DanEosco.com » WordPress – My favorite platform for web dev

TOP 14 WordPress Plugins for Google Addicts

Danonymous — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:07:22 +0000

If you use Google as extensively as I do you’ll appreciate some of these WordPress Plugins that pull your Google content right into your WP Website or Blog, easily manage Adsense, Analytics, Apps, Buzz, and more…

Google Website Optimizer for WordPress: Testing – it is the single most important thing you can do to improve the performance of your website. The Google Website Optimizer plugin for WordPress lets user optimize their landing pages (as posts and pages) using GWO without needing to edit the HTML code of the theme. This plugin has been downloaded just over 5,000 times.
WP Google Ad Manager: If you are a blogger then you are probably interested in generating revenue through advertising – am I right? This plugin allows you to set your Ad Manager Publisher ID and up to ten fields with Ad Manager Slotnames and call them from within your template. It also comes with custom targeting attributes, page-level and slot-level attributes. This is an amazing plugin but has only been downloaded 2,000 times.
Google XML Sitemaps: Everybody needs a sitemap (and don’t forget it needs to be tied to Webmaster Central) and this plugin automatically generates a sitemap to improve the number of pages indexed. This is a widely used plugin and has been download a whopping 3.6 million times. If you’re not using it, you are in the minority.
Use Google Libraries: Take the load off your server and start using Google Libraries. Since many of the popular javascript libraries (Dojo, kQuery, MooTools, Prototype, etc.) are hosted on Google’s AJAX Libraries API you can use the content distribution side of the offering instead of serving the files from your WordPress install directly. This is a great plugin and has been downloaded over 17,000 times.
Google Analyticator: Analytics provide important insights into the traffic you are receiving. Google Analyticator makes its way into every WordPress-based site I develop and I encourage its use for our readers. This plugin has been downloaded 838,910 times. Another excellent plugin in this category is Google Analytics for WordPress by Joost de Valk which has been downloaded just under 900,000 times.
Google Ajax Translation: You’re reading this in English but you could be reading this in one of 52 other languages. The Google AJAX translation plugin for WordPress provides a simple yet effective way to add translation to you blog. The plugin detects your browser’s preferred language and show the “Translate” button in that language if available.
Google Maps for WordPress: The web might be without boundaries but it is increasingly local. This plugin allows you to easily insert Google Maps into your blog, making use of the new shortCode system in WordPress. Maps can be configured to offer directions to or from the location, show or hide the zoom/pan controls, show/hide map type (street view, satellite, etc), and activate zoom using mouse wheel. This plugin has been downloaded just under 40,000 times.
Google Positioner: Choosing the right keywords to optimize your weblog for is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. Once all that work is done you will need to track the performance. The Google Positioner plugin enables you to track your website for keywords you optimize for on Google. This plugin has been downloaded just under 15,000 times.
AskApache Google 404: This is an amazing plugin that handling of any HTTP Errors that your blog encounters – including 404′s due to bad links or mistyped URLs. The plugin uses Ajax code, Google SEarch API’s (and a few other tricks) to display an optimzed error page. The defaul displays Google images, news, blogs, videos, and more – including part of the requested filename that was not found. The plugin has been downloaded over 27,000 times.
WP Google Apps: This might be the most important plugin on this list if you’re a Google junkie and users of your site are the same. This plugin allows you to manage WordPress users via Google Apps accounts. The Authentication use Google Apps Gmail. NOTE: For user login, user must allow POP or IMAP access to users own Gmail setting.
Google News Sitemap Generator: Chances are good I’ll get some hate mail for this one because of its potential for abuse. The plugin automatically generates a Google News XML sitemap for submission online via Webmaster Tools. There is a 50,000 item limit and only takes posts from the last two days. Keyword for sitemaps are generated from post category and post tags. This plugin has been download 20,000 times.
Google Doc Embedded: I’ve been working in the cloud for what seems like years at this point and a lot of the content I’ve created is stored on Google Docs. This content can be made available with the Google Doc Embedder. The plugin lets you embed PDF files, PowerPoint presentations, and TIFF images in a web page using the Google Docs Viewer (no Flash or PDF browser plug-ins required). This plugin has been downloaded 17,000 times.
WP Google-buzz: Google Buzz might have been a bust among consumers but what do you care – you’re a Google junkie! The WP Google Buzz plugin offers complete Google Buzz integration (with the new API’s) and a lot of control over appearance. The plugin, although only a few weeks old, has been downloaded 17,000 times.
Google Checkout Shopping Cart: If you’re interested in selling your own stuff without all the hassle then the Google Checkout Shopping Cart Plugin is perfect. The plugin enables users to add a shopping cart button to any post and renders a javascript shopping cart. Just add a tag into a post and you’re off and running. Amazing, but this plugin has been downloaded less than 1,000 times.

20 FREE WordPress 2.7 Themes

Danonymous — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:24:46 +0000

Here are some of my favorite FREE WordPress 2.7 compatible themes that are ready for you to download. These themes cover a wide variety of needs, layouts and customization, so this small sampling could provide you with hours of fun!I’ve downloaded so many themes and I’m finding more and more that are NOT WordPress 2.7 compatible. Sometimes you don’t find out until hours into your development.

2-Column WordPress 2.7 Themes

AdsPress - A Google AdSense friendly theme in a clean, fixed width design that has two banner placements and a text area for the ads. Has two columns and is widgetized and gravatar ready.

19 More FREE Great WordPress Themes

Artificial Intelligence - Fixed width, gravatar and widget ready, this theme changes it up a bit by putting the widget column on the left side of the content column with a header area for informational text.

Connections Reloaded - One of the best known WordPress themes out there as it has been around forever, Connections has been “reloaded” to work with 2.7, but is compatible with every version of the blogging platform since 1.5.

Deep Red - A very narrow fixed width theme, but has a really large emphasis on the categories by allowing them to take up a huge amount of the right column.

Google Chrome - Google Chrome has certainly become a popular web browser, and now you can carry that look and feel over to your blog with this Chrome inspired 2-column theme. A nice clean design, but probably not a good idea to load it up with a lot of flashy widgets in the sidebar.

Internet Sharing - While a fairly standard 2-column theme on its main page, the individual post pages is where it’s a bit different with a nicely contained and highlighted area for information about the post, social links and other information.

NewBlue - A fixed width theme with a clear, open design and a very unobtrusive blue motif. Has full Feedburner integration and really clear typography.

Premium News - A 2-column theme with a featured article panel at the top, two locations for 125X125 ads, slide out area for categories and archives. A fairly involved theme available for free.

Retrospective - A very open 2-column theme that has no visible boundaries between columns giving you the illusion of complete openness.

Typebased - A free 2-column theme with large, readable areas, four 125X125 ad spots, Flickr photo stream integration and other various goodies.

3-Column WordPress 2.7 Themes

AquaBlue - A 3-column with a bit of 2-column feel by the placement of four 125X125 ads in the top right corner, above the 2 sidebar columns.

Blog Oh Blog - While there has been a lot of debate if 3-columns is still a good idea, this one still has a feeling of some openness without overwhelming you. Widget-ready and includes a PSD file for changing the header.

Blue Grace - A nice wide-open content column is complimented by the two side columns that, while holding a lot of information, don’t overwhelm you. Colors can be customized by playing around with a PSD file, and it is released under the GPL license.

ClearPress - ClearPress may be the most unconventional 3-column I’ve ever seen. Not only is it bright, but the posts are divided over all three columns with widgets such as categories and recent posts being in a dropdown pullout that fully retracts into the header when not in use.

Fashionista - A fluid width 3-column which is unusual in this day and age of so many fixed width themes popping up around the web.

GenkiTheme - A 3-column theme that has a mix of fluid width for the content column, but both widgetized columns are fixed width. On the far left you have a sliding tab menu that is static when Javascript is turned off.

Limau Orange - When you think “orange,” you don’t always think of the most pleasing of web themes, but this one keeps it as a nice accent that never gets on your nerves. The two sidebars sandwich the content column on both sides, but it is still very readable.

Royale - Black themes aren’t always easy to carry out, but the Royale theme does it while still being very readable. The content column is fluid width while the sidebars are fixed, and highlight colors are easily changed. Overall, a lot of customizable features.

Miscellaneous WordPress 2.7 Layouts

Mandigo - Available in seven colors, 38 languages, customizable as 1-column, 2-columns and 3-columns, optional layouts of 800 wide or 1024 wide and several other options.

Wicked Lemon - While Wicked Lemon appears like your standard 2-column theme, which it is, it allows the reader to switch the color of the background using the colored boxes in the top right corner without any page reloading.

Best Free WordPress Themes 1

Danonymous — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:26:06 +0000

WordPress Fun

WordPress Fun is a 2 columns theme with a grungy design which looks very proffesionaly and also has included .psd file, that allows you to customize theme as you like.

Theme info Demo

Color Paper

Another great and free professional theme from SmashingMagazine with a well structured design.

Theme info Demo

Agregado Theme

Agregado is a theme that has integrated a built-in lifestream module and contact form with custom control panel options which is perfectly for any personal blogs.

Theme info Demo