One of the reasons that I recommend WordPress blogs is because of the variety of available plugins. What in the world are plugins you ask? Plugins are software programs that you (or your trusty website developer) can add to your WordPress blog. Plugins enable to you do more with your blog.

WordPress says, “Plugins are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress.”

Generally these plugins are free and fit seamlessly into the WordPress framework. When you log into your WordPress system you’ll see a tab at the top labeled plugins. Click on the tab and you’ll be able to see the plugins that are installed in your system. From there you can turn plugins on or off.

Plugins can help you:

• deal with spam
• keep blog statistics
• make contact forms
• provide eCommerce (online shopping) functionality

And that’s just some of the things plugins can do. The official WordPress Plugin Direcory has over 1,500 plugins!

Over the weekend I added three plugins. (Maybe I should have scored higher on that Nerd Quiz.) One plugin gives me blog statistics. The other two are visible on the blog itself. Can you spot them? On Friday I’ll point out the new plugins and tell you what they do. You’ll learn why they might be plugins that you want on your blog too.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under WordPress, WordPress Plugins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.