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Since its inception and through the growth of its popularity as a tool, Wordpress has been lauded by many as exceptional and ideally suited for blogging. Its value comes from its balance of two characteristics that is not often enough found in any program or platform. The first trait is that it is a product of careful, polished work, the sleek and well-put-together result of very professional work. Secondly, it is designed for flexibility and malleability, aptly suited to customization, so that users who know what they’re doing can import their own abilities and personalities and truly make it their own. It’s a rare and important balance. The feature that best reflects its adaptability is its ability to use a wide assortment of plugins that perform all sorts of functions to customize one’s Wordpress output. Below are listed five plugins from the slightly more obscure end of the popularity scale, and the effective uses they can be put to.
1. Blog Metrics
This is a very simple but broadly applicable plugin that could prove a useful tool when coupled with nearly any blog, regardless of its subject matter or style. It tracks and keeps stats of posting in two ways. First, Raw AuthorContribution, which lists the average number of posts made per month and their, average word count, and second, Conversation Rate, the average number of comments per post(excluding your own) and their average word count. Blog Metrics is a very nearly universal tool in its applicability, a simple, straightforward and very quick way to attach a few quantitative values to the work that you do, in order to help you better shape your blog.
2. Broken Link Checker
Handy to have onboard and exactly what it sounds like, Broken Link Checker automatically sweeps posts for any links that either were broken to begin with or have ceased functioning in the time between their initial posting and the present. The results of each sweep are displayed in simple and clear display in the dashboard. A simple piece of great utility that can be employed in any blog but is particularly useful to those who frequently or by default use their blogs as connecting ports to show other developments on the web.
3. YouTubeRelated
This plugin interacts with the Simple Tags plugin, notes the tags used to mark your posts, and searches YouTube for videos with relevance to them based upon their own tags. The three most recent relevant videos are displayed. Much like YouTube itself, the immediate results at any given time may not always be exactly what you might have in mind to associate with your post, but it does offer an interesting audiovisual counterbalance to the everyday text of blog posting.
4. Xinha4WP
A Wordpress adaptation of a previously existing HTML editor, Xinha4WP greatly increases the options and the amount of detail in text editing. It broadens the list of fonts available, makes it simpler to change colors, styles and to insert special characters, and includes a spell checker. Overall, a plugin designed to make one’s writing itself much more potent when skillful control over it is exercised. Some blogs are focused on images, some on short and simple news, others on sound or video clips, but to those true writers among Wordpress users whose primary form of attention-getting is their dexterous use of words, this plugin adds that extra bit of dexterity to the toolbox.
5. Polyglot
An intriguing reminder of the early days of altavista and Babelfish, Polyglot can make use of automatic translators to translate your posts into several different languages, and features an option to automatically display them in whatever language a given user’s browser settings indicate that he or she reads. In addition, users can select a language for themselves to view your entire blog in one of several different tongues.
Much like Wordpress itself, the five tools above can be put to good use in a broad spectrum of different blog types, and used in different ways and to greater or lesser degrees depending upon the author’s wishes and the nature of the blog itself. The universe of wordpress plugins, like so much on the internet and indeed the internet itself, is scattered in many bits and pieces over a wide area, and changes every day. These listed above may be old and stale by the time you read this, so take a look around for yourself to see what the ever-shifting and always adapting plugin community has come up with next.
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