Welcome! My name is Tiffany Washko and I am a freelance writer, newspaper journalist, Internet marketer, mother and wife, and I am an avid environmentlist. My sites and writings primarly focus on the natural lifestyle and green living. It is a truly great thing to profit by doing what you love. Go ahead and read some of my thoughts on life, business, and success!
One of the greatest blessings in my life has been the fact that I can stay home with my kids every day and make a good living online. I set my own hours and I love what I do. I can get to all my PTA meetings, volunteer at my children's schools, and still be able to pay for that trip to Disneyworld. On this blog I write about my insights, stories, and resources.
Just found an awesome new plugin. It is called Psychic Search. If you have a search form on your blog then you want this plugin.
Basically it keeps an eye on my visitors and tells me what they search for when they search my blog. It has already given me a lot of insight into the topics my readers want to read about and I have tons of new ideas in my slush pile. Awesome plugin!
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Nell reminded me how much I love Wordpress. It is an absolutely amazing way to manage a content site and I have probably a dozen different WP blogs now. I do the installations and customization my self usually…although I have been known to outsource a custom skin. That can set me back about $500 or more so I don’t do that often.
When I install a new blog the FIRST thing I do is change the permalink structure to be more SE friendly. By default the permalink structure includes the full date (month, day, and year) inside the URL. I change this right away to get rid of the date and usually just leave the post title and the post number.
Next I add some plugins I can’t live without. These are the tools that work behind the scenes to make blogging easier and more productive.
Spam Karma - This plugin gets rid of the spam that can attack your blog daily. If I didn’t have Spam Karma or something similar I wouldn’t blog because the spam would be overwhelming.
All in One SEO Pack - This nifty little tool adds a custom title to each page (different from the post title), a custom description, and keywords…for each individual post. I like this plugin because post titles should be catchy to get the readers attention but that might not be the best title for SEO purposes so this plugin allows you to have your cake and eat it too.
FeedBurner FeedSmith - This redirects your RSS feed to your custom Feedburner feed. This allows you to customize your feed and track subscribers.
MightyAdsense - If you use Adsense on your blog this is the easiest way to add it. You just add the code and select the location….simple.
Related Posts - This plugin adds a string of links to related posts at the end of each post based upon keywords. If you blogged about Squidoo for instance then it would have links to other posts you wrote about Squidoo at the bottom of the post. However, I find that this plugin is testy. You have to run a database script to get it running and for no apparent reason it works sometimes and not others…even on brand new blogs and databases.
RSS Feed Signature - This adds a signature to your RSS feed. It can be text or anything in html. I use this plugin to add an affiliate link or banner to the RSS feed to promote to feed readers who don’t visit the blog to read my latest posts.
Share This - This plugin adds links to social networking and book marking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon. It also allows a reader to email the link to a friend.
SimpleTags - Adds technorati tags to the bottom of each post…although you have to write them manually.
WWSGD - This adds a box to the top or the bottom of the first post to remind readers to subscribe to your RSS feed.
Depending on the blog I also add a few other plugins but those are the main ones I look to first. What ones do YOU use?
I LOVE Wordpress as a blogging platform and content management system (CMS). I have about a dozen blogs too so it is no wonder that I get super excited when I find new plugins that add to the functionality or the profitability of my blogs. The latest cool plugin I found potentially adds to the latter…profit.
It is the MaxBlogPress Stripe Pro 1.2 and it adds a nifty bar at the top of your blog where you can display text and link to anywhere you want. This gives you the opportunity to highlight or accentuate a product you sell or promote in the highest position on your blog. You can create several different opportunities that can rotate and you can set the ad to follow when visitors scroll so it will always be at the top of the screen. You can choose colors and font type so it can be matched to any blog design too.
You can check it out in action on my cloth diaper blog.
The version I have is a premium plugin so I had to pay for it. There is a free version but it has an unsightly ad for the plugin designer that you can’t get rid of. The paid version allows you to get rid of the advertisement and for those that buy now you will get future versions gratis with some other cool features. When the other features are added the price will go up so if you want this plugin…now is the time to buy.
Technorati Tags: wordpress, plugin, maxblogpress, blogging
