5 ways to pimp out your WordPress weblog

Filed under: Internet, Features, Blogging, Open Source, Social Software

5 ways to pimp out your WordPress weblog

by Jason Harris Jan 20th 2008

So, you got your domain name registered, your hosting plan set up, and you've configured your brand new WordPress weblog. Or maybe you've had WordPress set up for a while and you're wondering what you can do to spice things up a little bit? Look no further, we'll let you know how you can pimp out your WordPress and give you that happy fuzzy feeling about your blog again. It is after all, part of your online identity!

Apply a new theme: This may be a daunting task, depending on how much you've customized your current theme. However, there's no better way to give your WordPress blog new life than to completely re-fresh it's look and feel. There are a ton of great places to find exciting themes based on your tastes and preferences, but we would start at WordPress' site, Smashing Magazine, and BestWPThemes.

OpenID: With all the press about OpenID lately, woudn't it be great to allow people who want to leave a comment on your blog to sign in using their OpenID? The WPOpenID plugin will allow you to this, as well as use your own OpenID as your log in to the admin interface of your WordPress blog.

Related Posts: One of the tough things on any blog is to get readers who click on a link into your blog to discover the other great content you may have to offer. That's where the Related Entries plug-in comes into play. After installing this plugin and making a few changes to your WordPress database (don't forget to backup first!), visitors will see a Related Entries section at the bottom of each post.

WP-Cache: Do you have any posts which may see heavy traffic? Such as something that may make the front page of Digg or other social networking site? WordPress sometimes has trouble staying available under heavy traffic. Utilizing WP-Cache will allow WordPress to handle all those simultaneous requests. It lightens the loa on your hosting server by converting your posts into static html for easy retrieval when a web request comes in.

FlickrRSS: Do you have a Flickr account that you'd love to integrate into your WordPress blog? flickrRSS for Wordpress from Eightface is the answer. This easy to use plugin will allow you to display your Flickr photos right in your weblog. You can specify either your own, public, or group photostreams. This plugin is very handy for the many bloggers who are also aspiring amateur photographers.

There you have it - five fast and easy ways to put some polish on your fancy shmancy blog. What are some of your favorite WordPress plugins or tricks? We look forward to seeing some good stuff in the comments.

Tags: blogging, wordpress

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

CDRUDY said 7:35PM on 1-20-2008

Smashing Pumpkins? Good band, but I like reading Smashing Magazine better ; -)

Carlos said 8:15PM on 1-20-2008

Nice typo ;)

James Lao said 1:11AM on 1-21-2008

I would try WP Super Cache instead of WP-Cache.

http://ocaoimh.ie/wp-super-cache/

Gary Walter said 1:34AM on 1-21-2008

Hey Jason, Good article!

Since I just switched from Blogger (http://hwy30.blogspot.com) to Wordpress (http://savinglives.wordpress.com), this really caught my eye. For the last couple of weeks I've been trying to figure out how to install Wordpress plugins. Then I discovered, my "free" account at Wordpress.com doesn't support most of these plugins.

How about a follow up article for those of us who cannot install these plugins?

gw
http://twitter.com/gwalter

rightbrainer said 2:16AM on 1-21-2008

I think its pretty limited when it comes to Wordpress.com. There isn't much you do besides Widgets.

Anyway good article, can't wait to get my own domain.. ^^

Rajesh said 4:01AM on 1-21-2008

Related posts is of no use for a new weblog...you can use it only after you have atleast 100 posts...

do you say that you need only flickr to have photos?

detorn said 12:34PM on 1-21-2008

there is also a lot you can do with widgets. I've added my Flickr and Twitter feeds, I've also added a "funny quote of the day." to see
http://dailydeathreport.com

The most useful plugin I've found is podpress, a great podcasting plugin. to see
http://detorn.com/kisscast

Eli Horne said 1:52PM on 1-21-2008

Agree with James Lao - WP Cache is old news. WP Super Cache is where its at.

Also checkout (google b/c i'm too lazy to find links right now)
- maintenance mode
- wp reports from tan tan noodles
- subscribe 2 (to?) comments

Michael said 4:01PM on 1-21-2008

Plugins come and go as their usefulness is tested over time against the chore of updating them, which is why I'm glad that the new WordPress core has a plugin update checker built in now.
My site deals with a lot of pictures that my visitors prefer to see at large sizes, so Kjell Bublitz's Lightbox 2 plugin (http://www.m3nt0r.de/blog/lightbox-wordpress-plugin/ ) is such a boon.

The other must-have plugin I use on my site handles the series of essays I write on the subject of obscure (to me, at least) painters whom I write about, as well as a collection of extracted episodes from a long out of print book about film art direction. The plugin is called In Series (http://remstate.com/projects/in-series/) written by a genius who rejoices in the name Travis Snoozy.

There are quite a few others that handle anti-spam duties, contact forms, backups, and page order.

Daniel Holter said 4:05PM on 1-21-2008

agree with Detorn...

Adding a Twitter feed to your sidebar is a fun and easy way to keep new and current updates at your site all the time. Of course, it means getting up to speed with yet another social system on the net, but oh well.

Check out Twitter (http://twitter.com/) and the WP Plugin Twitter Tools from Alex King (http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress). I've got it running at my site (http://www.danielholter.com) if you want to check it out, too.

PitchPanel said 6:09PM on 1-21-2008

For anyone looking for a new marketing channel through which to advertise your blog, I suggest you check out PitchPanel, a site I recently launched.

I'm offering bloggers a 125x125 banner ad posting for free. You can opt in to cost-per-click fees, but only if you want premium placement of your ad. Otherwise, just enter zero for your CPC bid and your ad will stay on the site at no cost.

I'm pulling a fair amount of blog-seeking traffic from Google AdWords and seeing excellent click-through rates. Registration is quick and easy, so PitchPanel is a great way for bloggers with a limited budget to get the word out.

http://pitchpanel.com

Thanks!

kingkool68 said 9:12PM on 1-21-2008

I'm a Wordpress plugin junkie. There are too many currently installed on my blog to list, but I did a write up about all of them in a series of posts -> http://www.russellheimlich.com/blog/my-favorite-wordpress-plugins-syndication-tools/

Todd Lambert said 8:30PM on 1-22-2008

I'd say that the best way to pimp out your WP blog is to actually learn some php and implement most of these features without having to load heavy plugins to slow your site.

Also, nothing will bring traffic to your site if your content sucks.. maybe invest the time spent on the blog bling, on writing interesting content to keep your visitors happy.

But, hey that's just me. ;-)

moi said 8:08AM on 1-23-2008

Boo.. even a toddler can write a better article than this.

jameskm03 said 9:49PM on 1-23-2008

I hadn't seen the OpenID plugin that is nice! I put together a list the other week that has some other necessities.
http://doteduguru.com/id21-the-right-way-to-setup-a-wordpress-blog-and-why-part-2.html

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