Dave Caolo

A good reminder from Jared Earle boils down to this: Someday the legions of readers you’re after will arrive. All at once. If you’re running WordPress, you’ll want WP Super Cache installed, or they’ll only find a crippled server.

[Via Daring Fireball]

WordPress’s popularity is exploding, and with it a cottage industry of premium themes. The most fashionable feature magazine layouts, jQuery sliders and corporate-style designs. Amateur designers and weekend warrior types are mimicking these things on their own sites.

What ever happened to a plain old blog layout? In most cases it’s the most appropriate choice. When a blog I’ve enjoyed for months or years adopts one of these themes for no good reason, I’m disappointed. It’s like being at a concert where the band has gotten “artsy” with weird arrangements of all their songs. I want to say, “Your songs are awesome as written. You’re just ruining the experience.”

Several months ago, I listed the plug-ins I add to every WordPress installation. This post is an update to that list. Here are my standard WordPress plug-ins.

1. Akismit eliminates comment spam and trackback spam effectively. You’ll need a Wordpress.com API key to enable it. I occasionally see something sneak through, but those occurrences are the exception, not the rule. Akismit is the first plug-in I set up.
2. Thank Me Later sends first-time commenters a single email thanking them for their participation. Customize the time delay between receipt of the comment and deployment of the email, the body of the message itself and more. It’s not essential, but a nice touch.
3. WordPress.com stats provides real-time statistics in your dashboard. Again, you’ll need a Wordpress.com API key to enable this one.
4. WordPress Database Backps does just what the name implies — creates a backup for your blog’s (or WP-powered site’s) database files. For some real fun, check out my super-simple instructions for setting up automated, off-site backups.
5. Share This lets visitors share your articles with their favorite social sites without having to leave your blog.
6. All in One SEO Pack certainly isn’t a replacement for SEO best practices (see “WordPress and SEO“), but it makes certain aspects easy.
7. Subscribe to comments allows readers to receive email notifications of responses to posts they’ve commented on. It fosters conversation and gives readers following the thread a reason to return.
8. Related posts scours your tags each time you publish a post to find older entries that are a match. Those are listed just above the comment box. This gives readers a reason to dig into your archives.

So there you have it, my basic WordPress starting point. What’s yours?

Last week I listed the WordPress plug-ins that are a part of my standard installation. Today, I’ve picked out some more favorites (plus a couple goodies). These are plug-ins I’ve used with various projects and my own site. If your favorite isn’t listed, let me know! I enjoy finding new ones.

1. Google XML Sitemaps creates a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap. You needn’t lift a finger, and your custom pages are included. Plus, it pings all major search engines with each update.
2. Sideblog WordPress is what powers the “Interesting Finds” section of my sidebar. The way it works is simple: Identify the category you want to appear in your sidebar and paste the code in the right location (or add the widget). I love it because it allows me to post all the interesting things I find, while not cluttering up the longer articles.
3. Google Analytics for WordPress makes it super easy to install Google Analytics code. The best part is that if you change your template, you needn’t paste the Analytics code in again. The plug-in takes care of that for you.
4. flickrRSS pulls your latest Flickr images. I dare say this should have been included in my base installation, as so many templates make use of it.
5. PodPress powers my podcast, The Sci-Fi Cast. I do love this plug-in. PodPress takes care of all the data that iTunes wants, including categories, image and more. Plus, it puts a flash player with each post. It’s great.

Other goodies

WordPress for iPhone/iPod touch [App Store link] is pretty nice. Writing short posts is pleasant enough, and adding photos is easy. The truth is I prefer SixApart’s Typepad iPhone app as a mobile blogging tool [App Store link], but the demo of WordPress version 1.2 looks promising.

Woopra isn’t unique to WordPress, but there is a WordPress plug-in. It provides real-time stats, lets you chat with visitors, tag them, and much more. It’s in beta right now that they’re qutie pokey about approving new sites, but it’s worth it.

Last time, Nina suggested I check out WP-SpamFree, an anti-spam plug-in. I’ve only used it briefly, but it’s doing a nice job of catcing spam so far. Thanks, Nina!