SEO
Add Meta Tags - Download - (83kb)
This plugin adds XHTML META tags to your WordPress blog. Its design is based on the assumption that the WordPress categories are used as tags, so it requires no user configuration in order to work. On the other hand, the latest versions include all those features a SEO-concerned publisher would need in order to have total control over those meta tags.
The features at a glance
The following list outlines how and where META tags are added to a WordPress blog by this plugin. Please note that this list does not provide all the details you need to know about how to customize the added metatags. Its purpose is to provide a general idea of what this plugin supports. For detailed info, proceed to the next section.
- Front Page
- Automatically.
- Customization is possible from the plugin’s configuration panel.
- Single Posts
- Automatically.
- Customization of the “description” META tag:
- either via custom excerpt
- or via custom field (note that this overrides the custom excerpt).
- Customization of the “keywords” META tag via custom field only.
- Static Pages
- No automatic generation of meta tags.
- Customization is possible with custom fields like it can be done in posts.
- Category Archive Pages
- The description of the category, if set, is used for the description META tag. The name of the category is always used at the keywords metatag.
- META Tags on all pages
- It is now possible to set any other META tag, which does not require any computation, to be added to all blog pages.
Here follow all the details about how this plugin works.
Features - How to use it
The simplest way to use this plugin is to activate it in the WordPress administration panel and forget about it. At this basic level of usage, it automatically adds the “description” and “keywords” META tags to the front page and to single post view, which, of course, can be customized in the ways outlined below.
META Tags on the Front Page
By default, the blog’s tagline (Options->General) and all the used categories are being used automatically as description and keywords for the meta tags on the front page. These can be overridden by setting a custom description and keywords for the front page in the plugin’s configuration panel (Options->MetaTags).
The description and keywords defined in the plugin’s configuration panel have higher priority and, if any of them is set, it will be used instead of the automatically calculated respective metatag.
META Tags in Single Posts
In single post view, the post’s excerpt and the categories (I prefer to call them tags) it belongs to are automatically being used as description and keywords. In WordPress, while editing a post, it is possible to define a custom excerpt. If this excerpt is not set, then the description is calculated from the post itself. This calculation is based on the following:
- the plugin tries to use the first complete sentences of the post, if possible.
- it also tries to keep the calculated excerpt at a length around 250 characters. As you can guess, this cannot be always achieved, so I’d say that the calculated description will be about 150-350 characters.
This automatic behaviour can also be overridden, by adding custom fields to the post. Note that the custom fields have the higher priority and, if set, their values are used in the META tags.
The contents of a custom field named description will be used in the description META tag instead of the post’s excerpt.
Contrariwise, a custom field named keywords can contain a comma-delimited list of keywords, which will be used in the keywords META tag instead of the post’s categories. It is still possible though to quickly include the post’s categories to this list by using the tag %cats%, which is replaced by the post’s categories when the page is displayed in a browser.
For example, when the post’s categories are not enough, you can add a custom keywords field to the post, and add the extra keywords you want together with %cats%:
keyword1, keyword2, %cats%
This makes it possible to adjust and optimize the post’s keywords without having to create a huge number of blog categories.
META Tags in Pages
It is possible to add the description and keywords meta tags in WordPress Pages by assigning custom fields to each page as it was discussed previously for posts. Pages do not belong to categories in WordPress, so metatags will not be added automatically without using custom fields. Also, the tag %cats%, if used in the keyword list, will not be replaced by any categories.
META Tags in Category Archives
Finally, META tags are automatically added to category archive pages, for example when viewing all posts that belong to a specific category. In this case, if you have set a description for that category, then this description is added to a “description” META tag.
Furthermore, a “keywords” META tag - containing only the category’s name - is always added when viewing category archives.
Installation
Just copy the add-meta-tags.php file in your /wp-content/plugins/ directory and activate the plugin in your administration panel (Options->Meta Tags).
As it has been mentioned, no configuration is required for the plugin to function. It will add meta tags automatically to the front page and to each post in single post view.
The administration page (Options->MetaTags) contains all the information that was mentioned in the previous section, so you can access it quickly.
Google Sitemaps - Download - 7 (kb)
This plugin generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Google, YAHOO and MSN Search. More information what XML-Sitemaps are and how they can help you to get indexed by the major search engines can be found at Sitemaps.org and the searchenginewatch blog.
If you have questions about XML-Sitemaps or run into problems, have a look at the Google Sitemaps FAQ.
Note: The XML-Sitemap format was introduced 2005 by Google and adopted in 2006 by YAHOO and MSN Search so that’s why it’s often called “Google Sitemaps”.
Problems with your sitemap? Read my Google Sitemaps FAQ
- WordPress 2 compatible
- No PHP skills needed
- Has a user interface where you can customize all parameters like change frequencies, priorities etc.
- Available in fourteen languages
- Generates a static XML file in your Blog directory (Filename is customizable)
- Can generate a gzipped version of the sitemap
- Generates a sitemap for homepage, posts, static pages, categories and archive pages
- Calculates a priority for each post, based on the number of comments (You can also turn this off)
- The XML file gets automatically rebuilt if you change/edit/create/publish a post
- Tells Google automatically about changes via Google-Ping
- You can include external pages which aren’t generated by WordPress or are not recognized by this plugin
- You can define a minimum post priority, which will override the calculated value if it’s too low
- Includes a WordPress filter for other plugins which can add their pages to the sitemapLanguage pack:
http://www.arnebrachhold.de/redir/sitemap-dl-lang/Supported languages: Arabian, Brazilian Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portugese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Simplified, Traditional Chinese and Turkish.Installation:Simply download the Zip-Archive and extract all files into your wp-content/plugins/ directory. Then go into your WordPress administration page, click on Plugins and activate it. After that you will have a new menu point called “Sitemap” under the “Options” menu. You can alter the default change frequencies, filename and other options there. Click once on “Rebuild Sitemap” to create your sitemap the first time.The script needs write access to your Blog directory. Check out the WordPress Codex or have a look at the FAQ for help.
Installation Video-Tutorial:
Andre Chaperon created a Video-Tutorial which shows you how to install the plugin step by step! Great work, thanks for this!Sidebar Button:
If you have still space on your sidebar, you can use the following button to link to this plugin or your sitemap. Link it to your sitemap, to this plugin, to Google or wherever you like.
- Build-in File manager and upload manager
- Wordpress “read more” feature support
- Create your own smiles
- Skin selector
- Toolbar selector
You should see the “Reading Options” settings page for your site.
Sociable - Download - (83kb)
Social bookmarking sites allow websurfers to save, catalog, and share interesting pages they find online. The Sociable plugin appends links for your readers to use those sites to the end of each of your blog’s posts, increasing your potential audience.
To install, unzip it, and upload the sociable folder (not just the files in it!) in your wp-contents/plugins folder. In your WordPress administration, go to the Plugins page to Activate the Sociable plugin and a subpage for Sociable will appear in your Options menu.
Sites
61 sites supported: blinkbits, BlinkList, BlogMemes, blogmarks, co.mments, connotea, del.icio.us, De.lirio.us, digg, DZone, Fark, feedmelinks, Furl, Fleck, Gwar, Hemidemi, IndiaGram, IndianPad, kick.ie, LinkaGoGo, Linkter, Ma.gnolia, MisterWong, MyShare, My-Tuts, NewsVine, Netscape, Netvouz, PopCurrent, ppnow, RawSugar, Rec6, Reddit, scuttle, Shadows, Simpy, Slashdot, Smarking, Spurl, SphereIt, StumbleUpon, Taggly, Technorati, TailRank, Webride, Wists, Wykop, and YahooMyWeb.
