Setting-Up Your Blog Properly – Part 1

After installing your WordPress blog on your own domain, there are three steps you need to take to get your blog set-up properly so it will not only be indexed by the search engines but also be easy to run and a good place for your visitors to go. I’m going to cover each step in a separate post, this is Part 1.

These steps are specific to a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. The free or hosted services like Blogger and WordPress.com will not allow you to accomplish what is described in these articles. These are the three steps:

1. Part 1 – Add the proper plug-ins
2. Part 2 – Change the permalinks
3. Part 3 – Find a quality theme and activate the widgets

Adding the proper plug-ins

The first thing in setting up your blog is to add the proper plug-ins. Plug-ins add to the operation of your blog and some adjust how your blog operates. The proper plug-ins can make a huge difference in how the search engines treat your blog. Other plug-ins make a big difference in how your posts are presented to your visitors.

There are literally thousands of plug-ins with more being added to the selection on a daily basis. You can find a directory of available plug-ins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ and this link can also be found on the dashboard of your WordPress blog (the first page when you log-in to your blog).  The list below is what I am using at this time.

• Akismet – Is automatically installed with WordPress; helps prevent comment spam.
• All-In-One SEO Pack – adjusts your blog so it is search engine friendly.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Creates a sitemap for your blog that is compliant with Google and others. Once your sitemap is created, you should submit it to Google Webmaster Tools.
• CommentLuv – Shows a link to the last post from the commenter’s blog in their comment. Helps promote comments.
• Sociable – Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites.
• Subscribe To Comments – Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.
• WP tags to Technorati – Automatically creates tags to link to Technorati for you
• Ultimate Google Analytics – Enables Google Analytics on your blog. Has an option to also track external links, mailto links and links to downloads on your own site.
• WordPress Duplicate Content Cure – A simple, yet effective SEO plug-in that prevents search engines from indexing WordPress pages that contain duplicate content, like archives and category pages.

Now there are plenty of others but those are the minimum I would recommend to make your blog work better and be more search engine friendly.

To install the plug-ins you will need to FTP them into the wp-content folder within your blog. Once uploaded, log-in to your blog, go to the Plug-In link in the upper right corner, then find the plug-in listed and click on the “Activate” link.

Tomorrow we’ll change the PermaLinks so they are search engine friendly.

Ciao!

Reba

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