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7,106The Top 5 WordPress Plugins for Mom Bloggers *
While I’ve only been a “mom blogger” for less than one year, I’ve been using WordPress as a blogging platform for quite a long time. Over the years I’ve probably installed a few hundred plugins on my various blogs, and sometimes it is trial and error to find the best plugin to fit a need. Following are my current favorite plugins, in no particular order. Mom bloggers who are already using WordPress may find something new to try, and for those of you considering a move to self-hosting, here are a few more good reasons to take the plunge!
1. Flickr Photo Album
Flickr Photo Album gives you the ability to pull your photosets into WordPress to create albums. However, this is a somewhat advanced task, and it’s not the reason I love this plugin. I use Flickr Photo Album primarily for the little Flickr icon that it adds to my WordPress edit screen, that allows me to insert my Flickr photos into posts with a simple click. This is wonderful for mom bloggers who enjoy uploading their favorite family photos to Flickr, and saves you a lot of time in posting. As a mom who takes a LOT of photos, being able to skip double uploading is a major plus! This plugin also gives you a simple Flickr widget so you can show off your recent images in your sidebar.
2. WP Greet Box
If you’re like most mom bloggers, you probably want to snag as many new subscribers and followers as possible. With the WP Greet Box plugin, your readers will see targeted suggestions at the top of your post, depending on their entry site. Readers will have the option to click to subscribe, follow, or share via RSS, Twitter, Facebook, and a variety of other social media outlets. This is a great way to increase your blog’s exposure, and to capture the interest of new readers as soon as they visit your post!
3. And the Winnner Is…
Do you regularly post product giveaways on your blog? If so, the And the Winner Is… plugin is an absolute necessity! Forget visiting random.org to choose your winner, now you can simply click a box on your post to mark it as a contest, and then randomly select one or more winners at the giveaway’s close. This plugin is an absolute must for any blogger who posts sweepstakes on their blog.
4. Intense Debate
My biggest complaint with WordPress over the years has been the inability to respond to comments via email. If people don’t know you replied to their comment, the chance of them coming back to the post is pretty slim! The Intense Debate plugin for WordPress offers a two-way comment sync for your blog, which means you will still retain your comments should you want to uninstall the plugin. Installing Intense Debate on my blog has really fostered conversation, which in my mind is the most important part of any good blog. Leave me a comment to try it out!
5. Simple Facebook Connect
This plugin comes packed with several incredibly useful Facebook-related sub-modules, perfect for growing your fan base and getting the word out about your blog! The SFC sub-modules that I use and love are the Like Button, Facebook Share Shortcode, and FanBox Widget. While I love Twitter as well, I have found that people are more likely to click a simple “like” on your post than to retweet an article. The item that your reader “likes” is published to his or her Facebook profile, which of course means more exposure for you! As far as I am concerned, everything in life should have a LIKE button. EDIT: funny that my theory on like vs. retweet is totally failing in this post’s case. I guess it depends on the content, as one of my commenters points out. Personal posts about your life/children may gain more likes and informative content more retweets!
I hope you enjoyed my plugin roudup–happy WordPressing!
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And the winner is… is.. AWESOME! I love it. It's so easy. :)
I'm so glad you put this post up. I've been wondering for so long how to get a greet box like that and didn't feel like digging through thousands of plugins.
Thanks so much for telling me the name of that greeting box plug in! I've been jealous of the blogger who have it for months.
As much as I love responding to comments, Intense Debate is too much for me, and I hate having to choose whether to sign in via Twitter or use my name/url with a link to the blog. Plus I do almost all my comment responding on the post itself – the format I'm used to from other blogs – and prefer to just use a comment threading plugin.
I agree that more things in life need a "like" button. Twitter, for sure!
I REALLY didn't want to use a comment system outside of WordPress, so I totally understand your hesitation. However, when you install the plugin you actually register for an Intense Debate profile, and you are automatically signed in whenever you comment on your own blog, or anyone elses. Since I installed in a month or so ago, I haven't had to sign in once, I'm just ready to comment!
Plus, you can reply right on the post, I'm doing it right now! :)
Thanks for posting this article! I'm not a mom, but I am migrating over to a WordPress blog. These suggestions came at a perfect time for me! I'm especially eager to check out Intense Debate.
Thanks again!
Hi Cindy, glad it was useful for you!
Crissy great resources! I am especially excited about the Winner Is! No more counting back pages and trying to figure out which comment is actually number 253! Ha!
I am not a huge fan of intene debate so i use WP Threaded Comments. It allows you to reply to comments and have it show in the comments as well as send an email to the commenter. Its great!
I am a new follower. Hope you stop by my place sometime too!
I'm a new blogger, wanted to start a blog….choose blogger…..think I made a big mistake but don't want to lose the few followers I do have. Any suggestions?
Here's my blog: http://onelittlemister.blogspot.com/
My biggest complaint for blogger is, it doesn't look as "clean" or professional as I'd like it to.
Nicole
Well, Nicole, if you think you might want to switch in the future (most people do tend to outgrow blogspot) you're going to lose even more followers. It's a tough call, but switching early would probably be the way to go in my opinion.
Someone told me there was a way to do it without losing your followers but I just don't know enough about wordpress to do it….I'm getting pretty frustrated over it, lol.
I'm debating on And the winner is…
When I do a review/giveaway, I want to give non entrants a chance to comment on the review and not be buried in entries. I want to encourage conversation on reviews because many don't bother to comment on them especially if it's attached to a giveaway. So I started using Google Docs for the entrants and leaving comments open for anyone who wants to comment. Of course a few apples are not too bright and enter the giveaways in the comments instead. Ugh. Giveaways…
Maybe I should write the review in 1 post and then link to the review in the giveaway post.
There are parts of the multiple-entry, comment on the post thing that I hate too, and just doing single entry or an entry form the way you are doing it is no doubt good on many levels, but because I'm trying to build momentum and grow traffic-wise right now, I'm just going to keep doing it the "typical" way.
I flux so much on these issues, and will no doubt change the way I do things several times before I get it right! :)
Love these! I am trying to get the Simple Facebook Connect plug-in to work but its not showing up. Do you know a trick or how I should set it up?
I know you have to go into your plugins and activate the "SFC Base" , then you actually have to activate each individual module you want to use from plugins!
awesome. I HATE random.org. cant wait to try out that plugin.
awesome post! a lot of people had trouble posting from facebook with intense debate on our website <a href="http://www.todaysmilitaryspouse.com” target=”_blank”>www.todaysmilitaryspouse.com kept getting error messages….we uninstalled because we were stumped….any ideas?
Just notice the retweet count verse the facebook likes count here. It’s really about the content that will hit stronger with some instead of others.
How funny is that. I was wondering when someone would point out that my theory on likes vs. retweets was flopping here. :) You're right, though. My posts with informative content tend to receive more retweets, and my personal anecdotes about my daily life and my family are more often "liked."
I am now going to experiment with both WP Greet Box and Intense Debate. Thanks!
I am going to install a few of these that I don't already have, like the greeting box one! Thanks.
Just another reason why I have given you the sunshine award on my blog. http://novembersunflower.com/2010/07/another-suns…
Some great ideas! I'll enjoy checking out the different plugins.
I don’t generally reply to posts but I’ sure will in this case. Truly a big thumbs up for this one C CLass IP hosting!
I'm transferring my blog from blogger to wordpress today, so thanks for this list! I was wondering, is the box in your top right hand corner a widget or did you put it together yourself? I see similar boxes across many sites and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make one of my own!
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Thanks for this! I just installed the ‘and the winner is’ plugin and can’t wait for one of my giveaways to end so I can use it!
These are great. Thanks! I’m especially excited to try the Intense Debate and And the Winner Is… plugins.
What I really need help with is battling spam on WordPress! Any suggestions for plugins for that? Thanks!
Thanks Chrissy! I read this article a month or so ago, and am now revisiting to add some advanced options to my blog! Thanks for sharing!
Great writing! You may want to follow up on this topic!!
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Are you still using the intense debate comment system? I dont see where the “Subscribe to comments” option is available on your comment form.
This is very useful! I just started a blog about getting healthy and having fun with your family. http://funhealthyfamily.wordpress.com Thank you for this post and I am reading more!