As I’ve mentioned before, there are only a few select WordPress plugins that should be used by most WordPress blogs. Unless you are running a news site of some sort where your archived posts don’t hold any real value to search engine traffic, you should be using the Related Posts WordPress plugin to try to promote some of your older content.

The first thing you’ll notice after downloading this plugin, is that it is not overly easy to setup up.   In addition to the normal process of uploading it and activating it, you will more than likely need to make an update to one of your databases in order to function.  Here is what the author asks you to do:

ALTER TABLE `wp_posts` ADD FULLTEXT `post_related` (
    `post_name` ,

    `post_content`

)

No idea how to create/alter a table?  No problem.  Here are the steps you’ll need to take to make the adjustment:

1) Backup your databases in case you have a problem.
2) Access your blog’s CPanel.
3) Click MySQL Databases.
4) Scroll down and click PHPMyAdmin.
5) If applicable, select the appropriate database in the menu on the right.
6) Scroll through your databases until you locate wp_posts.
7) In the Structure tab at the bottom, you should see some stuff that looks like this, but without the post_related field:

We need to create the post_related field pictured above.

Where is says Create an index on 1 columns, click the Go button. You should now see this:

9) Under index name, type post_related.
10) In the Index type drop-down box, select FULLTEXT.
11) Click Go where it says Add to index 1 column(s).
12) In the first field, select post_date [postdate].
13) In the second field, select post_content [longtext].
14) Click Save.

Now you should see the post_related field pictured above!

Now you just need to tell the plugin where to display your related posts:

<?php if(function_exists('related_posts')) { related_posts(); } ?>

Now that its set up, you can then determine the number of posts you’d like to display from a Options panel under Plugins, and how you’d like to display them.

So, what exactly does this plugin do?  Well, the name of the plugin pretty much sums it up.  Using the keywords in your post titles, this plugin attempts to figure out the most relevant related posts to the post you just wrote, then them wherever you tell the plugin to display the related posts.  This is all done automatically, so you’ve got your plugin setup, there will not be any additional maintenance.

Any questions or thoughts?  Sound off in the comments below!

The WordPress community is filled with a bunch of great plugins that have been made available to Wordpress users, but a majority of them are designed for specific functions or specific types of websites. If one of your objectives is to attract more comments to your blog, a popular way to encourage comments is the Show Top Commentators plugin.

This plugin is actually pretty easy to set up. You’ll want to go through the normal process of uploading it to your plugins folder, then activating it from your Plugin dashboard. Once done, the only thing left to do is paste the following code where you want to display your top commentators:

<?php if(function_exists('ns_show_top_commentators')) { ns_show_top_commentators(); } ?>

Once installed, this plugin will reward your regular commentators with a prominent link in the sidebar. In addition to possibly generating traffic, search engines will usually pick these links up as an inbound link, giving an added bonus to your readers who take the time to leave a comment. You could even turn getting on to the list into a competition and watch your comment counts soar!

As an added bonus, if you are focusing on improving your search engine ranking with certain keywords, using this plugin on other blogs can be easily used for this purpose as well. Travel around to some of your favorite high ranking sites and work on getting on their top commentators lists. Enter the keyword you want to work on into the name field when writing your comments so that the keyword of your choice will show up in the sidebar. Search engines will then pick that up as anchor text pointing towards your website. Doing enough of this can actually elevate your search engine rankings.

If you’ve ever participated in a group writing project, the position of your inbound link on the participating blogs list will go a long way towards determining how much inbound traffic you will receive. Studies have shown that having an inbound link towards the top of the list will usually result in 3-4 times the number of clicks than you would receive being towards the bottom of the same list. This is especially true for group writing projects that receive a lot of participation, such as the ones held on ProBlogger or Daily Blog Tips.

In much of the same way as group writing projects, advertisers will receive additional traffic if they are placed at the top of the advertisers list. Being the top Text Link Ad, for example, or being the top 125×125 banner, can generate a lot more viewing and more traffic than being the fourth or fifth advertisement on the list. The problem is, they typically all cost the same price, but don’t necessarily all provide the same value to the advertisers.

In an effort to give all advertisers an equal value no matter where there advertisement is placed, Got Chance created a plugin called Got Banners and has made it available for anyone to download.

Unfortunately, this plugin doesn’t allow for links to be randomized, but it will allow you to use an unlimited number of banners and alternate the order that the banners are displayed each time your site refreshes. It appears that this can also be used to alternate affiliate banners, which means it will still be useful to bloggers that don’t have direct advertisers yet. So far, the only requirement I could find is that the banners be the same size (typically 125×125).

Over the coming weeks and months, I have tons of WordPress plugin reviews scheduled to be posted.   As I complete the reviews, they are being added to my ultimate list of WordPress plugins, which is a collection of WordPress plugins, their descriptions, and the links to these reviews.  My hope is that this page, in time, will prove to be a useful resource for WordPress users.

In the meantime, I ran across a great post by Lifehacker.biz called WordPress plugins and tutorials.   The authors went into an extreme amount of detail with their list of plugins, and there were even a few useful ones there that I didn’t know existed.  I recommend you take a minute or two and skim through their list to make sure you are taking advantage of all of these plugins available.

If you haven’t upgraded to WordPress 2.3 yet, it may be because of compatibility concerns.    WordPress 2.3 had some major changes under the hood, causing several WordPress plugins to not work correctly.

I noticed the other day that WordPress has actually been collecting a list of WordPress 2.3 compatible plugins to help people prepare for their upgrade and hopefully avoid any problems that the newest release might cause.

Blogging has become popular over the past five years for two main reasons.   Bloggers like the ability to have their voice heard without having to go through editors or censorship, while readers enjoy blogs because they are quicker to break news  and they allow direct interaction with the author.  

Whenever I create a new blog, the first thing I add is an About page to give more information about the author, and the second thing I add is a way to contact the author.   This is where the WP-Contact Form plugin by Douglas Karr really shines!  

This form provides you with the security you need to protect your e-mail address and personal information from spammers while at the same time providing you a bunch of useful functionality.   Once you’ve activated your plugin, you can add a bunch of functionality from the Options panel in your WordPress dashboard including:

• Add a drop-down menu to give users options
• Give users the option to carbon copy themselves
• Add a challenge question that users need to answer

If you are a WordPress user and don’t have a contact form, or you just aren’t happy with the one you are using, I recommend giving this one a shot.   If this doesn’t sound like the one for you, here are a few other popular contact form plugins that you make like better:

• Contact Form ][
• PXS Mail Form
• Enhanced Contact Form