Marketing with WordPress and More

I was wasting a lot of time with trial & error before I read WordPress for Internet Marketers by Leanne King – a treasure trove of excellent tools and techniques that can help you transform your blog into something attractive and profitable.  It’s also one of the best resources I’ve found for information on reliable plugins!

Note: The majority of these are plugins are free and recommended by Leanne King

1. Platinum SEO Pack is often cited as being better than the very popular All in One SEO plugin. It can greatly improves how your blog is indexed in search engines and is a must-have, unless you are using a premium theme that is already properly SEOd (and regularly updated to keep current with what search engines like) like Thesis

2. OptinPop allows you to easily add a customized opt-in box that you can connect with one of the top 2 autoresponders I reviewed in my post Autoresponder Review – Top 2 Choices

However, I am far more keen on Robert Plank’s Popup Software which I’m using on this blog.

3. Privacy Policy is essential if you use Adsense. Starting at the end of February 2008, Google law is that sites that display AdSense ads or search boxes must  have a privacy policy. If you don’t use Adsense it’s still a good idea to have a privacy policy and the wording in this one is general enough to cover many different kinds of sites.

4. Theme Tester is handy because having a great theme for your business blog is essential and you will probably end up switching themes more than once. With this plugin you can test different themes without affecting what your visitors see until you’re ready to make the change official.

5. Robots Meta is awesomely helpful. It allows you to  easily change which pages  in your blog are indexed in search engines (you don’t want download pages indexed, for example) and whether links in a post or on a page should be dofollow or nofollow.

6. Sociable adds social media buttons to your posts  so your visitors can easily submit your site to their favorite social bookmarking and news sites. You’ll see it in action at the bottom of this post.

7. WP Database Backup helps you to backup your blog as often as you like. Backing up  regularly is wise for everyone, but it can be all the more critical if your blog is a source of income. This plugin makes it easy, allowing you to set how often the backup runs and where to send the file for safekeeping. You can read more about backing up WordPress here

8. Maximum Security will fix a huge number of  security problems that allow evil doers to hack (mess with) WordPress blogs. As it stands now, WordPress is fairly easy to hack even if you use some of the security plugins that are available. Maximum Security is still in beta right now but will be released soon. It won’t be free but the beta testers are wowed by it – it will likely be a must-have.  You can sign up to be notified about the release date when you visit the site.

Note: To learn about the best security plugins and strategies to protect your blog from malicious hackers, I recommend John Hoff’s excellent ebook and video package: WordPress Defender: 30 Ways to Secure Your Blog from Attack that Anyone Can Do

9. TESTIT makes it possible to split test different posts within Wordpress. You can write two versions of any post and  see from within the WP Admin which post generated more clicks or which blog post inspires the most people to click through to other pages on your blog, other categories, other posts, what you have in your sidebar, etc.

10. Podcasting is a great way to get your message out. This plugin takes a file from your site or another site and adds it to an iTunes-based feed. It also includes a player so visitors can tune in on your blog. Having a good microphone is important.

11. Auto Social Poster Gold will auto bookmark your blog posts to over 30 bookmarking websites as soon as you click Publish. It also has a random submission option if you want to avoid being slapped for submitting to too many sites at once. This works far better than software like Web2Submitter in my opinion. I learned about this product from James Schramko -  a marketer with a refreshing amount of integrity and an awesome ninja coaching forum that you can join. Have a look: Super Fast Strategies

~ Lillea Woodlyns

This entry was posted on at and is filed under Business Website Basics, Reviews, WordPress & Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.