1. WP-FBConnect: This plugin adds the Facebook functionality to WordPress Blogs through Facebook Connect APIs. To use this plugin you have to link your Facebook account to your WordPress and then sign into it again. This will allow you to publish comments through the Facebook newsfeed and avatars displayed in the comments field using WordPress.
2. Add to Facebook: This plugin provides a link at the bottom of your blog posts for users to click on. Once they click on this link they can add the post they are currently on to the mini-feed on their Facebook home page. All they will need to do is sign into their Facebook account.
3. Facebook Dashboard Widget: You have to be interactive on Facebook, and this application provides you with all the updates from friends. This widget allows users to work with both Facebook and WordPress to keep you updated about friends even if Facebook is blocked.
4. Facebook Comments: This is a very useful plugin which imports all the comments made about your post which were shared on Facebook. These comments will be posted directly into your WordPress blogs so that you don’t miss any of the comments.
5. Facebook Photos Plugin: Everyone likes images on posts; it makes them interesting, attractive and sometimes help people understand things better. This plugin helps you by making it easy to add photos to your blog posts. You simply have to link your plugins to your Facebook account using the WordPress blog. Once this is done, whenever you edit old or new posts in WordPress, a new icon in “Add Media Section” will appear. You will be able to see the uploaded photos in your Facebook account by clicking on the new icon visible on your screen. You will be able to insert your images as small sized, medium sized and large sized images. You can also align the images if you want.
6. Gigya: This is a very important plugin and all its features are configurable using the WordPress Administration Panel. Once you use this plugin you can enjoy secure signup and login to your website. Additionally you will be able to update your status on different social media sites and invite your friends to the different social media sites to join your blog.

Beyond doubt, WordPress is the best blogging platform anyone can use with Facebook.

Anyone that has experienced a personal computer crashing or a web server disaster will tell you the same thing…they wish they had been better about backing up their files.

I don’t care how often you think you will end up backing your systems up, it is never enough if you are doing it manually. Take it from someone who has gone down that road before.

I used to tell myself that I would be regular about backing up both my Mac and my websites. Hoe hard could it be? All that has to be done is setting aside a fee minutes on a regular basis to save some files to secondary storage. Not hard at all. It always seems to work for the a first few days or weeks too.

Inevitably, daily backups become weekly. Then weekly become monthly. Then monthly becomes never.

Then disaster strikes.

Your site gets hacked. An error occurs in your code. Your database becomes corrupted.

FML.

Luckily for WordPress based sites, there is now a dead simple, bulletproof solution. Introducing VaultPress by Automattic.

The whiz kids behind WordPress.com, Gravatar, Akismet, etc. have created a service that automatically backes up your entire WordPress site, including database and static files without any manual intervention.

You simply install the ValutPress plugin into your site and never touch it again. From that point forward, VaultPress saves copies of file on your site and eve database entry onto the WordPress.com enterprise infrastructure.

Within seconds of making a new post or template change, a backup copy is saved to VaultPress.

Multiple times a day, the system makes entire backups if your site.

If the unthinkable should ever happen to you, there is a full site backup sitting for you just waiting to be restored. Crisis averted.

There is also an additional service that checks your site for dangerous or malicious code. You are alerted to it’s presence right away. There is even a function that pushes instant updates to your core files when new security fixes are released.

The $15 per month cost is NOTHING compared to losing years of work.

VaultPress is still in private beta, but you can sign up for an invite.

UPDATE: VaultPress is open to everyone now!

First of all, you can see that the local game is hot right now.  Sites like Yelp are cashing in on these opportunities.  Even Google has continued to drive their local search focus.  Local is starting to spread across multiple products within Google, including:

• Local Search
• Google Maps
• Google Directory
• Adsense
• Adwords
• Google Voice
• Goog411

All of these products rely on the thirst for local content and information.  Sites like Yelp are cashing in on the local directory and review market where users generate local content about everything from restaurants to dry cleaners.

How to cash in on “local” with your blog?

Try to incorporate a local element with every post you write.  It does not have to be local to you, but local to the post.

For example, right now I am posting about the importance of localizing content.  For this post, a great example of what I am talking about would be a blog called Hoboken411.  This site is all about the city of Hoboken, NJ, right outside New York City.  By mentioning how great this local site is and talking about their content in a local sense, I will increase my odds of someone finding this post when Hoboken is typed into the search query.

Ok, maybe not the best example.  Here’s a few more.

Running blog. When you review that new pair of Nike running shoes for your blog, you should consider talking about the stores, cities, addresses, and websites of the stores that are going to get the first shipments of these hot shoes.  (A great example)

Reality TV blog. When you’re giving the play by play review of last night’s episode of The Apprentice, you should try to find out the name and address of the diner that the episode was shot.  Or the corner that they setup their street cart.  Or really any major landmark/scene from the episode.  There will be a lot of people out there that want to find out the name of the place.  They may be able to figure out that it was New York, but they won’t know much more than that.  If your post answers the “where” question, you will rank well for that search term.

Baseball blog. Let’s say that you write a blog about the New York Mets.  Each time the team hits the road, you could incorporate a post about the most “Mets Friendly” bar in that town to watch the game.  You’d be surprised how many displaced fans are spread all over the country looking for places to watch their favorite out-of-state teams. Here’s a good example of what I mean.  Here is where you can see Yelp cashing in on this idea.

In most cases, you should be able to come up with a local angle for your post.

For anyone looking to start a new blog, starting as a local blog is the place to go.  Most small or even mid-sized towns/cities are in desperate need for good local content.  You could dominate the niche by turning out great content focused on that local audience.

It is much easier to start local and attempt to expand than it is to start with a national focus.  There are a lot more players in the national game right now.  Local is the place to be!

So what’s the best video plugin to handle all of your video embed needs?  Viper’s Video Quicktags is the absolute best.

I’ve been using this plugin for years now.  It is regularly updated and improved.  Each time WordPress itself is updated, the plugin is always compatible.

The plugin is so good that the creator was just recently hired by Automatic.  (He’s made many other plugins as well.)

If you would like to start embedding videos from various major video hosting providers, get Viper’s plugin installed ASAP.

Video embed possibilities with this plugin include:

• YouTube
• Google Video
• Daily Motion
• Vimeo
• Veoh
• Viddler
• Metacafe
• Blip.tv
• Flickr Video
• Spike
• MySpace Video
• Generic FLV or Mov files (self hosted)

With that, here are the Top 5 Twitter Plugins for WordPress.

1) Twitter Widget Pro:

This plugin creates a sidebar widget with tons of configurable controls to adjust the Twitter feed’s display.  You can also control things like showing the date/time stamps, etc.  This is great for pulling your Tweets right into your site, or pulling in Tweets from a group of people based on a subject.  It is also a great way to keep some fresh, active content going on your site until your next post.

2) Twitter Feed:

Got friends? Ha.  By that I mean do you have multiple people working on your blog?  Or do you have multiple Twitter followers/accounts that you would like to display on your site’s sidebar?  This is the plugin for you.  Easily pull in Tweets from multiple users and control the slick graphic display of them on your site.  Includes the Twitter user picture and more.

3) Twitter Friends:

Show the loooove!  This widget allows you to show who is following you on Twitter.  This is a great way to thank loyal followers and to encourage people to follow you.  This plugin will show the user’s Twitter photo, bio line, and most recent Tweet.  You can toggle on/off each feature as well allowing you to show more details about each person (or not).

4) Post to Twitter (and Twitter to Post)

Oh how magical a world it would be if you could somehow get your WordPress posts to automatically show up in your Twitter account as Tweets?  How insane would it be if you could turn your Tweets into actual posts within WordPress?  Dream no more my friends.  Post to Twitter does exactly that.  It allows you to control the direction of information  (Twitter to WP  vs  WP to Twitter).  Control the follow of Tweetalicious in either way you choose, or both!

5) Twitter Blaster:

Kind of a unique way to use Twitter and WordPress.  This plugin allows your users to publish to your Twitter account.  Their Tweets get held as a “pending” post for your review.  You can then approve the Tweet and have it show up in your Twitter feed.  You can also approve the Tweet as a page/post.

Have one you really enjoy?  Tell me about it!

Post links to your favorite Twitter plugins for WordPress in the comments below.

First some perspective.

Let’s say you really do have your blog hosted for free right now on a site like Blogger or WordPress.com.  That’s great.  If you are happy, god bless.  If you want to step up you game a little, you are going to have to move on to a self hosted solution.

What are we talking about price wise?  Roughly $80 – $120 per year.  You can pretty easily get your hosting done for about $7.95 per month.  That’s really cheap.  Granted, that is much more expensive than free…I will give you that.  However, it is a small price to pay for the potential increase in revenue and content flexibility that is then afforded to you.

How to get your hosting for free?

There are two easy ways, but first consider our goal.  We need to come up with $7.95 in revenue every month to offset the cost of hosting.  That is not a lot of money.

Method #1: Google Adsense

Adsense is probably the easiest, most turn-key way to start making advertising revenue on your website.  If you’ve never used it before, it is simple.  Just add the Google ad units to your page template and start getting paid.  You will get a few cents every time someone clicks an ad on your website.

Let’s break it out even further.  You need to generate $0.27.  When you think about it, that is not that hard at all.

You’re first couple of months, you might only make a dollar or two.  By the last month or two, you will probably be making around $12+.  So on average for the year, you should be right on target.

The big guys are going to turn their noses up at this idea and say that you should get into affiliate marketing, etc.  Sure, there are a variety of other networks you can get involved with and eventually make more money.  There is no question about that.

However, this is just the quickest way to get started.

Method #2: Refer a Friend

I don’t think I have ever found a single hosting company that does not run their own affiliate marketing program.  Basically, this is a program that allows you to sign up as a “partner” with the hosting company.  For every referral or sale that can be attributed to you, they will pay you a commission.

In the traditional sense, you would do this through banners, buttons, text links, CPC campaigns, etc.

But you can do this on a much smaller level.  Just put your host’s affiliate link on your about page.  Then when you talk to your friends, recommend your host.  Tell them to just go to your About page and click the link to find out about your hosting plan.

If they end up buying a plan with your host, you will get paid.

The best part is the commission itself.  Most hosts pay between $50 – $100+ per referral!  With just one or two friend referrals, you could have your entire year of hosting paid off.

If you are the kind of person in the group that others look to for recommendations, this might be a great opportunity for you.

You can’t lose either way you go.

The best part is the revenue is limitless.  The goal here is to completely offset your hosting costs, but why does it have to start there?  You could actually end up making way more than your hosting ends up costing.

Welcome to the world of digital advertising.

The lifespan of the common blogger goes something like this.

1. Blogger starts blog at WordPress.com, Blogger, or Typepad.
2. Blogger realizes they want more flexibility and ability to generate a little revenue.
3. Blogger moves their site over to a self hosted WordPress.org setup on a cheap blog host.
4. Blogger’s traffic continues to grow.
5. BOOM.  Site begins to fail because their shared PHP server and database are overwhelmed.

That’s where most bloggers start scratching their head.  They start to do some research about all the errors they are getting.  Of course, their lame hosts have no good answers and just tell them to upgrade their hosting plans.

Not knowing any better, most agree and get sold into a more costly plan only to find themselves in the same position a few months later.

In most cases, you are probably a year or more away from needing to upgrade your hosting plan.  Even then, it might not be necessary.

What is causing these problems with my blog?

Your site needs to be cached.

Back in the day, this would have taken you hours and hours of coding, some coin, and some aspirin.  Not anymore.

If you are not running WP Supercache on your WordPress blog today, you are nuts.  For the technical and traffic level of most bloggers on the Internet today, this one, simple, easy to use plugin will solve so many of your problems.

WP Super Cache: This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

The reason your site is loading slower, and you are getting resource over use notices from your host is due to the volume of unnecessary queries being run by your blog.  The more traffic you generate, the more queries and processes are run.

It makes sense when you think about it.

Your blog text (and a lot more) resides inside a database.  In order to get that text out of the database and into a readable form, your server runs a query for your post and displays it to the user via PHP.  Logic would then tell you that each time a user comes to your site, that query is run and the text is displayed.

Over. Over. Over. And over again.

But hey.  Why does that query need to be run over and over when it is always showing the same thing?  Nothing has changed since 3 seconds ago when the last user came to your site.  Why run a unique query?

That’s where caching comes in.

As described above, once the query is run the first time, it gets saved as a plain HTML file (in essence) and served to all future users using nothing but plain old Apache.  Once the query has been run once, there’s no need to run it again.  Just serve the same results to the next visitor.

Therefore, your database and PHP engine are not overworked.

The result is less stress on your CPU or shared CPU, and a faster loading blog for the user.

Next time you do a post, that cache is erased and regenerated with your NEW post.

That is really basic description of how caching works, but you can see how it really makes sense.  Luckily, we have the free WP SuperCache plugin to handle all of the work for us.  It takes just 30 seconds to install and have running on your blog.

Immediately, you will notice your slow site loading faster, and those pesky server overage errors should stop.

If you do in fact have the next Perez Hilton, TechCrunch, or Daily Kos on your hands, you may eventually need to upgrade your hosting.  However, even then, you will still be using this plugin. In the mean time, you’ll be good where you’re at.

If you are not the tech savvy type, I’d be willing to bet your site loads slower than it should.  Most amateur bloggers (and some professional ones) are not very good developers.  Here’s where I would normally make the case for hiring a firm like BlogCraving to handle these things for you, but this time I will spare you.

Let’s just jump right to the point and find out if your site is a load hog.

The speed test

Head on over to tools.pingdom.com.  This site will tell you definitively how fast your site loads.  All you have to do is put in your website’s URL and run the test.  It will show you the load time for every single element on your site.

Then, just scroll down to the very bottom of the report to see the total load time for your site. 

How did you score?

Don’t be shy.  Was it a big number?  If you are like a lot of blogs out there, you are probably right around 8 to 15 seconds.  It may not seem like much, but that is dog slow.  And if you are over that, yikes.

Ideally, you want to be under 5 seconds.  That shows a snappy site that people will be likely to enjoy (from a technical experience perspective).

Sites that load quickly have proven to receive much higher pageviews than slow sites.  That’s because users are more likely to click around on a site that loads fast.  Most users will not go on to page 3 or the 4th photo in your gallery if each page takes over 10 seconds to load.  It just become less and less enjoyable with each click no matter how good the content.

What do you do?

The answer to this question is an entire series of posts that we will get into in the coming days.  In the mean time, I’ll give you some tips.

1. Optimize those post images. You should really spend some time learning how to optimize your images for web publishing before you even upload them into WordPress (or your blog platform).  Lots of heavy images will surely kill your load time.  The Pingdom tool above will help you identify those big images.  Try Photoshop, Picasa, or even free services like SmushIt.
2. Cut back on external scripts and calls. We all know those free little add-on widgets are lots of fun to put on your site.  So are all those snazzy social media buttons.  Unfortunately, they can add a lot of load time because of all the external callouts they make.  The files/scripts themselves might even be a bit “beefy”.   Again, Pingdom will help you identify those problem services.  Once you know what they are, ask yourself how essential they really are and get rid of them.
3. Is it your host? Most basic blogs are hosted on shared hosting.  In other words, you share a single server with a bunch of strangers.  You have no idea who else is on that server with you and what kind of resource they are drawing.  Your host may have certain throttle points in place to scale down resource hogs.  Maybe you’re super hot site is one of the sites drawing too much.  If that’s the case, it may be time to look into alternative hosting solutions (this is a good problem to have because it shows that you are growing).
4. Dude, your theme is lame. It might be time to face the ugly truth that your site’s theme just isn’t that great.  Most free themes are free because they are not that great.  They may have some sloppy coding or CSS in them that do not make them scalable for growing sites.  They’ll serve you well to start, but as you become a bigger deal, your theme may end up holding you back.   If you’ve got some serious load time issues, I highly suggest you run (not walk) to check out the WordPress Thesis Theme.  It is incredibly fast loading, easy to customize even for non technical types, and has great SEO features. More and more sites are headed to Thesis because of how well it performs.  It comes out of the box pretty plain, but you can quickly make it much more visually appealing.

Over the next few days, we will take a deep dive into some of these optimization techniques as well as discuss things like Cloud Hosting, CDN’s, template optimization, and a lot more.

Chartbeat’s dashboard if fully animated, and updates before your very eyes in real time.  It is all part of the growing trend of tracking the “now-web.”  You simply load your realtime dashboard and watch as every visitor enters and leaves your site in real time.

To the right, you can see what are the most popular sections/pages of your site at that very moment, plus how many people are on that page at the moment.  The size of the square denotes how many people are on that page.

The service also as a cool “heatmap” function that shows you how far down the average reader scrolls down on your page.

As if that weren’t cool enough, it also has a built in uptime monitoring service.  You’ll get an email alert if there’s any problem or lag on your server.  You can then go back and chart any of those outages to trace the potential causes.

You’d expect to pay a good chunk of change for a service like this, but you won’t.  For less than $10/month you can have your own Chartbeat account that tracks multiple sites.  Oh and there’s a free 30 day trial.

Have you ever run into a situation on your site where you need a quick technical fix but don’t know how to do it?  Do you have a great idea for a new site design or web app?

It can be a pretty daunting task to get that kind of thing done.  Some people are lucky enough that they happen to know someone with some tech skills.  So you toss them $50 bucks and have them solve the issue for you.

For the rest of us, what do you do?

Luckily, there are freelance sites out there that can solve these problems for you, safely and securely.

If you’re the adventurous type, you could go to Craig’slist and post a gig.  You’ll surely get a flood of interested freelancers.  But there’s always that “what if” factor.  What if the person screws up your site and walks away?  What if they take your money without finishing the job?  What if?

So using a site like that can be a little risky.  Personally, I’ve used Craiglist for small technical gigs, and they’ve worked out fine.  However, I have heard dozens of nightmare stories.

There are better alternatives though.  Sites like Guru.com and RentACoder.com specialize in this type of work.  It’s almost like eBay for tech geeks.

Basically, you post the “job” or task you have on the site, then the freelancers get to bid on your job.  While they are bidding, you can see that user’s profile, job history, and rating.  So right away, you already know a lot more about the person’s reputation than you would with Craigslist.

Once you negotiate and select a freelancer, the Guru or RentACoder holds your money in escrow for you.  That way, if the freelancer were to drop of the face of the planet or not deliver on what was promised, you won’t lose your money.

They have customer service reps that arbitrate these disagreements on behalf of both parties.

From the freelancer’s perspective, they know if they do the job as promised, they will get paid.  They don’t have to worry about getting stiffed.

All of your conversation with the freelancer happens through the website so there is a detailed log of your conversation history.  That way there’s no finger pointing.  Everything is out in the open for the arbitrator to see and evaluate.

So if you have a small or large technical job, you should check one of those sites out.  Could save you a lot of headache and money!