My Favorite WordPress Plugins

One of my favorite things about being a WordPress user is the near unlimited number of plugin options that I have access to.

Plugins can be used for anything - tidying up the back end of your blog, helping you organize and schedule your posts and content, formatting pages and posts and image galleries. Some plugins are totally priceless, too, like the ones that protect your admin panel from hackers, or others that automate your SEO keywords and such so you get optimal Google ranking.

I've tested out a lot of plugins over the years, and while some aren't all that great, others very quickly made it onto my "must have" list. Today, I thought it would be fun to share my top three favorite plugins!

Jetpack
This plugin is totally indispensable to me now. Jetpack lets you crosspost your content to social media, add share buttons at the bottom of every post, track stats daily, build contact form pages, and a ton of other cool tweaks. This plugin was created by the official WordPress team, and is one of the best that I've used yet.

Stealth Login Page
I only recently began to think about the security of my blog. After reading a few different articles on WordPress security, this was the first plugin that I installed to combat hacking. It's really easy to use, and basically just forwards the default WordPress admin panel address to your homepage, while giving you the option to set a custom, secret URL.

WordPress SEO
Over the last few months I have been testing various SEO plugins to find the one that suited me best, and I think that I've finally found it in Yoast's WordPress SEO plugin. It's extremely easy to use, and features an innovative red-yellow-green light system to show you how effective your SEO is. This is definitely a plugin that I would recommend any WordPress user add.

How about you guys? If you are a WordPress user, leave a link to your favourite plugin in the comments! I'm always on the hunt for new and awesome plugins.

Six Things You Can Do Today to Improve WordPress!

Over the years that I've written online, I've used various platforms.
Like a lot of people, I started out with LiveJournal. I've also dabbled with tumblr, for about two seconds I had a Vox account, and a few years ago I registered my own Blogger - which I still continue to use.
Since Blogger, I have also become a user of WordPress, which very quickly became my go-to for blogging needs. The most difficult thing about WordPress is how incredibly sharp of a learning curve there is in learning to use it.
So today, I'm sharing six things that I recommend doing to all WordPress blogs - whether they're freshly made, or just looking for a quick face lift!

1. Deactivate and then delete all of the plugins you don't like, or aren't using.
Benefit: Not only will your blog run faster, it will also be more secure! One of the most well-known ways of compromising WordPress blogs are through deactivated files that haven't yet been deleted, so cut your chances from the get go and get those files gone.
2. Change the default settings on your Permalinks page
Benefit: Your posts will rank higher in SEO.
WordPress default (for some reason) is to file your posts by /year/month/date/your-post-name. Change it to just /your-post-name and your content will automatically become more likely to be crawled successfully by Google's search index program.
3. Limit yourself in categories, not Tags
Benefit: Your content will be easier to discover.
Think about your categories as genres, and your tags as ways to narrow those genres down. This will allow your reader to discover more content (via category), yet still find specific content when they want it (via tag).
4. Make WordPress work for you and your content!
Benefit: You can spend more time writing, promoting, and networking.
Install an Editor's Calendar plug-in to schedule posts ahead of time, find social network plug-ins so your content is automatically published to Twitter, Google, and Facebook, and automate as much SEO as you can! Make your blog "work for you" and you'll cover more ground in success in a shorter amount of time.
5. Remove your beginning widgets, and start fresh
Benefit: Your blog will have a cleaner, more customized look
Removing your starter widgets will allow you to decide the flow of your website that you'd most like your reader to follow. What is more important to you for your reader to see first: Instagram photos? Your pins?
Also, remember to remove the "meta" widget. Not only do you not really need to display it, if you do, you'll basically be showcasing a direct link to your admin panel to those who may use it for not-so-nice purposes.
6. Start adding META information to each image
Benefit: Increased ranking in Google Image Search
When you upload post photos or graphics, type in some keywords or even an image caption into the various ALT values that are there. Google will scan through your keywords whenever someone searches with Google Images, and can potentially be a great source of traffic if you nail the right words!

That's it! My six favourite tips. What are yours? Feel free to leave your own in the comments.

How To: Add A Pin It! Button To Your Blog Posts

If you have a blog, more than likely you're pinning your posts. Much like we do here, you have an image you pin either to a Pinterest board containing all of your blog posts or another board about blogging. But aside from you pinning your posts, your readers can pin them too! The easiest way to allow for your posts to be pinned is to add a 'Pin it!' button to the bottom of your posts. In just a few simple steps you can expose your blog to hundreds of thousands more potential followers. 

Step One:

Upload a 'Pin it!' image to an image hosting site [I use Flickr]. You can find one by doing a Google search for a Pinterest image or you can create one yourself. I created my own for my personal blog A Fox & A Wolf by using PicMonkey. After your image is uploaded, find the image URL.

Step Two:

Head on over to Blogger and go to 'Template' and then 'Edit HTML'. Click 'Expand Widget', hit CTRL>f and search for <div class='post-footer'>. 

You're going to want to paste this code above that:

<a href="javascript:void((function(){var%20e=document.createElement('script');e.setAttribute('type','text/javascript');e.setAttribute('charset','UTF-8');e.setAttribute('src','http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinmarklet.js?r='+Math.random()*99999999);document.body.appendChild(e)})());"><img alt="Pin It!" style='border: none;' src="INSERT IMAGE URL"/></a>

Where it says 'INSERT IMAGE URL' you're going to want to paste your Pinterest image URL that you uploaded to your image hosting site. Click 'Preview' to make sure the code copied correctly, then 'Save Template'. 

Now you are on your way to having the best exposure on blog posts and your blog in it's entirety. You can view B.You's board on Pinterest here. 

If you have any questions about adding the 'Pin it!' button to your blog, please leave us a comment below or send us an email at b.you.blog [at] gmail [dot] com. 

Blog Tip: Scheduling Blog Posts and More

Sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming to take time out of each day to write up a blog post. Finding that balance between personal life and blogging is difficult for even the most established blog. But to take some of the obligation out of the way and create a time-saving routine of blogging, schedule your blog posts [as well as media posts] and get on with your life. Here I will show you how to schedule blog posts, Twitter updates, and Facebook posts. 

Scheduling Blog Posts

Blogger [as well as other platforms, but I am demonstrating with Blogger today] makes it very easy to schedule a post for a later date/time so that you can draft up a batch of posts and go enjoy the Spring air with the kids. When you're in the screen to create a new post and have finished drafting and previewing, head on over to the right side under 'Post Settings' and click on 'schedule' then schedule a time and date that you want that particular post to publish. 

You'll also notice the option of 'permalink' right under schedule. Click on that and copy the link. You'll need these to schedule posts for your social media sites. Once you copy the link, hit 'publish' [or schedule for other platforms] and head over to view all posts. You should see the posts you have scheduled with a display of the date/time they're to publish.

Scheduling Twitter Updates

Once your post is scheduled and you've copied the permalink, log in to TweetDeck [if you use another Twitter platform, the steps are almost the same. Basically, you want to look for a little clock] and type out your update, copying the permalink. No matter the platform, it should automatically shorten your link. If not, you can change that in your settings. Once you have your update typed out, click on that little clock next to the send button.

Next you are going to schedule the date & time of when you want the status to send. You can coordinate it with the date & time that your blog post is going to publish or schedule it for any other date & time. 

*Note: You can schedule any Twitter status, not just the links for your scheduled blog posts.

Once you have your status scheduled you can view all scheduled updates in the column labeled 'Scheduled Updates'. 

If you have your Twitter account linked to Facebook, you can skip the next part; however, it is helpful information so that if you ever need to schedule something only for Facebook, you will know how.

Scheduling Facebook Updates

When you're on your Facebook page, type up your status update including the permalink for your post, and click on the little clock below the status box. Schedule the date & time you want the update to publish. You can make it coordinate with the blog post & Twitter status date & time or any other date & time you'd like. 

Click 'schedule' and you will be all set. Now all of your posts will be scheduled at the same time and you can get on with your life!

There is a great platform that you can use which is Hootsuite. I have heard amazing things about this tool because you can schedule all of your social media updates all in one spot. Why I don't use it, I don't know. I have a hard enough time keeping things scheduled in the first place! But, I have heard great things about it so I highly suggest you check it out [as I am going to head on over there as well]. 

Do you schedule any of your blog posts or other social media updates? Does it save you time? Let us know!