7 Wordpress Plugins to Boost Blog Traffic

1. SEO Title Tag

The SEO Title Tag plugin allows you to override the automated title tags that Wordpress sets for your blog posts and pages, so you can use keywords in your title tags that are far more search engine-friendly than the words in your actual post or page titles.

2. All in One SEO Pack

The All in One SEO Pack plugin does exactly what its name implies - it allows you to add title tags, descriptions, keywords and more to every page and post published on your blog. Users consistently report a noticeable increase in traffic to their blogs from Google searches after installing and using the All in One SEO Pack plugin.

3. Google XML Sitemaps

Google XML Sitemaps is a plugin made with a specific search engine optimization benefit in mind - to help Google find every post and every page on your blog, index them and include them in search results. This plugin is particularly helpful for blogs that want to get indexed by search engines quickly.

4. Simple Tags

The tagging functionality in Wordpress is great, but the Simple Tags plugin takes it to a whole new level. Great tags can boost your blog's search traffic, so adding the Simple Tags plugin is a great way to get started.

5. WP-Notable

WP-Notable adds icons at the end of each blog post you publish asking visitors to your blog to share the posts they read through Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, and so on. Making it easy for people to submit your content to social bookmarking sites by using a plugin like WP-Notable can give your blog a boost in exposure and traffic.

6. TweetThis

TweetThis is a great Wordpress plugin to help you increase the likelihood for visitors to your blog to share your posts through Twitter thereby increasing potential blog traffic. When you install the plugin, an invitation link is included at the end of your blog posts suggesting that readers "TweetThis" and share a link to the post they're reading through their Twitter feed.

7. WP-Email

The WP-Email plugin is a must-have. When you install this plugin, a message and link is included at the end of every post enabling visitors to send posts they like to friends via email with a single mouse click. Allowing readers to introduce other people to your blog through emailed posts is a great way to pick up some new visitors!

5 Wordpress Plugins to Boost Page Views

This Wordpress Plugin automatically generates a list of similar posts for each new post that you publish on your blog. The list appears at the bottom of each new post. It makes sense that a person who enjoys a post on your blog is likely to be interested in similar posts, so this Wordpress plugin is a great way to increase page views on your blog. There is another plugin called 'contextual related post plugin' which is also very good.

Most Commented

The Most Commented Wordpress plugin allows you to display a list of the posts on your blog that have received the most comments. The assumption is that people will be interested in reading the posts that generate a lot of conversation thus increasing your blog's page views.

Post Teaser

The Post Teaser Wordpress plugin automatically truncates your blog posts so only a teaser snippet appears on your blog's home page. Visitors have to click a link to view the full post thus giving your blog an extra page view each time someone clicks through to read the entire post.

What Would Seth Godin Do?

This Wordpress plugin was created to boost blog subscribers. It uses browser cookies to distinguish between new and repeat visitors to your blog. New visitors are presented with a message that appears above your most recent blog post inviting them to subscribe to your blog. The thought is that subscribers become loyal readers who are likely to click through to read your content from their feed readers, tell other people about your blog, link to your blog from their own, and so on.

6 Wordpress Plugins to Increase Comments

CommentLuv

Adding the CommentLuv Wordpress plugin to your blog is a great way to show your readers that you value them and the comments they leave on your blog posts. With CommentLuv, every comment left on your blog automatically includes a snippet and link back to the commenter's most recent blog post (assuming the identifying information in their submitted comment form tracks back to a blog with a feed from which the most recent blog post can be scraped). Bloggers love this Wordpress plugin because it can increase traffic to their own blogs more so than a traditional comment link from their names can.

Show Top Commentators

Most people are inherently competitive and like recognition. The Show Top Commentators Wordpress plug-in leverages both of those innate desires by recognizing and rewarding the most vocal people in your blog's community. Using the Show Top Commentators plugin, you can create an automated list (which you can reset on a daily, weekly or monthly basis) that displays a list of people who are the most frequent commentators on your blog. The list includes a Google-friendly link back to each commenter's blog or website. A word of caution, many users report an increase in spam comments when using the Show Top Commentators Wordpress plugin. However, the plugin does include settings to help you filter out spam comments.

3. Subscribe to Comments

The Subscribe to Comments Wordpress plugin is a must have for any blogger looking to increase comments on his or her blog. With this plugin, your blog readers can subscribe to receive email alerts when new comments are left on posts they're interested in. It's a great way to draw people back into a conversation that they've already expressed interest in.

4. Do Follow

The Do Follow Plugin for Wordpress removes the NoFollow tag from all comments left on your blog thereby rewarding commenters by ensuring links left within their comments count in Google searches.

5. Wordpress Thread Comment

The Wordpress Thread Comment plugin enhances the functionality of commenting on Wordpress blogs by enabling people to comment on any existing comment within a thread of comments and view those comments as a threaded or nested conversation. Some users report having to modify the email messages and other wording that is programmed into the plugin to clean up grammar, etc., but the functionality is great, particularly for blogs that receive a lot of comments.

6. Most Commented

The Most Commented plugin automatically generates and displays a list of the posts on your blogs that have the most comments. The theory is that people will be interested in posts that other people are talking about. Posts with a lot of comments attract people to click on the links and take a closer look to see what the buzz is about.

5 Wordpress Plugins to Help Bloggers Make Money

Smart Ads

A great plugin that makes advertising on your blog less intrusive to your regular readers but also allows you to monetize your blog's archives. With the Smart Ads Wordpress plugin, you can automatically place ads before and after your blog posts but with a time delay. In other words, you can choose to have ads appear only with posts older than 10 days, 30 days, and so on. It's up to you.

Ad Rotator

This is a great plugin for people who want to maximize the ad space on their blogs. Using text files that you create, the plugin automatically rotates between the ads you specify to appear in a particular space on your blog.

FeedFooter

FeedFooter provides an easy way to place ad messages at the end of your blog feed.

WP125 Ad Management

If you publish 125x125 ads on your blog, then you might be interested in the WP125 Ad Management plugin that makes it extremely easy to upload, change, deactivate and maintain ads on your blog.

AdSense Manager

The AdSense Manager Wordpress plugin makes it easier than ever to place and maintain Google AdSense ads on your blog. The plugin automatically generates AdSense code for your blog and allows you to use widgets to place and move ads around on your blog. Another great plugin is 'Shylock Adsense'

10 Wordpress Plugins That Save Bloggers Time

Wordpress.com Stats

All bloggers should track the activity on their blogs using a web analytics tool, but taking the time to log into that tool and navigate through the provided reports takes time. Often bloggers just want to take a quick peak at their top level stats. That's where the Wordpress.com Stats plugin comes in handy. Instead of logging into a separate application, you can view some of your key blog analytics right from your Wordpress dashboard.

WP-Polls

People love to participate in polls. Sure there are many options available to bloggers to add polls to their blogs such as PollDaddy, but the WP-Polls plugin allows you to create custom polls without leaving your Wordpress account!

3. No Self Pings

The No Self Pings plugin is a great time saver for bloggers who intralink to their own posts frequently. If your blog is set up to accept pings and trackbacks, then each time you link to one of your own posts in a new post, a trackback link is sent to your blog and published in the comments section of the old post that you linked to. Pings and trackbacks can slow down your blog, clutter your comments section, and be a nuisance if they're excessive. Also, if your blog is set up to moderate all comments and trackbacks, this plugin will save you a considerable amount of time.

4. Akismet

Make sure that Akismet is activated on your blog and configured to meet your preferences. Unfortunately, blogs get a lot of comments that are spam. Without Akismet (or another comment spam blocking plugin of some kind), your blog is likely to be inundated with spam comments over time. Blog readers don't like to see spam comments. In fact, too many spam comments published on your blog can directly result in decreased blog traffic, so make sure you're using a comment spam blocking plugin like Akismet.

5. Math Comment Spam

Unfortunately, comment spam blocking plugins such as Akismet aren't always enough to eliminate all spam comments from getting through to publish on your blog (or sit in your comment moderation queue). When you install the Math Comment Spam plugin on your blog, commenters will be asked to enter the answer to a simple math problem such as 2+3 before they submit their comment to ensure the comment is being submitted by a human being and not a spam bot. Users report a significant decrease in the amount of spam comments that get through Akismet (or their comment spam blocking plugin) once Math Comment Spam is installed.

6. Theme Tester

If you want to change your blog's theme but don't want visitors to see your changes until they're final, then Theme Tester is the Wordpress plugin for you! When Theme Tester is intalled, your visitors see your existing blog design while anyone set up with administrator status in your Wordpress account sees the new Wordpress theme.

7. WP-Database Backup

The WP-Database Backup plugin is a must-have for any Wordpress.org user. Once installed, you can set up the plugin to automatically backup your Wordpress database files and save them to your hard drive or send them to you via email. If your blog is important to you, do yourself a favor and install this plugin, and set it up to backup your Wordpress database periodically. Keep in mind, the plugin only backs up your database files. You should also manually backup your wp-content folder from your blog hosting account.

8. Easytube

If you've ever struggled trying to get a YouTube or Google Video to publish correctly on your blog, then the Easytube plugin is a perfect choice for you. It makes embedding YouTube and Google Videos into your blog posts a snap and even includes a preview image of YouTube videos in your RSS feed with a link to the video.

9. Auto Close Comments, Pingbacks and Trackbacks

Old blog posts are bait for automated comment spam bots. In order to reduce spam on old posts, you can use the Auto Close Comments, Pingbacks and Trackbacks plugin. Simply install it, set the timeframe when you want comments to be closed on posts, and you're done.

10. Google Maps Plugin

If you like to include maps from Google in your blog posts, then the Google Maps Plugin will make the process of creating, inserting and customizing your maps faster than ever!

5 Wordpress Plugins to Ease Blog Maintenance and Enhance Functionality

WP-Cache

The WP-Cache Wordpress plugin stores your blog pages in cache form making pages load faster than ever. This is particularly helpful for blogs that get a lot of traffic (imagine one of your posts makes it to the front page of Digg and a flood of traffic comes your way).

Maintenance Mode

The Maintenance Mode Wordpress plugin adds a splash page to your blog telling visitors that your blog is temporarily unavailable for maintenance. The blog owner or administrator can see the full blog, but visitors only see the splash page making it possible for you to make revisions to your blog but not fully publish them until you're completely ready.

WP-DB Manager

WP-DB Manager is a "must have" Wordpress plugin that fully automates the process of backing up your Wordpress database. You can schedule backups to happen at predetermined times.

Theme Tester

The Theme Tester Wordpress plugin allows you to test out different themes on your blog without anyone seeing the changes except you and your blog administrators.

Instant Upgrade

The Instant Upgrade plugin for Wordpress is useful to anyone using a version of Wordpress prior to 2.7 (Wordpress 2.7 includes an instant upgrade function accessible from the Wordpress dashboard). The Instant Upgrade plugin allows you to upgrade your blog to the newest version of Wordpress in a few simple steps.

5 Wordpress Plugins to Analyze Blog Visitors

Referrer Detector

The Referrer Detector Wordpress plugin automatically detects where vistitors to your blog come from. This gives you the ability to set up specific greetings for different kinds of visitors. For example, if a visitor arrives from Digg or StumbleUpon, you could greet them with a request to Digg or Stumble your post.

Wordpress.com Stats

For a quick snapshot of your blog's performance, the Wordpress.com Stats plugin is the perfect tool. Rather than taking the time to log into your blog statistic tracker, you can simply view a number of statistics right from your Wordpress dashboard.

3. Best Contact Form

When an ordinary contact form just won't do, try the Best Contact Form Wordpress plugin, which will allow you to learn more about the people who fill out your blog's contact form than ever before, including the keywords they typed into a search engine to find your blog, the landing page on your blog they arrived on, and more.

4. Search Meter

The Search Meter Wordpress plugin allows you to track what your visitors are searching for on your blog and whether or not they're successful in finding what they're looking for. It also allows you to publish a list of the most popular searches on your blog.

5. Where Did They Go from Here?

This Wordpress plugin automatically reviews the content of a blog post a visitor is reading and appends a list of other posts that other visitors read in addition to the post the visitor is currently reading with a heading that says, "Visitors who read this post also read,". It's a great way to increase page views and get an idea of what content visitors are reading.

11 Must Have Wordpress Plug-ins

. Akismet

Akismet is critical to helping you manage spam comments on your blog. It stops what it detects to be spam comments (quite accurately), and holds them in a special moderation qeue separate from your other comments. You can then review and delete them (or move them out of the spam folder as appropriate) at your convenience. As your blog gets more popular, the number of spam comments you receive will increase, and Akismet will save you a significant amount of time in terms of catching and deleting each spam comment as it's left on your blog.

This plug-in allows readers to add your blog posts to social bookmarking sites through an icon that appears at the end of each of your blog posts. Readers click the icon to select the social bookmarking site they prefer in order to save and share your post.

3. Related Posts

This plug-in works great to keep readers on your blog and increase your page views. When you use this plug-in, a list will appear at the end of each of your blog posts with a list of related posts. A similar plug-in is the Similar Posts plug-in.

4. Wordpress Database Backup

What would happen if something happened to your blog and all of your content was lost? You can avoid that possible tragedy by installing a Wordpress backup plug-in. This plug-in backs up the core information in your blog (the main tables). There are also more sophisticated Wordpress backup plug-ins such as the WP-DBManager plug-in that will allow you to further customize your backups.

5. Feedburner Feedsmith

With this plug-in, your feed is automatically redirected to your Feedburner feed regardless of how various users access it. That means you'll get the most accurate reports to track your feed through Feedburner because every access point will be counted.

6. Subscribe to Comments

The power of your blog comes from the community around it. The Subscribe to Comments plug-in allows readers to check a box when they leave a comment on your blog to subscribe to future comments. Once subscribed, the reader will receive emails notifying them when another comment is left on that post, so they can keep up with the conversation (and hopefully, come back again to leave another comment).

7. WP AJAX Edit Comments

Have you ever left a comment on a blog, clicked submit then realized you have an embarrasing typo in your comment? The WP AJAX Edit Comments plug-in can save your readers from similar embarrasment. The plug-in allows readers to edit their comments after submitting them (within a certain amount of time).

8. Full Text Feed

If you use the "more" tag in your blog posts (meaning, you just show a short amount of your blog posts on your home page with a "Continue Reading" or similar link leading the reader to the full post), then only the part of your post before the "more" tag (before the "Continue Reading" or similar link) is visible in your feed to subscribers. If you want your subscribers to see your full posts in their feed readers, then the Full Text Feed plug-in is for you. With this plug-in, your full posts will show up to subscribers in their feed readers at all times.

9. Google XML Sitemaps Generator

The Google XML Sitemaps Generator allows you to create a complete sitemap for your blog. This is helpful in two ways. First, it creates a handy resource for you and your readers to find posts as your blog grows. Second, it helps search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask.com (all of whom support this plug-in) find, crawl and index your blog changes quickly.

10. Contact Form 7

Adding a contact form to your website is simple and effective. Rather than publicizing your email address and inviting spammers to clutter your inbox, use a contact form. This plug-in uses two spam filters, Akismet and CAPTCHA, to make sure you only receive legitimate inquiries from your contact form.

11. No Follow Free

Wordpress automatically installs a code called No Follow to any user submitted links on all Wordpress blogs. The No Follow code is meant to counter spamming wherein people leave comments with specific keyword links all over the blogosphere simply to boost their search engine ranking. However, many legitimate bloggers want to leave comments and get a bit of link love back from those comments. It's a form of self-promotion, and as long as the link adds value to the conversation, then it's not necessarily spam. If you want to turn off the No Follow code on your blog so the links readers leave in the comments on your blog count toward search engine ranking, then this plug-in will accomplish that for you.

Wordpress Plugins Bible - 55 Best Wordpress Plugins you must have for Self Hosted Wordpress Websites