Jeremy Turner’s Blog

Hello there. This is Jeremy Turner, and what follows is an update to the list of plugins I have tried out or am currently using for this blog. Hopefully some of these have real nasty security holes that will be exploited as soon as I announce that they are installed. Oh well, here goes:

All in One SEO Pack
Pretty much what it says. Allows you to customize your titles, descriptions, and keywords on a page by page basis. Competitor to the more complicated HeadSpace2., which I found to be a bit confusing and maybe overcomplicated for my needs. Please somebody convince me why I should use Headspace.

Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin is pretty straightforward. It creates a standard XML sitemap every time you publish your site. It also alerts The Google, Yahoo! (Yahoo! ID required), Ask.com, and MSN that your blog has been updated. Although some people think that sitemaps are completely useless, The Google still recommends using them, so why not have one?

Ultimate Google Analytics
Automatically adds your tracking info to your pages without having to hard code it into your template. Just be sure to enter the right “UA-XXXXXXX-X” code or your data will show up under your two-year old wedding site. Nice. There’s some other options on the configuration page as well that will help you fine tune your Analytics data.

Robots Meta
Ads robot meta-data to your site to help control how your site is indexed in search engines. Basically it adds one more option to the bottom of your “Write Post” page allowing you to select whether or not the page you are writing should be indexed, and wether or not the links in the post should be followed, giving “link juice” to those you link to. Right now I want everything indexed, but there may be a time I could really use this, so it stays for now.

FeedBurner FeedSmith
This plugin comes from my FeedBurner account. Basically it substitutes the built in WordPress RSS feed code with the code set up in your FeedBurner account. Anybody who wants to track their subscribers or offer subscriptions via email needs to have a FeedBurner account.

Redirection
This plugin makes it easy to redirect pages on your blog that have changed or are no longer available. Works great. I recently changed my Permalink structure to make it simpler, however The Google was showing pages indexed with the old link structure, which resulted in a 404 error. I was able to copy and paste those links into this plugins admin page and redirect them in a snap. If you have a Google Webmaster tools account you can use it to quickly look up pages of your site that The Google has indexed but can no longer find. From there you can either mark them for removal or add them to this plugin.

SEO Friendly Images
While I don’t have many images on the site yet, this is still a good idea. It helps you add alt and title attributes to your images, making them more searchable.

Simple-Tags
Ok the name of this one isn’t really accurate because this plugin really complicates adding tags to your posts, but it is also extremely powerful and much better than the standard WordPress way of doing things. The biggest help for me is that it will suggest tags for you and all you have to do is click on the ones you want to use. Leave me alone, I’m a visual guy, ok? It adds pages where you can mass edit tags, manage your tags, and auto-tag your posts. Like I said, not very simple but so powerful you have to have it. It also led my to The Google to find out where these suggestions were coming from and I discovered this site TagThe.Net, a web service that pulls tags from your content.

ShareThis
I checked out a couple of other “social sharing” plugins and decided on a ShareThis account. Their plugin wraps up all the different services your reader could be using into one neat little button. From there they can choose which service they would like to share your post on (del.icio.us, digg, etc.). They also have the option of emailing a link to your post, or posting to their own blog right from inside the plugin. Pretty neat. And giving your audience the ability to share your work is an essential way to get the word out about your blog.

Aizatto’s Related Posts
Ads links to the bottom of your posts that link to other related posts. Not sure how exactly it decides what is related. Most of my posts will be related to each other so I may delete this at some point to streamline things a bit. Let me know if anybody out there finds this useful.

WordPress Database Backup
Not an SEO plugin, but as my favorite instructor used to say, you should “Save save save all the time time time.” Easily backup your database manually, or do as I do and have a backup emailed to you weekly.

That’s it for now. George Carlin died this week. While all of the coverage has focused on him being the guy who was famous for the seven dirty words you can’t say on television, He should be remembered for more than just seven dirty words. Unfortunately those who don’t know his work are bound to see the outpouring of admiration as juvinile. All he did was get cheap laughs with dirty words, they’ll say. His observations on language—how it affects our culture and how we use language to shape our reality—go far beyond the base vulgarity of those seven words. Oh, and he was fucking funny.

This post is tagged Analytics, Blogging, FeedBurner, George Carlin, google, Jeremy Turner, Plugin, Plugins, SEO, Sitemaps, Tags, web, Wordpress, Yahoo