressor:

Real-time evaluation and recommendations to improve site content for SEO. It’s essentially as though you’re having an SEO expert right beside you and suggesting on ways to improve your site’s on-page SEO. This is a premium Plugin. 

So , here we end up with the SEO plugins for best search results. Utility Plugins are of great need , there are some out of the box , best WordPress utility plugins, which I have listed Below.

#3: Utility:

1. JetPack:

Jetpack is probably one of the best free WordPress Plugin. It is a whole package of plugins that will improve the features of your WordPress site. Here are some of its features: Site Stats without additional load on the server, spelling and grammar check, mobile theme, sharing, backup and much more.

2. W3 Total Cache:

This plugin improves user experience by boosting server performance and reducing download time. It also provides transparent CDN or content delivery network integration. It’s a free Plugin.

3. BackWPup:

With this plugin, you can use the backup files to save your entire installation, which include WP-Content. It pushes them to an outside backup service, if you choose not to save your backup files in one server. You can restore your installation with one backup.zip file.

4. Contact Form:

You may require a contact form if you are creating a website. For that, the best free and most suitable plugin is Contact Form 7. It is so easy to use and can deal with dozens of numerous contact forms.This is one of the best contact form plugins.

5. FontPress – Font Manager Plugin:

This plugin will allow you to customize your WordPress site with customized fonts. You can even do it without writing any code or file. Amazing plugin which will make your blog sparkle!

6. WordPress Quiz:

WP Quiz is a plugin of WordPress that allows you easily create the multiple choice questions for many purposes, such as teaching, blogging, advertising and etc.

The Main Features are : -

• MVC code structure
• Nice design
• Multimedia in questions
• Many configuration options
• Randomly sort questions and answers
• Customize interface
• Localization
• Shortcode
• Multiple quizzes on the same page
• Preview questions when finish
• Submit score via email to owner
• Social sharing
• Statistic with chart

This is the unique plugin ever made for WordPress, this is a premium plugin which provides you with out of the box services.

7.WordPress Email Newsletter Plugin:

This is a bulk emailer plugin that was created particularly for WordPress 3.x versions. It is very rich in features and so easy to use. With this plugin, you can send professional newsletters quickly to your existing user database. This is a premium Plugin .

8. Attention Grabber: WordPress Notification Bar:

This will allow you to grab user attention through a fully customization, but simple banner in your site, which is displayed on the top or bottom of the page. This is also a premium plugin.

9. ROYALSLIDER:

This is jQuery content slider that is cross device capable and incorporated with fluid layout and touch base navigation.

10. CSS3 Responsive Web Pricing Tables:

This is actually a pure CSS3 Web Pricing Table Grid set designed for WordPress that has 12 predetermined color versions and a couple of table styles.

11. WordPress Live Chat Plugin for Sales and Support:

This plugin will allow you to chat with your clients easily within your website for sales and support. There is no need for monthly payments when you are using this plugin. Just install it and it is ready for business.

12. Go – Responsive Pricing & Compare Tables for WP:

This is a responsive plugin that will allow you to create beautiful tables quickly and easily, and incorporate them into your WordPress powered website.

13. Toolset Plugin :- Develop your WordPress site without PHP knowledge!

Toolset plugins make website development faster and give you the power to create sites exactly like you want. Web developers get more work done with Toolset. This plugin is available for free trial.

14. Emma Boxes - Multipurpose Boxes:

This plugin was created to display various kinds of contents. You can select the kind of content that you will display, create custom contents and show them. It might interest you to know that Emma Boxes has been optimized for displaying WooCommerce content.

15. LivIcons for WordPress – Animated Vector Icons:

LivIcons are cross browser vector icons. They are built with JavaScript and there is a individual mini animation for every icon (except ‘Brand names’ ones). LivIcons are powerful in animated mode when you need strong attention effects (for example on ‘call-to-action’ buttons, different promo blocks etc.) and in static mode, as well.

16. Subscribers Magnet:

This plugin will allow you to integrate email list signup forms easily to almost all sections of your WordPress site. If you want to save time, track your signups, and gain tons of email subscribers this is for you! want to increase your subscribers ? then buy it!

17. Hide My WP – No one can know you use WordPress!

This plugin will let you control PHP files access. It will protect your website from almost all XSS and SQL Injection attacks, which means that you no longer have to worry about security very much. 

18. Logos Showcase – Multi-Use Responsive WP Plugin:

This plugin will allow you to display images in a carousel slider or grid. It is the perfect option for displaying lists of partners, sponsor logos, supporters and clients in your WordPress powered site.

19. Booking System PRO (WordPress Plugin):

This is a plugin that helps in creating bookings and reservation systems easily into a WordPress powered blog or website. 

20. Quform – WordPress Form Builder:

If you are requiring custom forms and a WordPress user but do not have the knowledge or time for codes, Quform is the perfect tool for you. This plugin will allow you to create multiple forms quickly and easily in WordPress with complete control.

21. Sidebar & Widget Manager for WordPress:

This is a premium plugin for WordPress that will let you have complete control over the widget areas, page contents and the widgets themselves. If you will widgetize your page, you could drag and drop the widgets in the page content area using horizontal and vertical alignment.

22. The Countdown Pro:

You can add countdown functionality easily into a sidebar or content area using this plugin. With its up and down counting function, you can have complete control over your counter.

23. WordPress Social Share Buttons

Adding jQuery social sharing buttons to your WordPress website is more fun with this plugin. Buttons can be added through jQuery to enable faster loading of pages.

24. Banner Rotator / Content Slider:

This plugin includes five kinds of banner plugins for WordPress. These include thumbnails banner, content slider, carousel, banner with playlist and banner rotator.

25. Fanciest Author Box:

This is an author bio plugin that is rich in features. It adds the author bio before, after or both automatically into pages, custom post types and posts.

So, utility plugins ends up here. There are lots of awesome utility plugins, but these are the best ones.

Over to You !

Even though there are a lot of plugins to install, you should take care of page speed in one hand. Because some plugins uses too much CPU resources which might result in suspension of your hosting account.

The list ends up , now tell me which plugins do you use ? Do you know any of the other best plugins ?

I would like to have your awesome answers through Comments

Publishing online is as easy as pie, anyone can do it, even without paying a cent, thanks to numerous CMS (Content Management System) that are available for FREE, I’m sure you are already familiar with WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. These are currently the most popular CMS that are equipped with a set of powerful features.

In this post, however, we are going to take look at a lesser known CMS that I think is a good alternative to these big three, called AnchorCMS. AnchorCMS is a lightweight and super-simple blogging platform by Visual Idiot (who is also known with his clever tech-jokes).

Installation

The installation process is made simple, but your server needs to at least support PHP 5.3.6+ and MySQL 5.2+ to run AnchorCMS. If you are unsure, you can contact your hosting provider support for more information.

To install, simply go to the URL where you uploaded AnchorCMS, and click on the Run the Installer.

Next, fill in your database name and password, and if you encounter the following error replace the 127.0.0.1 with localhost within the Database Host field.

Next, fill in your website information and create your first account, and you are done. This probably can be done in less than 5 minutes.

Post Publishing

As mentioned, AnchorCMS is super simple; it is focused only on the publishing. To make it even simpler, it does not provide GUI for marking  our content. Instead, you have to write the content in HTML or in Markdown format.

Still, it allows you to set the post parameters such as the post URL, post description, category, and you can even insert custom CSS and JavaScript. In addition, you can also create Pages.

Theming

It’s easy to develop themes for AnchorCMS. At least, you should know HTML, CSS, and a bit of PHP and you will be able to build your own theme (the documentation is quite helpful to help you through). Next time, we will see how to build AnchorCMS themes in more detail.

Additionally, if you prefer, you can also use the ones made by the community. There are a considerably lot of beautiful themes built for AnchorCMS, see AnchorThemes.

Extensions And Plugins

At the time of the writing, AnchorCMS provides two default extensions, Custom Field and Meta Data, which can be accessed through the Extend menu.

Custom Field: this extension allows you to create a custom for Page or Post editor. There are four types of fields allowed: HTML, File, Text, and Image.

Using the example of adding File field type, you will be able to upload and add file for your pages or posts. Then, you can call it in the front-side using article_custom_field function within your theme.

Meta data specifies the website information like the Site Name, Site Description, Post Count, Theme selection, etc — similar to the Settings page in WordPress.

Unfortunately, AnchorCMS has yet to allow for third-party plugin, but it has plans to support it in the near future.

Room For Improvement

I like how AnchorCMS is designed; it’s simple, elegant, and flat. Still, there are several parts that can be improved, and here is one (in my opinion) which is quite essential:

WYSIWYG Editor; The goal of AnchorCMS is to make blogging super-simple, and beautiful. However, that does not mean it has to sacrifice user experience. As mentioned, you should write the content in Markdown or HTML format. I can say that not everyone is familiar with these languages (except, perhaps for this kid). It is a very steep learning curve for most users if they have to understand either one these formats before they are able to publish the content. So, having a WYSIWYG feature on the next release or as a third party plugin option would be really great.

Final Thought

AnchorCMS is still in its early stages development and though it has fewer features than the mighty WordPress, if you only aim for blogging, AnchorCMS might be a better option.