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WordPress Plugin: Google XML Sitemaps
Maintaining this manual Google XML sitemap file for a blog would be a very tedious task to do manually, as the format is quite strict. What’s a blogger to do? Surely not update the sitemap XML file by hand after each post? Enter the Google XML Sitemaps plugin.
WordPress Plugin: Google Analytics for WordPress
Google Analytics is an incredibly powerful tool for web analytics and conversion tracking. But to work, a snippet of JavaScript code (provided by Google in your Analytics account) has to be added to each page you want tracked. For non-coders this means modifying template’s footer PHP code, which can be a little daunting. The simpler, better way is to let WordPress do the heavy lifting for you, which is where this plugin comes in.
WordPress Plugin: All-In-One SEO Pack
Yes, WordPress already lets you specify a search engine-friendly URL for permalinks, and it provides several different ways to let crawlers get to content, and it uses a pingback service to inform the web of new content. What else could you want? Well, this this little guy takes it to the next level.
Five Great Info Nuggets About Twitter
Over at his Influential Marketing Blog, Rohit Bhargava distills last month’s comprehensive Twitter report from Sysomos into 10 great info nuggets. We’ll distill it down a bit further: 21% (One Fifth) of Twitter accounts are empty placeholders. Nearly 94% of all Twitter accounts have less than 100 followers. Half of all Twitter users are not [...]
Tracking Downloads in Google Analytics
The next time someone tells you that you can’t track downloads in Google Analytics (like links to PDFs, movies, or other assets that don’t reside on an actual page) tell them they’re full of crap. =) Provided you’re using the newer ga.js method you are golden. Check it out here.
WordPress Plugin: Akismet
This great comment spam fighting tool is a must have, even for sites that require registration for commenting. Right now you’re saying, “But, Akismet already comes with WordPress,” and you’re right. But a lot of folks don’t understand it or use it, probably because it requires a WordPress.com API key to install. But honestly, don’t let this scare you away. WordPress API key’s are drop-dead simple to get. Just follow these quick steps…