Last Update 3rd October, 2017
One beautiful thing about a WordPress blog is the never-ending ability to add plugins that completely change the way your blog looks and functions. It’s absolutely essential for successful blogging.
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A lot of these plugins would cost thousands (or even tens of thousands) if you wanted to pay someone to build those features in to your blog individually.
For example, before e-commerce plugins came about, you’d need a team of developers constantly working on your online store. These days you can do it with a few clicks.
Here are some of the best WordPress plugins that you can install to make your blog instantly more professional. It’s not the biggest list in the world, but we’ve only selected the very best.
Disclosure – There are two affiliate links in this post. I’ll let you know which ones they are below. I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you purchase through that link. I use both plugins myself and would have included them with or without an affiliate program option. Thank you for the support, but feel free not to use my links if it bothers you.
I absolutely love WordPress plugins. Let’s be honest – it’s the plugins that make WordPress as powerful, popular and flexible as it is.
Want some more security? There’s a plugin for that. Want a floating box that captures email subscribers? Plugin for that. Want to rank better on Google? Sure, plugins do that too.
But what if you had a WordPress plugin that was actually harming your blog?
Scary thought…
I’m going to take you through a few scenarios and situations where that fancy WordPress plugin might be having a negative impact on your blog. In fact, sometimes that can destroy everything you’ve been working on.
If you’re a big plugin user you’ll want to read this post.
If you have a WordPress blog you’ll normally find that a good theme and set of plugins will cover you for most functions.
But what if there is something you want your blog to do and none of the existing solutions are really cutting it?
Well, you build something new.
In today’s post I’m going to give you a very quick and dirty overview of how you can design and build a completely new function into your blog with the least possible hassle.
Let’s take a look.
A few months ago I tweaked my WordPress blockquote code to make a little green box. It’s nothing amazing but since then I’ve used it in various places with quite a lot of success.
It’s increased my click through rate to some affiliates by 2-3%.
It’s brought attention to old posts that I want to highlight.
Best of all, however, it’s dramatically increased my email sign ups when I’ve used it in a post to promote my mailing list.
In this post I’m going to show you how to make one in just five minutes and then talk about how to get the most out of it on your blog.
Practical stuff, yo!
Last updated March 26th, 2017
Are you looking for some VPN reviews after all the news lately?
Getting your own VPN is actually something I think almost every online user should be considering nowadays. Why?
Well, did you know that through the use of a simple browser extension, a naughty person can access all of your passwords and details when you are blogging, Facebooking or internet banking from a public WiFi hotspot?
Gross right?
I’ve been traveling around Europe for the last month and during that time my VPN has been an essential part of my work life.
Don’t know what a VPN is? I’ll get to that in a minute.
This won’t be like every other VPN reviews post that you see. I’m going to focus on the premium service that I personally use – StrongVPN – and then tell you about a free alternative or two.
My goal is not to tell you about every VPN out there but rather to give you confidence to start exploring for yourself.
Important Note: As with any purchase, please make sure you do your own research and analysis before making a decision. I’m not a security expert – just someone talking about a service that I’ve personally enjoyed. If you purchase StrongVPN through a link in this post I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for the support!
photo credit: erin MC hammer
I don’t do much right here on Blog Tyrant (due to laziness) but it is clear that I do get a lot of comments. Normally its between 60 and 90 and sometimes as much as 250.
And as much as I bang on about the importance of email subscribers, the comments I get on this blog from my amazing readers is what keeps me going. It is what makes the blog appear alive and well and it is those comment-leaving angels that spread the word on social media.
In this post I want to show you some of the most engaging comment areas that you will find on a blog and talk about why they work so well. Hopefully it will inspire you to update and tweak your own comment areas in order to make them more attractive and enticing to your readers.
Last Updated August 28th 2017
Its true. When your Facebook, blog, email, or bank accounts get hacked your life can become temporarily difficult.
Some of us spend our entire existences online and such a breach can have terrible effects. You can have money stolen, personal details hijacked and, as happened to me, spam emails sent out to hundreds of high profile clients.
A few years ago my Facebook and secondary email accounts were hacked while I was on holiday in India.
It was my fault.
In this article I am going to give you some simple ways that you can boost your Facebook and email security and stop hackers from ruining your day. Please share this post around as this event was seriously traumatic, I’d like to help people prevent it.
The first few months of blogging is hard.
Deciding on things like self hosting options or free hosts, this theme or that theme, one plugin or it’s competitor, etc. can be extremely confusing.
And the interesting thing is that even now, many years on, I still look for new things to put in my blogging arsenal. I still keep an eye out for better tools that will help me grow my network of blogs and websites.
This post is designed to be your complete blogging arsenal. I have put together all the tools, apps, plugins and websites that you will need to succeed with your blog. This post isn’t just for beginners – hopefully everyone finds something new here.
54 tools, apps, plugins and websites that every blogger must have
As always, if you see any glaring omissions please leave a comment and let us know as I am going to add to this list constantly. I will give a back link to your blog if you suggest something that makes the list.
1. Blue Host – Hosting
Blue Host is a very cheap hosting company with amazing live support and a solid money-back guarantee. It’s a good balance between power and price for beginners who are looking to start out with their own domain name and hosting without dealing with the complication of dedicated hosting.
2. Google Sitemaps – Plugin
Automatically generates a sitemap of your blog and all its pages and sends it to Google for indexing. This is an essential for good SEO and could not be easier with this little plugin.
3. Head Meta Desc – Plugin
Turns the first few lines of each blog post into different meta description for indexation by Google. Very useful for turning your excerpt on Google results into something a little more catchy.
4. What Would Seth Godin Do – Plugin
A handy plugin that lets you add a message to your blog posts so that new readers see something different to old readers. For example, you might want to put something like “Hey dude, new here? Why not subscribe or check out our popular posts?” in order to make your blog more sticky.
5. Subscribe to Comments – Plugin
People leave comments but often forget to check back for replies. This plugin allows people to subscribe – an email is sent to them automatically when someone replies to their question. Visitor loyalty starts with this plugin a lot of the time.
6. Tweet Meme – Plugin
Adds the little thing up the top that shows how many people have Tweeted about your stuff. Handy if you get lots of Tweets, kinda sad if you don’t.
7. Wise Stamp – Firefox/Chrome Extension
This lets you add a custom HTML rich signature to any email account (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.). All you do is compose your email, click the button down the bottom and it adds it in automatically. You can even have different signatures for different email accounts. Very handy.
