A Few Must Have’s For WordPress

As I was wrapping up WordPress project for my father-in-law, I made a list of all the user name and  passwords that would be needed for various accounts I had created for him to conjunction with the site. I can hear it now, “This is WordPress” what else do you need?” Well, I’m glad you asked, here’s my list of must have’s for WordPress:

Gmail Account – create a Gmail account, it will come in handy for other items on the list.

Google Analytics – use that newly created Gmail/Google account and setup Google Analytics.

Google Webmaster Tools – another perk from having created a Gmail/Google account.

Feedburner ID – while you are rumbling around with your Google account grab one of these too. The theme I used for my father-in-law’s site had a built in subscribe to Feedburner.

YouTube Account – another benefit from Google. Take a few minutes to create a YouTube account, then you can associate it with your Google account. Even if you don’t have videos of your own, you can still search and share favorites that you find.

Twitter Account – a must have. I’ll recommend a great WordPress plugin to go along with this in just a bit.

bit.ly – this will come in handy to create shortened URL’s.

Facebook Account – huh? Why would you need a Facebook account or Facebook Fan page if you have a WordPress blog? I’ll get back to you on that one too.

Next you will need to be able to tie these into your WordPress blog, so here is my recommended list of WordPress plug-ins:

Google Analytics for WordPress by Joost de Valk – this plugin with allow you to easily add your Google Analytic tracking number into your WordPress blog.

Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold – this plugin will very nicely handle creating the XML Sitemap that you will submit to the Google Webmaster Tools you signed up for.

Twitter Tools by Alex King – this plugin is by far my favorite plugin to use with Twitter. Not only will it create and send Tweets about your blog posts, it can also create blog posts from your tweets. Alex has also added the capability to create Bit.ly URLs when you opt to send posts to Twitter – hence the need for a Bit.ly account.

Sociable by Blogplay – you need to have a way for your readers to easily share your posts to their favorite social bookmarking or media.

Akismet is a built in plugin but is worth it’s weight in gold when it comes to trapping spam. Signing up for your WordPress.com API key is so much easier now, no more having to create a WordPress.com account to get one.

There are other plugins that I use depending on what features and functionality the site owner needs.

That brings me to my next point – I recommend that you host your own WordPress blog. Yes, you can get one at WordPress.com, but your options are limited, you can’t tweak the look & feel of the installed themes and you can’t install any additional plugins. If you are wanting to have your WordPress blog look like your E-commerce site, then this is the only way to go.

So now why should you have a Facebook account too? Not everybody will find your WordPress blog, not everyone is using Twitter, so by also adding Facebook you giving yourself another avenue to help people find you. If you are a business, then set up a “Fan” page (a business page). You will be able to post links to your blog updates and your site here too. With a personal account you can even have your blog posts automatically feed into your Facebook page.

These are a few of my favorite things…