WordPress Plugins – WordPress and Twitter

Plugins for WordPress helps turn blogs into efficient information conduits.

A plugin is a program (or bundle of programs) that is installed on a WordPress blog site that will accomplish one or more specific function(s).

These are some of the benefits:
– Help market blog site through search engines
– Help readers facilitate searching blog
– Keep networking sites linked
– Save time, no need to enter information on multiple networking sites
– Help build and market blog to gain advertising revenue

One example of a WordPress plugin is get information from a Twitter site back to a WordPress blog.

Most plugins are free; some are not

Darren Rouse, ‘the man behind ProBlogger,’ maintains a site dedicated to blogging and tweeting. He helps bloggers get started with plugins with his blog post 10 WordPress Plugins for New Blogs.

Over the next few blogs I will explain, by example, how to select and install a Twitter feed plugin on my WordPress blog.

Start with a Twitter site. Go to Twitter and sign. up. It is free and takes a few minutes. Make a post. ‘Follow’ other people and they may become ‘followers.’

I am posting links on my Twitter site to my articles that are published in online media. I also post about my WordPress blog, which brings us back to the reason for looking at a plugin that saves keyboarding time. Don’t double post when software can save do it and save the time?
Next blog I will look at the various free plugins that are available. I will choose one and begin ‘plugin’.

For those that want to work ahead, Tweet My Blog is a top plugin candidate.

Blog Basics – Acquire and Retain Readers

Building and maintaining a blog that attracts and retains readers is not magic. However, it does require a persistent focus and must be incorporated into your professional life.

A journalist discovers and sculpts stories. The stories must have channels in order to get the words and images from the source to the reader. Use your blog as one of those channels.

Tom Hung presents the five prerequisites for blogging success on the site, ProBlogger.

Author, Ted Demopoulos, presents tips and guidelines blog for serious bloggers on his site, Blogging for Business.

See the Demopoulos post on why most bloggers NEVER get much traffic.

Also, Demopoulos presents the guidelines for acquiring and retaining readers.

Blog Garage

Put your blog in the Blog Garage and give it a thorough checkup.

Take a look at these two mechanics.  Chris Pearson at Personified and Lorelle VanPossen on WordPress.

The blog begins with the word. Think about the typography.

Text is easiest read in a serif typeface. This has been proven by many researchers and the spreed read professional, Evelyn Wood.

“Some designers sometimes tend to forget that the primary function of type is to be read, and there are some typefaces that are totally unreadable….When it comes to choosing between serif and sans serif typefaces, serif is definitely better for body copy. That is a proven fact. Evelyn Wood’s Reading Dynamics proved absolutely that you can read serif type faster… long copy should never be in sans serif, ” says David Merrill, former art director, Time magazine. reference

In order to get control over using serif for body type and sanserif for heads and subheads, your WordPress theme may have to be changed.