I’ve been using WP for a while now and I figured I’d share some of my secrets.  I understand how hard it can be to teach yourself WordPress blogging but I’ve been consulting my expert, Ms. Google, and she helps me attain everything I’d ever need to (ask for) online.

Akismet:  Your WordPress blog comes naturally with this amazing spam filter, but you do need to sign up to get an API on their website.  To sign up for an API key, click here. Star that email that you get because you’ll probably need that key later on in your blogging career.  You can use it with multiple blogs.

Goto Plugins>Activate Akismet>Settings>Paste your API Key & update.

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam:  Adds a captcha to your comments so that it keeps spammers at bay.  You can tweak a few things under settings like tying it to your Akismet or making users enter captcha when they log in, register, comment, etc.

One Click Plugin Updater:  One day, you’re going to happen upon your WordPress dashboard and there will be a number of plugins that need to be updated.  Sucks that they take like 2 minutes each to install, unpackage, reactivate, :-p.  That’s where this plugin comes in.  Even if you have 10 plugins that need updating, a thin yellow ribbon with an update button that simply aggregates, then automates your updating process.

WPTouch:  Everything’s going mobile.  Duh.  Want someone to be able to read your site on their iPhone or Blackberry?  This formats your blog to work well with mobile.  No, you’re not going to have all your flash, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier for those users.  Yes, you’re going to have to be a little technical (get your Adsense and Adwords information handy!), but there’s a lot of stuff that goes into this plugin and you might at least want to check it out.

Tweetmeme:  Simple Twitter plugin.  Makes it so that users who are logged into Twitter can click the “tweet” button to update their personal Twitter followers and simultaneously add to the TweetMeme.com news feed.

Google Analyticator:  Easy install for Google Analytics.  Don’t have GA?  Click here and get on that!  There’s a lot that goes into this so click the Analyticator link and it will help get you started.

Visitor Maps and Who’s Online:Want to stalk your readers?  This is taking analytics to the next level.  It does need Maxmind GeoLiteCity which will automatically install once you install the VMWO plugin.

There are honestly so many more plugins I use, including SEO helpers, but these are the basics I think you should at least start out with.  If you have any questions, please consult the documentation for each plugin.  If you would like further on-site help, I am also available for a very reasonable fee 🙂  Email me!