How To Set Categories On WordPress Pages

I have a site, CoachGuiden, where I list coaches and needed to be able to set categories on the coach pages. I found Ninja Page Categories and Tags which is a plugin that solves my problem. CoachGuiden is in Swedish but you’ll be able to see how the plugin works anyway.

On the individual coach-pages, see Bengt Wendel – Key Coaching as an example, the coach categories are listed at the bottom. Clicking on any category will bring up a list with all coaches that are in that category.

I then created a main category page, Coach per kategori where all coach categories are listed and clicking on any of them brings up the coaches in that category.

Digg Digg Social Buttons

WordPressI have tested several plugins for social bookmarking but found many of them far too bloated and big. The functions included in Jetpack are too basic, otherwise that would have been a great option since I have Jetpack installed already.

I ended up with Digg Digg which has a really nice floating option. It’s set up to only show on pages and singe posts. I changed the positioning of the floating buttons, from -120px to -85px.

For current plugins at this site: see WordPress Plugins I Use.

SexyBookmarks for WordPress

WordPressI noticed really nice social bookmarking on several blogs but it took me a while to figure out that what they use is SexyBookmarks. It’s bookmarks are clearly visible yet not ‘in your face’, I find them attractive and it’s easy to share a link.

Though the name may be a little “edgy” for some, SexyBookmarks has proven time and time again to be an extremely useful and successful tool in getting your readers to actually submit your articles to numerous social bookmarking sites.

I signed up for bit.ly and use that as URL-shortener in SexyBookmarks. The plugin handles lots of bookmarking sites plus Twitter and email. The Twitter option gives a clean nice tweet with your username in.

Update
I think SexyBookmarks is too big for the bookmarking I need.

For current plugins at this site: see WordPress Plugins I Use.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

WordPressI came across the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin again and decided to give it a try. The description says:

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site

I have installed YARPP here and I am impressed by the result. Now the plugin suggests related posts and I don’t have to do that manually anymore when writing a new blog post.

YARPP can add related posts to your RSS feed too, a nice feature.

For current plugins at this site: see WordPress Plugins I Use.

TweetMeme Button WordPress plugin

WordPressI have installed the TweetMeme Button on this blog. It’s a nice WordPress plugin that is focused, it’s about retweets and nothing else. The plugin shows a button and the number of retweets so far.

I used Tweet This before but it had too many features compared to what I want.

Update.
I have switched to SexyBookmarks for WordPress

For current plugins at this site: see WordPress Plugins I Use.

8 First Step SEO Tips for Bloggers

WordPressIn 8 First Step SEO Tips for Bloggers Darren answers this question:

What are the first steps to optimizing my blog for searches?

Darren expands on his eight tips, in short they are:
1. Content is King
2. Anticipate What People Will be Searching For
3. Titles Titles Titles
4. Keywords in other parts of your post
5. Link to Your Own Posts
6. Links from Outside Your Blog
7. Plugins
8. Readers Begat Readers

For help with item 2, what people search for, I use a plugin called WordPress.com Stats. It gives me the statistics I need and is easier on your blog than Google Analytics.

Under item 7 (plugins) Darren links to an older post, 9 SEO Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Have, but the plugins I checked were not updated for WordPress 2.8.

TweetMe, tweet when you publish a post

WordPressTweetMe is a WordPress plugin that creates tweets when you publish a post in your WordPress blog.

TweetMe is a simple WordPress Plugin that posts a tweet to Twitter when you publish a blog post. You decide what format the tweet takes by modifying sample string like below. You have access to 2 special tags #title# and #link# which are replaced with the post title and the condensed link respectivly.

I have installed TweetMe on this blog and will see how it works out.

For current plugins at this site: see WordPress Plugins I Use.

Update September 29, 2009.
Since Twitter changed its Term of Service, mentioning they don’t approve of automatic tweeting, I have removed TweetMe from my blogs. Instead I use the Tweet This plugin for WordPress and tweet selected posts manually.

13 Rockstar WordPress Plugins

WordPressMen With Pens have posted about 13 Rockstar WordPress Plugins You May Not Know About. It is a really great list with several interesting plugins that I did not know of before. Read the comments too, there are more plugins suggested.

The plugins I will look at first are WordPress Firewall, SEO Smart Links, Exclude Pages and PageMash.

For current plugins at this site: see WordPress Plugins I Use.