A Place For Stephen

So far in my exploration of WordPress, there are a few “extra” things I want it to do – stuff that I have been able to do for years on my other sites using SSI and CGI and HTML and….

Well, this PHP stuff is all new to me, so there are a few things I want to go looking for shortly. These are:

• Adsense

  I use Adsense to monetise my sites. I’ve found a variety of Adsense plug-ins for WP, but these are all gonna take time to work out which one’s the best… for now, the simplest solution is to just put the basic Adsense code in the template sidebar.

• Tag Clouds

  I’ve seen some sites with different sized tags – these are called tag clouds, with the bigger sized tags being the more “important” ones. I believe that the Ultimate Tag Warrior plug-in I’ve already installed can do these… but I’m not too sure about how to set it up. Need to check that out further.

• Related Posts

  I’ve seen a few sites that have a list of “related posts” links immediately after the post. Looks like a good idea. Now where’s the right plugin I need

• Previous Posts

  I.E. sidebars which contain a list of the last 10 or so posts made… Even though it’s often NOT done, it’s an EASY modification to do, so I’ll to that one shortly and tell you how to do it.

• Advertising

  Yeah yeah… blogs aren’t supposed to have ads… but I do have to make money somehow and would like to present a random selection of recommended products to my visitors. A good advertising plug-in will do please…

• Membership?

  I believe that you can also set up restricted access to posts for your members. That could be another useful facility to offer my visitors.

• Using OTHER RSS feeds

  I’ve done this a lot on my other sites, so I want an easy way of displaying feeds within posts and pages on my WP site.

• A decent Theme Template

  I certainly don’t have the CSS and PHP skills to develop my own template, and write the various customised functions I want – yet – so I’m madly looking at template sites to check ‘em all out. If you see different layouts at this site from one day to the next, you’ll know I’ve been fiddling!

  UPDATE June 2 Amazing! Within 24 hours, I’ve found a theme switcher plugin and a great theme called i-theme. Check out bottom right of the sidebar!

• To work out what I NEED

  Ha! There are so-o-o-o many things out there that you can simply “plug” into WP – and most of them are free! Trouble is, each time you add something, it slows WP down and puts extra load on your server. If you’re not careful, you’ll need a dedicated server just for a blog! So closely examine ALL the extras you look at, and decide whether you can live without it.
  

That’s all I can think of for now… I’m sure this list will grow over the next few days/weeks as I keep playing with WordPress.

What things are on YOUR WP Wish List?

Please add a comment below and let me know!

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