Essential WordPress Plug Ins

As we have said before we are major fans of wordpress. Not only for blogs but for almost every type of site with the exception of an ecommerce site. WordPress can and does do almost everything. WordPress also lets you customize your design and the functionality of your site. Get a customized theme from us at Enigma and if you tell us what you want to use the site for we will suggest great plug in’s as well. There is no additional cost for this, its all part of the service!

Now deciding on plug in’s can be bewildering but it depends on exactly what you want to do with your site. There are tens of thousands of plug in’s but two warnings.

1. Not all plug in’s work and are up to date. And if it causes a problem on your site don’t expect the developer to help you. Many times the developers are one man bands and sometimes they are woefully out of date. Check out the ratings before you decide to use a plug in.

2. Too many plug in’s can slow down you’re site which in turn will turn off your visitors and potentially effect your rankings.

So what functionality should you look for?

Well in terms of essential plug ins there are a few you should look for.

1. Something to control the influx of spam I use http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/

2. An seo plug in. This may change but at the moment seo platinum or all in one seo suite are the best. Seo platinum takes no configuring so is well worth it.

3. You need an XML site map so Google can find all your content we use this one

4. A back up plug in is also a good option, I’m not going to recommend one as this is fast moving. Check the ratings and go from there.

After installing these you are good to go. There will be many more that can help but we would need to know more about your site and business before we can help you. But as we said earlier don’t go plug in crazy, use plug in’s that will enhance your usability or that of your customers. Other than that they should help security or assist the search engines in finding your content.

Hope this helps, remember to contact us about any designs you would like, we are always happy to help.

March 10, 2011 | | Tags: , | No Comments »

WordPress V Joomla

If you are heavily involved in the online world this may be a question you ask yourself. Or perhaps it’s one you dare not ask yourself because you don’t want to use a blog.

I guess the place to start is why so many people use these two platforms and what can they do. Lets start off with what they can do. Absolutely anything. Yep that’s right, anything. Many people mistakenly believe that wordpress is only for blogging sites. Now although that is what wordpress was originally designed for, it now can do so much more. Any site you want can be designed with wordpress. It does not mean it’s always the best solution but it can always do the job. Lots and lots of sites you see today are based on the WordPress platform and you would have no idea. Some of these sites are absolutely huge, have no commenting options, no posts but are still a WordPress installation.

You see with wordpress if you want a traditional looking site you can just use pages instead of posts. With the hierarchy of pages or using a couple of free plug in’s you can create a hierarchical structure or silo effect, identical to “normal” sites. These sites look great and you really would not know the difference. But why would anyone bother using wordpress. The answer is simple ease of use. Because WordPress is free and has lots of designs both free and paid it’s very accessible. This means a lot off people use it so there is a massive amount of material about using WordPress. Want to know how to install wordpress? If you google it you will get pages and pages of free instruction. Youtube is also awash with great tutorials all free. There is also the great support network through developers plug ins. There are free plug in’s for almost everything. Want to seo your content, add a plug in. Want an XML site map (always a good idea to have one of these) get one free within the plug ins. There are literally thousands and thousands of plug ins. These plug ins are often two clicks and they are installed, totally amazing.

However if you are not technically minded and don’t have html and java script knowledge you really need a web design company if you want to really customize the look of your site. But the good thing is this will be a lot cheaper than getting a whole site designed. You can simply get a header designed and a background and possibly a favicon and you have a highly customized site. I could go on and on about wordpress but hopefully you get the idea that it’s a fantastic platform.

So what about Joomla? well it’s similar in it’s intentions to WordPress but is probably a little more difficult to get to grips with. Far less people use Joomla and I think that speaks volumes, it’s just not as intuitive. So if you are starting out I would stick with wordpress. Joomla also does not have so many supporting plug in’s but there are enough for most people. The Joomla users believe it is more customisable and gives you more flexibility. I’m not sure I agree with that.

So if it were me I would stick with WordPress and then contact us to create a customizable theme for your site. Good luck.

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