We’ve used a lot of plugins over the years but there are a handful of them that are our favorites and whenever we create a new blog, these are the plugins we automatically upload.
1. TinyMCE Advanced – This one we can’t do without. The TinyMCE Advanced plugin does a multitude of things but what we use it for mainly is the ability to add extra formatting options to our posts, in particular font size and font family selections. We also use it to easily add nofollow to our affiliate links. A definite must.
2. MaxBlog Ninja Affiliate – My absolute favorite plugin of all time. I love this one, however there is a catch – it’s not free. But it has paid for itself over and over. The Ninja Affiliate plugin allows you to create affiliate links quickly and easily.
So let’s say your site is about fishing rods, and over the years you’ve created hundreds of blog posts all about a particular brand of fishing rod. Then one day you decided that it would be a good idea to add affiliate links to all of those posts. This would probably take you many hours of work. But, with the Maxblog Ninja Affiliate plugin you can easily do it in about 5 minutes. You simply enter the affiliate link once in the backend along with the keywords that you want to add an affiliate link to, and this plugin does the rest. Wherever it sees those keywords on your posts, it adds an affiliate link behind them. It also automatically adds affiliate links to any new posts you add. One other benefit of this plugin is that it can cloak your affiliate links so they look like regular links on your site.
Read our MaxBlog Ninja Affiliate plugin review.
3. All in One SEO Pack – we have used this plugin for years on our blogs. It basically helps with optimizing your posts and pages for the search engines. We have always just used the default settings but I am sure if you studied this plugin you could get a lot more out of it.
4. OIO Publisher – this is another paid plugin but if you want to advertise on your blog then this is a must have. It makes the process so easy – all you need to do once this plugin is set up, is approve the ads. It’s so simple and a huge time saver.
5. WordPress Database Backup – This is another must have. If for some unforeseen reason, you lose your site then having a backup of your WordPress database will make getting your website back a whole lot easier. This plugin will email you a regular backup of your database which you can store on your computer.
6. Adsense Target – On our product review sites, we will often add Adsense adds to our articles. These are extra informational type articles that we add to boost our blog/website content.Note: we do not add Adsense to the product reviews themselves, this would defeat the purpose of our plan, we just put Adsense on the articles.We use this plugin to increase the quality of the Adsense ads displayed. It helps to better match the Google ads to the content on your blog and hence result in a higher click through rate.
7. Internal Link Building – This is another favorite. This plugin automatically creates internal links on your blog. In other words, links from one page on your site to another page on your site. This can really help to boost your site. This plugin is particularly good if you have a huge site and haven’t been particularly diligent in linking between posts. Update: The developer tells me that it can also be used for affiliate links and you can no follow them which is excellent.
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Thanks for this interesting list of available plugins. There are now so many plugins (both free and paid for) that we can use that it is often very hard to understand precisely what they all do and the ones that really benefit a blog.
If one isn’t careful it is too easy to add heaps of plugins to a site and then spend a considerable part of each day just doing up all the updates.
That’s so true Jan. I know we have some blogs that are full of plugins. I think I’ve even forgotten what some of them actually do. I try now to be very selective and stick with our list above.
TinyMCE Advanced allows the change of font size within a post?
TinyMCE has font size and font family selections so you can change the font size from 8pt to 36pt and the font family eg. Arial, Times New Roman etc.
And yes, that is within the post itself.
The Internal Link Building plugin sounds really interesting to me. Am I understanding it right? You create a keyword, for example ‘reviews’, and every time it is mentioned in a post a link is automatically inserted?
Yes that’s right – an internal link is automatically inserted anywhere that the word that you have defined appears. And you can determine how many times it appears.
I’ll have to follow up this post with my own, there are a few that I have used (all in one seo) that I no longer use (SEO Ultimate is much more astounding!), but didn’t know about a few of these, like #1 — I’d LOVE to change the way my blog font looks.
My current theme is good, but there have been times…messing with the CSS is not fun…
Oh, wanted to announce I am pitting your Amazonian Profit Plan – which I LOVE BTW!! – against a fellow blogger in the UK who is using a competing product.
The reason I went with your book is simple: you have QUALITY about your business – and no offense to anyone else: but that’s RARE in this business.
You guys are spot-on, high class, totally helpful folks and I’ll be making you proud come December (this is a Christmas challenge using Amazon).
I will say this up front: I build links differently than you outline in your book. I do use some of the methods already, but have never done things 100% this way.
So, this challenge will be that for me: a challenge! I’ll be sure to keep you all posted, it’s all in good fun, but I wanted to make it public here to “up the ante” so to speak.
You two: keep up the GREAT WORK. You’re 100% the kind of business people I want to be like.
That’s quite okay if you use a different link building system. Everyone has their own preferred methods so go with whatever works for you. The whole goal is to get as many good quality backlinks to your site as possible so as long as you are doing that, it will work.
And great to see you have set up a challenge. These are the sorts of things that can keep you motivated. It’s a great idea. I’d love for you to keep us updated.
I love the Amazonian Profit Plan it is quite a different approach to courses that I have done to date and the customer service – wow! I am taking a week off work next week to get stuck into it and can’t wait to do it full time.
Thanks for the great info on the plug-ins. I have most of these and will check on the others. The comments from others help because I am unsure how to use some of them, and can see their applications.
I am following your plan – a little slower than I like, but hope to catch up soon.
Thanks again!
Jane
There are so many plugins available that you can spend a lot of time just going through them, and some just don’t give the results you are looking for. Been there done that.
There is no rush with this process. Its all about creating a solid foundation that is virtually set and forget.
Do you think the new way google is showing search(instant results) is going to affect you guys in the future? Do you need other tools to handle this?
Hard to say Len. It could affect it but then again it might help. I think it’s going to be a matter of keeping track of the stats to see if anything changes over the next few months.
For those that don’t know about Google Instant, click the link for more info:
http://www.google.com/instant/
Some excellent suggestions there. I already use Tiny MCE but hadn’t noticed it can easily do things like nofollow. Will definitely check out some of the others.
Thanks,
Des.
That’s one of the main reasons we use it. Adding nofollow to affiliate links can be a slow process but with TinyMCE it’s quick and simple.
Could you explain what a “No follow” link is and why it’s important to have your affiliate links set to No-follow?
Thanks
Take a look at our blog post below. This will explain what nofollow is all about.
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2008/08/03/what-is-dofollow-and-nofollow/
Seems like the TinyMCE is quite like the FCK Editor. Any idea how they compare?
Gregory
I’ve never tried FCKEditor so couldn’t say. Anyone else using it?
Hi,
I have just installed the TinyMCE and I dont get how it adds the nofollow on links. How do you add no follow on images also?
When you are writing up a post you highlight the word or words you want to add a link to. Then you click the little hyperlink icon on the toolbar. This will give you a pop-up. You then add your hyperlink as you would normally do. Then also on the pop-up you will see a few tabs across the top – click the ‘Advanced’ tab. On that tab you will see the option ‘Relationship Page to Target’. In the drop-down next to it you will see the nofollow option. You select that and click ‘Insert’ and it will add nofollow to your link.
You do the same thing for images.
The other option is to use the Ninja Affiliate plugin which will automatically create affiliate links for you and automatically add nofollow to them.
For example I used an amazon image and copied its image link location and I used that to embed a picture on a post. Although they’re related should I still put NoFollow? because it is amazon for example this kindle image http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/shasta/photos/big-viewer-3G-01-lrg._V188696038_.jpg
I used this to embed pertaining that I am reviewing a the amazon kindle. Although it is easy to just upload the image from you host I am just wondering if IT was done this way
We do put nofollow on our Amazon images but we don’t get too hung up about it. If we forget to do it we don’t worry too much.
Also if you are direct linking to their image just be aware that your affiliate link won’t be added to that link. So if someone clicks on that image on your site you won’t get any commission for any sales as the link doesn’t have your affiliate code.
Hi, I don’t know if my comment not submitted or something else happened i had a question if we should nofollow an embedded image link from an another source(website)
I have been dithering about buying Ninja Affiliate so will get it tonight! It is only $37 at the moment so really good value by the sound of it. I use TinyMCE and it is a fantastic plug in and also All in One SEO. I have been reading a lot about the Twitter plug ins but don’t really know much about Twitter or how to get the best use out of it.
I have been trying to get my head around follow and no follow and not really “getting” it. Why is it so important to have no follow for your affiliate links?
Just be aware that the $37 is for one license only so you can only use it on one website. For multiple websites it will cost $97.
You can read more about dofollow/nofollow here:
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2008/08/03/what-is-dofollow-and-nofollow/
Great post. I did not know about a couple of those plug ins, specifically the Tiny MCE Advanced. I hope it changes font. I just installed in so I am about to check it out! I for one am surprised that WordPress.org blogs do not already have a font changer capability.
It definitely does change font. It’s a very handy little plugin.
Crystal,
I started using it after this post also and the font changer is awesome!
I’ve had that same question for WP since I started..it seems like such a simple and needed add, don’t it?
Nice lists of plugin, i use some of them as well.
I have never tried TinyMCE plugin, though i heard alot of it, i should probably try.
I couldn’t live without TinyMCE. It’s a great plugin.
One plugin that I HIGHLY recommend is the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. It basically replaces 8 plugins but it is also very light (it won’t slow down wordpress).
check out the feature list:
Post titles and meta descriptions
Robots Meta configuration
Canonical
Breadcrumbs
Permalink clean up
XML Sitemaps
RSS enhancements
Edit your robots.txt and .htaccess
Clean up head section
One cool thing is it lets you preview what your site will look like in google results (title with description etc). highly recommended!!
Awesome list of plugins. I’ve used most of them and I still use some of it till today. I find it interesting that you guys don’t use commentluv, they just release a good upgrade on premium last month and it is pretty spectacular. Also because it’s an all-in-one plugin with extra features that are hard to resist. :)
We probably weren’t using at the time the post was written Jerry. But we certainly do use it now and here is a link to the review we wrote about it http://www.affiliatereviewshq.com/2011/09/30/commentluv-premium-wordpress-plugin-review/.
I agree with you 100% on what a great plugin CommentLuv is.
I have been using the WordPress Database Back-Up plug-in to back up my website, but I got a message it is no longer supported. What back-up plug-in do you recommend that I now use?
We actually use Backup Buddy now. It isn’t free but it’s very good and worth the price in our opinion.