Today we are going to add some useful plugins to our eBay blog. A plugin is a script that has been written to perform one specific task to simplify managing and building a blog or, occasionally, a web site. There are hundreds of them available and most blogging platforms come with several of the most-used plugins already loaded.
We will begin by returning to our WordPress dashboard and clicking “plugins” from the menu. Thing brings up a page titled “PlugIn Management” which contains a scroll-down list of numerous plugins already loaded into the plugin folder of your blog. Each listing provides the name of the plugin, a short description of what it does, and an activation link. To activate a particular plugin all it is necessary to do is click on the activate link and it is live.
Even if you don’t use any others, you should activate the “Google Sitemaps” plugin. This plugin will produce a Google friendly sitemap every time you add new information to your blog. It’s activation is important as it will improve your search engine rankings in Google.
If you decide you want to use Google AdSense on your blog you will want to activate the Adsense- Deluxe plugin. When you activate this “AdsenseDeluxe” will also appear under the “Options” menu and you will need to do some minor configuration so it will present targeted ads. That is easily done however. For Paper Pleasures 46 I will not be using it.
A few other plugins that you should consider using are:
The “Google Search Widget” which places a search box in your sidebar with which readers can search your blog for specific items or information.
The “del.icio.us Widget” adds a sidebar widget to display del.icio.us links. This is another script which will make it easier for people to find your blog and increase your traffic of potential buyers.
The “Share This” plugin places a link at the end of every entry in your blog making it easy for a reader to send the information in that post to someone else they think would be interested in it.
The “WP Contact Form” plugin allows you to quickly and easily place an email contact box anywhere you want one and provides and easy way for potential bidders to as you a question about one of your items.
There are hundreds of other plugins and widgets described at The WordPress Plugin Directory and you may find some of them to be of value. If you find one you think would be useful it’s a simple matter to download it to your computer and then FTP it into the plugin folder of the blog template you are using. It will then appear in the “Plugin” menu and you activate it just like you would those already there by simply clicking “activate”.
Tomorrow we will look at some additional ways to make your eBay blog more search engine friendly and easier for potential buyers to fine.
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