Most of what you’ll need to know when installing Wordpress can be found in the documentation that accompanies its download. Once the installation is complete you’ll have to configure the look and feel to match your current site. This isn’t going to be exactly the same but we can get it very close. There are many free templates out there that you can download and install. Once you install you can then further customize it as you need to. That’s one of the great things about Wordpress, it’s completely open source and highly customizable. Once we have all our ducks in a row with the install and customization there are things called extensions or plugins that increase the functionality of your Wordpress blog. These are essential as Wordpress out of the box doesn’t come with all the bells & whistles you’ll need. The following is a list of those extensions and where they can be found. These are the extensions that I use on my blog so if I use them you know they have to be good

Feedburner Feedsmith
Your Wordpress blog comes with two feeds, one for your content and one for you comments. People very rarely subscribe to the comments so we can ignore this one. What the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin does is automatically converts your wordpress feed into the Feedburner feed to maximize control and syndication of your content through feedburner.

Google Analytics Plugin
There are tons of different types of analytic software out there but most use Google Anayltics. This plugin will allow you to integrate the Google javascript snippet throughout the pages of your site automatically.

Automatic Google Sitemap Generator
This handy tool automatically rewrites your sitemap as many times a day as you need it to. You can also specify priority of content and how often that content should be checked for updates. It will automatically write and add the sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz zipped file to your root directory.

Head META Description pluging
Head Meta Description provides an automatic meta description tag for your blog, inserting a dynamic description depending on the query-type (i.e. page you’re on). Very useful tool as Wordpress doesn’t do this automatically.

Optimal Title Plugin
This allows you to move your blogs name to the back of the title instead of having it written first.

Redirection Plugin
Instead of having to deal with .htaccess markup, you can simply install this plugin and you can manage all your redirects from within Wordpress

Robots META Plugin
This plugin will allow you the edit your robots.txt file from within Wordpress. Also has some additional functionality with allow/deny options.

ShareThis Plugin
This one isn’t necessary but it helps from an SEM standpoint. This pluging allows you or your readers to easily post your content to bookmarking or social news sites. You can add or subtract sites at will. Also allows your readers to email your posts.

Answers.com has teamed up with Wordpress to offer automatically linking definitions within Wordpress blog posts. A function that will automatically be offered to Wordpress users whose blog is hosted by Wordpress. For bloggers who use Wordpress on their own server there is a plugin available. Now I’m not entirely sure how this works but it seems as though when one is authoring a post in Wordpress, the author has the option of activating the AnswerLinks (TM) icon. Activating this function will automatically scan the post and add a suggestive link to any words that could potentially be unknown to average readers.

“Typical suggestions will include names, technical terms or obscure language that may not be familiar to some readers. Only words confirmed by the author will be linked to definitions, assuring full editorial control.”

I can see how this would be beneficial in some way. If I ever come across a term I don’t recognize I’ll often navigate away from the page to Google the term or go to Dictionary.com. However, the obvious benefactor here is Answers.com. Not so long ago Answers.com acquired Dictionary.com. After this Google significantly dropped Answers.com in the index. This new maneuver by Answers.com and Wordpress kind of hits Google in its soft underbelly. Google loves blogs and content. Combine blogging with a widget like AnswerLinks and you have a winning combination. I’m not sure how many self hosted Wordpress users are going to use a feature like this but those who host on Wordpress will be at least likely to try it out. Smart move Answers Corp! Let’s see if it works out for you.

Congrats Danny on Sphinn! It’s a much needed search marketing version of Digg. We know how much they love search marketing material over there so Sphinn is quite nice. Many folks are using the Share This Wordpress plugin created by Alex King. If you’re not familiar with it you can see it in action on my site and over at Mashable. With this plugin you can add and subtract bookmarking capabilities and I figured we’d need one for Sphinn. To add Sphinn to Share This in Wordpress, go to Plugins > Plugin Editor > and click on the share-this.php file. Towards the top of the code is where you can add new bookmarking sites.

Add this code, you should be able to see where it belongs:

, 'sphinn' => array(
'name' => 'Sphinn'
, 'url' => 'http://sphinn.com/submit.php?url={url}&title={title}'
)

click ‘Update File’.

Now, right click the Sphinn graphic displayed here and save the file to your desktop. Upload this file to your Share This Word Press Plugins folder at:

wp-content/plugins/share-this/

You’re done! You can now bookmark to Sphinn with your Share This Wordpress plugin!