HTML Search Engine Optimization WordPress

8 WordPress Plugins: Podcast, Images, Meta, Optimization, Nagivation

There are eight WordPress plugins that I have either begun using recently or that I have been using for some time now to aid my efforts in podcasting, managing image sizes, meta data, website optimization, website navigation, and a few other quandaries. These are in addition to the plugins listed here: Starting a Movie Website: WordPress Plugins and the ones listed here: 4 WordPress Plugins: SEO, Google Analytics, Image Resize, Contact Form. Below you find a description of each, why you should consider using them, and where to obtain them. Lets begin, shall we.

Charlton Heston The Ten Commandments

P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler)

This plugin creates a profile of your WordPress site’s plugins’ performance by measuring their impact on your site’s load time. Often times, WordPress sites load slowly because of poorly configured plugins or because there are so many of them. By using the P3 plugin, you can narrow down anything causing slowness on your site.

This plugin uses the canvas element for drawing charts and requires requires Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, or IE9 or later. This plugin will not work in IE8 or lower.

Where you can find this plugin

The P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) can be found on WordPress’ official plugin site here.

Blubrry PowerPress

Blubrry PowerPress brings the essential features for podcasting to WordPress. Developed by podcasters for podcasters, PowerPress offers full iTunes support, web audio/video media players and more.
PowerPress Key Features

Full iTunes Support: Adds iTunes compliant podcast feeds to your WordPress blog.
Integrated HTML5 and Flash Media Players: Audio/video web players with embed support from sites such as YouTube and Ustream.tv.
HTML5 video support: Add both mp4 and webm media to each episode for maximum platform compatibility
Advanced and Default Mode: Simplfy settings using only the defaults, or harness all the potential of podcasting with Advanced Mode.
Media Modifiers: Easily add, modify and remove podcasts form blog posts and pages.
Migration tools: Quickly migrate from PodPress, Blogger or Movable Type without losing episodes.
Multi-podcast support: Create separate podcasts by category (Category Podcasting) or by media format (Podcast Channels).
Post Type and Taxonomy podcasting options, create podcasts from custom post types and taxonomies.
Supported Media Formats: mp3, m4a, mp4, m4v, webm, ogg, oga, ogv, wma, ra, mp4a, m4v, mp4v, mpg, asf, avi, wmv, flv, swf, mov, divx, 3gp, midi, wav, aa, pdf, torrent, m4b, m4r, epub.
*Media Statistics: Get FREE Blubrry Media Statistics from your WordPress dashboard.
Languages supported: English, Danish, French, Simplified Chinese, Italian (Want to translate PowerPress?)

Where you can find this plugin

The Blubrry PowerPress can be found on WordPress’ official plugin site here.

Dropdown Menu

Dropdown Menu widget adds a beautiful, CSS only dropdown menu, listing pages, categories of your blog. You can also turn your wordpress navigation menu into a beatiful dropdown menu using this plugin. It allows you to chose vertical or horizontal layout. It supports multiple instances. You can select a theme for your widget from the Dropdown Menu Settings page or you can CREATE YOUR OWN THEME WITHIN SAME PLUGIN!! You can also customize your dropdown menu using CSS.

Where you can find this plugin

The Dropdown Menu  can be found on WordPress’ official plugin site here.

EWWW Image Optimizer

The EWWW Image Optimizer is a WordPress plugin that will automatically and losslessly optimize your images as you upload them to your blog. It can also optimize the images that you have already uploaded in the past. It is also possible to convert your images automatically to the file format that will produce the smallest image size (make sure you read the WARNINGS). It can also optionally apply lossy reductions for PNG images.

By default, EWWW Image Optimizer uses lossless optimization techniques, so your image quality will be exactly the same before and after the optimization. The only thing that will change is your file size. The one small exception to this is GIF animations. While the optimization is technically lossless, you will not be able to properly edit the animation again without performing an –unoptimize operation with gifsicle. The gif2png and jpg2png conversions are also lossless but the png2jpg process is not lossless. Lossy optimization is available for PNG files. While pngquant tries very hard to maintain visual quality, lossy compression always has the potential for quality loss.

Images are optimized using the jpegtran, optipng, pngout, pngquant, and gifsicle image tools (available for free). For PNG files, optipng or pngout can be used for lossless compression, and pngquant is available for lossy compression. If you want the best optimization, install all three, set optipng to level 3 (beyond that is just crazy and rarely yields significant gains) and pngout to level 0. Images are converted using the above tools and GD or ‘convert’ (ImageMagick).

EWWW Image Optimizer calls optimization utilities directly which is well suited to shared hosting situations where these utilities may already be installed. Pre-compiled binaries/executables are provided for optipng, gifsicle, and jpegtran. Pngout can be installed with one-click from the settings page. If none of that works, there is a cloud option that will work for those who cannot run the optimizers on their own server.

Why use EWWW Image Optimizer?

Your pages will load faster. Smaller image sizes means faster page loads. This will make your visitors happy, and can increase ad revenue.
Faster backups. Smaller image sizes also means faster backups.
Less bandwidth usage. Optimizing your images can save you hundreds of KB per image, which means significantly less bandwidth usage.
Super fast. The plugin can run on your own server, so you don’t have to wait for a third party service to receive, process, and return your images. You can optimize hundreds of images in just a few minutes. PNG files take the longest, but you can adjust the settings for your situation.
Better PNG optimization. You can use pngout, optipng, and pngquant in conjunction.
Root access not needed Pre-compiled binaries are made available to install directly within the WordPress folder, and cloud optimization is provided for those who cannot run the binaries locally.
Optimize almost anything Using the Optimize More tool, and the wp_image_editor class extension, any image in WordPress can be optimized.

Where you can find this plugin

The EWWW Image Optimizer can be found on WordPress’ official plugin site here.

Facebook Open Graph Meta Tags for WordPress

This plugin inserts Facebook Open Graph Tags into your WordPress Blog/Website for more effective and efficient Facebook sharing results.

It also allows you to add the Meta Description tag and Schema.org Name, Description and Image tags for more effective and efficient Google+ sharing results.

You can also choose to insert the “enclosure” and “media:content” tags to the RSS feeds, so that apps like RSS Graffiti and twitterfeed post the image to Facebook correctly.

It allows the user to choose which tags are, or not, included and also the default image if the post/page doesn’t have one.
The Facebook Open Graph Tags that this plugin inserts are:

fb:app_id: From settings on the options screen.
fb:admins: From settings on the options screen.
og:locale: From WordPress locale or chosen by the user.
og:site_name: From blog title.
og:title: From post/page/archive/tag/… title.
og:url: From the post/page permalink.
og:type: “website” or “blog” for the homepage and “article” for all the others.
og:description: From post/page excerpt if it exist, or from post/page content. From category/tag description on it’s pages, if it exist. From tagline, or custom text, on all the others.
og:image: From a specific custom field of the post/page, or if not set from the post/page featured/thumbnail image, or if it doesn’t exist from the first image in the post content, or if it doesn’t exist from the first image on the post media gallery, or if it doesn’t exist from the default image defined on the options menu. The same image chosen here will be used and enclosure/media:content on the RSS feed.

The Schema.org Tags that this plugin inserts are:

name: Same as “og:title”.
description: Same as “og:description”.
image: Same as “og:image”.

Other Tags:

meta description: Same as “og:description”.
enclosure: On RSS feeds, same as “og:image”.
media:content: On RSS feeds, same as “og:image”.

Where you can find this plugin

The Facebook Open Graph Meta Tags for WordPress can be found on WordPress’ official plugin site here.

Primary Feedburner

Redirect visitors to your website feed to feedburner. This will allow you to customize and track your feeds in ways that simply aren’t possible with just WordPress.

Where you can find this plugin

The Primary Feedburner can be found on WordPress’ official plugin site here.

WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is an extensive WordPress database cleanup and optimization tool. It doesn’t require PhpMyAdmin to clean and optimize your database tables.

MAJOR FEATURES:

Removal of stale post revisions
Removal of stale unapproved and spam comments
Removal of trshed comments
Mobile device friendly, now you can optimize your site on the go
Removal of all trackbacks and pingbacks
Cleaning up auto draft posts
Removal of transient options
Clear out the post trash
Automatic cleanup of all the integrated options (also uses retention if enabled)
Ability to keep selected number of weeks data when cleaning up
Option to add or remove link on wp admin bar.
Enable/Disable weekly schedules of optimization
Apply native WordPress MySql optimize commands on your database tables without phpMyAdmin or any manual query.
Display Database table statistics. Shows how much space can be optimized and how much space has been cleared.
Enabled for Administrators only.

Where you can find this plugin

The WP-Optimize can be found on WordPress’ official plugin site here.

WP-PageNavi

Want to replace the old ← Older posts | Newer posts → links with some page links?

This plugin provides the wp_pagenavi() template tag which generates fancy pagination links. See the installation instructions for using it in your theme.

Where you can find this plugin

The WP-PageNavi can be found on WordPress’ official plugin site here.

 In Closing

As I said in the opening, I am using must if not all of these plugins currently. Each of them have their merits. Which of these plugins do you already use or are thinking of trying out?

About the author

Rollo Tomasi

Rollo Tomasi is a Connecticut-based film critic, TV show critic, news, and editorial writer. He will have a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 2025. Rollo has written over 700 film, TV show, short film, Blu-ray, and 4K-Ultra reviews. His reviews are published in IMDb's External Reviews and in Google News. Previously you could find his work at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and AltFilmGuide. Now you can find his work at FilmBook, ProMovieBlogger, and TrendingAwards.

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