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Plugin Potluck

Plugin Potluck. Boston Wordpress Meetup July 27, 2009. Who Am I?. Brian Krausz A.K.A. “The Kid in the Brown Shirt” Web Developer & Idea Man By Day & Night briankrausz@gmail.com @ bkrausz Warning: I tweet about boring things. Straw Poll. Personal Blog: Have Want Business Blog:

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Plugin Potluck

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  1. Plugin Potluck Boston WordpressMeetup July 27, 2009

  2. Who Am I? • Brian Krausz • A.K.A. “The Kid in the Brown Shirt” • Web Developer & Idea Man • By Day & Night • briankrausz@gmail.com • @bkrausz • Warning: I tweet about boring things

  3. Straw Poll • Personal Blog: • Have • Want • Business Blog: • Have • Want • Write Code: • Can • Want to Learn

  4. General Advice • http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Wordpress+Plugins • Don’t be afraid to try things out • On a separate site! • Don’t go nuts with plugins • Can overload the user • Learn a tiny bit of PHP • Will help with installation of plugins/themes

  5. General Advice (cont’d) • Try to find things for free • But consider donating • If you can’t find it for free • Consider paying for it • Ask me questions!!!

  6. The Top 8 http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/browse/popular

  7. 1) Spam • Activate Akismet • All done! • “But Brian, I still get spam!” • Consider reCAPTCHA (Google it!) • But be careful, can lose users1! • “But Brian, what about Honeypots” • Usually useless • Can solve very specific problems 1) ~3.2% according to http://www.seomoz.org/blog/captchas-affect-on-conversion-rates

  8. 2) SEO • All in One SEO Pack • Does exactly what it says • Google XML Sitemaps • Makes it easier for Google to parse your site • Key: Don’t try to cheat Google • Only try to make their lives easier • Do NOT pay to “get your site on the first page of Google…guaranteed!”

  9. 3) User Feedback • Contact Form 7 • Simple form for users to contact you • Less spammy than an email address • There are hundreds of plugins like this, hunt around for what fits your goals. • Kampyle • Ask users directly “what can I do to improve the site”

  10. 4) Social Networking • Sociable • Provide links to share your posts • Also has hundreds like it • Some kind of auto-tweeter • Auto Tweet – Few options • Twitter Blog – Just released

  11. 5) Load • WP Super Cache • Can be hard to setup • Better: make sure your server can handle the load! • Cheap monthly hosting is just that: cheap • But expensive hosting isn’t necessarily better • Slow sites cost you users1 1) http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/bing-and-google-agree-slow-pag.html

  12. 6) Set It & Forget It • Plugin Manager • Automates plugin installation • No real reason to use this “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime” • Pay a kid to teach you to not need these types of plugins! • Experiment on a separate website

  13. 7) Analytics • Google Analyticator • Or others…just get Google Analytics tracking • Feedburner • Track RSS feeds

  14. 8) Revenue • Easy AdSense • Use adsense ads • Don’t try to run your own ad network • If you’re big enough to need this, someone smarter than me is advising you on what plugins to use. • Warning: Don’t blog to make money. It’s a losing proposition • You can make money, but don’t expect it

  15. Cool Ideas or “Neat Things Brian Can Talk About”

  16. Big Disclaimer • I sell plugins that do things here • There may be free versions • If they had the same features I wouldn’t have written my version • The goal is to get the creative juices flowing • Not sell things

  17. Taxonomies • Powerful and under-utilized WordPress feature • Examples: Categories & Tags • Other examples: Issues, People, Companies • Can associate anything about your post with any data • Custom Taxonomies (I wrote it, but it’s free) • Has a few bugs (some mine, some WordPress’) • Simple Taxonomies • More stable, fewer features

  18. Newsletters • Assign posts to newsletters • Send out newsletters with summaries of posts • “Newsletter” Plugin • Only sends newsletters, not posts • Be careful about sending out a lot of email • Your host may get angry (consider MailChimp) • Don’t get blacklisted or spam blocked! • Observe double-opt-in & opt-out practices

  19. Download Tracking • Offer downloads from your site • Require registration • Track downloads • “Download Manager” • Pretty featureful • No permissions

  20. CMS • You just need a theme that emphasizes pages • WordPress has all the features needed for a CMS

  21. Any Other Cool Ideas?

  22. Questions? Brian Krausz briankrausz@gmail.com

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