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March 22nd, 2007 | Posted in Blogging 4 Comments »
I added three new features to my blog: an index (or site map), a display of inbound links, and public web stats. You can view the index by clicking the “Post Index” link at the top. The plugin that generates this index is called the Dagon Design Sitemap Generator, and you can set how the posts are arranged—by date or alphabetical, ascending or descending, and the categories to show. I like it because it provides an at-a-glance view of all my posts. It beats clicking the Next Page link at the bottom and helps users quickly scan the entire site for content that interests them. It also shows me how much content I’ve written.
Another new addition to my blog is the Kramer plugin. This plugin shows all inbound links to my blog (see the “Inbound Links” section in my sidebar). If someone links to me, the link appears in the Inbound Links section in the sidebar. Although I can also see inbound links from inside the admin dashboard, it’s cooler to show them in my sidebar. The inbound links next to the comments shows the interactivity that’s going on in the blogosphere related to my blog.
Finally, I added a Site Meter for stats. Unlike other stats packages, Site Meter shows a public display of my web stats, so others can see my traffic (click the Site Meter link in the lower-left corner of the sidebar). Each day, an average of 98 people visit my site and spend 4:24 minutes reading an average of 2.3 pages. This tells me people come to my blog and read a couple of posts, spending about 2 min. reading each post.
WordPress has hundreds of plugins. It can be addictive adding these bells and whistles to your blog. Some plugins are truly worthwhile, and others just serve a specialized need. Previously, the plugins were scattered across different websites, but last week WordPress launched a central plugin repository.
Update: I modified Dagon Site Map generator slightly so that the index didn’t appear with two levels of bullets. Here is the modified plugin code.
I also added this style to my theme’s style sheet:
.ddsg-cats {
font-size:1.6em;
color:#2582A4;
border-bottom: 1px dotted gray;
}
It makes the category headings appear larger.
That index plugin is outstanding. I’m going to get it immediately.
And I love your spam protection field as well. Matt Cutts from Google uses the same one on his blog. Where can I get that?
I added the modified plugin source code for the site map (index) generator to my post above. I tweaked it slightly and just wanted to make that available.
The math plugin is called Math Comment Spam Protection Plugin. The only problem is that it’s a little hard to place within your comments.php file. I tried inserting it in my Tech Writer Voices site, but I kept receiving an error. However, once you install it successfully (be sure to update the plugin’s options page), it works great. It’s superior to other math plugins because it doesn’t open up a new window to confirm the math question. The plugin has stopped all spam so far.
Did you know that the more you post, the more spam you attract? Not just because of volume of content, but spammers are more attracted to active blogs.
Also, I hope you don’t mind, but in my STC elections podcast I asked Nicky a question about ornamental STC memberships. Thanks for your comment on that one. It brought up a relevant issue that I wanted to discuss.
Thanks for telling us about the sitemap plugin. It’s a great way for me to find my own older posts.
Great tips, Tom. I definitely want to try out the site index.