Grant Laird, Jr. Blog

It is clearly that many deaf bloggers jump into blogsphere world. It is very exciting. The reason I am writing this specific article because I learned so much about Wordpress and its plugins – want to share it with you guys.

Believe it or not, many newcomers are struggle with their own website whether it is under private hosting or free service hosting. I know many authors (coder) are trying to make thing as easy as possible for anybody to use program such as Wordpress, Mambo, etc and all those plugins.

Personally, I like Wordpress very much – it is probably easiest program or all. It is not 100% code-free but almost there. I’ve got the opportunity to experiment with many different open source applications. Some of them required heavy codes and some of them don’t require a lot of codes.

About three years ago, I tried Wordpress but I did not like it. I went with b2evolution and happy with it for about two years. It has become big problem with spam – I mean it is serious and it cause high bandwidth every month. Occasionally we had to shut down my website for 24 hours so spammers will go away but they always came back.

I finally filled up with it and started looking at Wordpress again. At this time, they just released new version with a lot of improvements. I decide to go with it – I asked Brenden to help me converted b2evolution to Wordpress and it was successful.

I only had Wordpress for 6 months and I enjoyed it very much. It is so powerful than you really think. I noticed more people switched to Wordpress or pick it over another programs.

Many top deaf bloggers now use Wordpress but many of them did not realize or did not know that they could have advantage of many powerful plugins to make it easier and lesser codes.

To view video of Explain 10 different plugins in sign language - click here, (YouTube.com) click here, (Google Video)or click here to pop-up video (new browser) using Videopop plugins. 

Widgets – coolest plugins of all. It will only works with Wordpress 2.0 and up. Basically, you now can drag sidebar from top to bottom in few seconds without using codes at all. If you still use old codes that do not have widget-support, you can always copy-paste codes into widget text box and viola! It comes with few other plugins. (Google Search, META, RSS, and del.icio.us) 

Akismet – spam control. You will need it big time. Just do it. Free for personal use only.

Counterize – counter style. Very useful and watch stats inside Wordpress Admin. You still can use counter from 3rd party service by using Widget Text box if you want to.

Search Meter – Track what people type words in your search box and see what they are really looking from your website. Neat. 

Editor Monkey – HTML Editor or also known as WYSIWYG. It is a must—helps make your post look prettier and less using codes. It comes with TinyMCE and FCKeditor. 

Web Calendar – Nice free plugins. I prefer to use Trumba plugins – its fancier and it comes with basis free version and pro version. 

VideoPop – It is not exactly like Google or YouTube Video Plugins but it will help you automatically set up video and it will pop up nicely. It required little code. (Copy and paste) There’s more video plugins (Google, YouTube, etc.) — click here.

Photopress – Gallery Album online. I’ve tried it and it’s pretty easy to use. There’s more different plugins to meet your preference such as Flickr or Gallery2 - click here.

Ad-Rotator – If you have any ad banner (can be used for other things) – this should do just fine for you. If you have Google Adsense account, you can just post codes into Widgets text box. 

Contact form – This is ready made contact form – just plugins to your Wordpress and active it. It will set up automatically for you once you pick which page to install. Very nice.

Remember, not all plugins are widget-supported. Fear not! Most of the time, you can hack it easily by copy & paste codes into widget text box and it works like charm. I do use it for Fomdi.com codes and it is very easy to install.

There’s a lot more at Wordpress Plugins website. Those 10 are one of my favorites and use it with my blog site. Always read plugins instruction carefully – easy to make mistake.

Note: If you start using Widgets, make sure your theme support it. If not, it may not work at all. Also, if you decide to shop for new theme, make sure it is widget-support. You can find it easily by “check” widget before search themes. Click here.

If you want to learn how to optimizing your Wordpress into search engine, you should read this article. I find it useful information myself. This is whole different story how to improve maximum search engine visibility. Click here.

Finally, if you didn’t see one of your favorite plugins — please make comment and let me know. I would love to know from you!!