Are you using Wordpress? I myself made the switch from blogger to Wordpress a couple of months ago and have immersed myself in the world of plug-ins. You see, that’s how Wordpress automates many of its functions, so, if you have a Wordpress blog, then make sure you have these plug-ins. They will make your blog more effective on the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) front and just easier to maintain.

It’s hard to define exactly what Wordpress plug-ins are (they sound like little devices that you “plug-in” somewhere), but what they basically do is allow you to customize your blog to work for you the way you want it to. There are hundreds of Wordpress plug-ins and, for the most part, the ones that you claim work best for the functions of your blog will differ from those that are more important on another blog, BUT there are a few that everyone agrees are essential, and here they are. . . .

1. The All In One SEO Pack allows you to tweak your meta titles, descriptions and tags without changing the content of your post. In just a few seconds, you can do all this to optimize your SEO. This Wordpress plugin also protects your blog from violating Google’s Duplicate Content, and it offers many other options that you can try. However, the default options have worked just fine for me.

2. Akismet protects your blog against spam, and you definitely need this!

3. Google Analytics tracks your blog so you know how many visitors you are getting and where they are coming from.

4. Google XML Sitemaps helps Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines index your blog more quickly.

5. Sociable allows you to place buttons at the end of your posts so readers can bookmark and share them with others.

New Wordpress plugins are constantly being developed so this may change in the near future. If you need help setting up your Wordpress blog, switching your Blogger blog to Wordpress, or installing these or any other Wordpress plug-ins, fill in your name on the right and I’ll walk you through it step by step!