Kristi Barrow

Since I re-did the Estonians in Australia site with Wordpress (the site aims to keep Aussies, usually with an Estonian heritage up-to-date) and started this blog, Kristi Barrow Ramblings (I will come up with a better name!), I’ve been experimenting with many plugins to try and customise to each audience.  Here are my favourite plugins, listed because; they worked, they were easy to implement (no coding required); and they served a purpose.

• Archive Pages
• Bookmarking
• Excluding a Page from Navigation
• Incorporating Google Analytics and Sitemaps
• RSS Feeds

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Archives Page

I wanted a simple page, with a list of all my posts.  I don’t have that many yet, so I didn’t want to have a complicated drop down system.   I tried many plugins, but most of them required another plug-in to execute php code within a page or post; or I simply couldn’t get them to work.   Finally I found Clean Archives Reloaded and it was the only plugin that was dead simple and I could get to work in under 5 minutes.

Wordpress Post Archive List

Example: Archives on Kristi Barrow Ramblings

Download: Clean Archives Reloaded

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Bookmarks

Sociable is a great plugin to allow your readers to easily bookmark your posts.  You can choose from over 100 sites and decide which page types you would like the bookmarklets to appear.

Sociable Options for Wordpress

Example: Check the bottom of this post!

Download: Sociable

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Exclude Pages from Navigation

I needed a way to exclude a page from the navigation.  This was necessary as I was creating a page to display Google Search results.

(There is a great post on how to create a Google Search Page for Wordpress here by Liew Cheon Fong (LcF) HERE Google AdSense Search Results within WordPress Pages)

I found a simple plugin from Simon Wheatley’s Wordpress plugin section that adds a simple check box to exclude the page from the Navigation

Example: Google Search on Kristi Barrow Ramblings

Download: Exclude Pages

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Google Analytics and XML SiteMap

The easiest way to set up Google analytics was with CaveMonkey’s Google Analyticator plugin, you just need to input your UID. A great sitemap generator plugin comes from Arne Brachhold,  which allows you to set many options and is simple to install.

Example: Estonians in Australia Sitemap

Download: Google Analyticator and Google XML Sitemaps

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RSS

Feedburner is a must for any blogger, and I found the quickest way to set this up was using Feedburner Feedsmith from Feedburner themselves.

Example: Kristi Barrow Ramblings syndicated by Feedburner

Download: Feedburner Feedsmith