Well, one option is to install a Wordpress plugin that lists the most popular posts on your site and add this list to your front page. I like the Wordpress Popular Posts plugin by Hector Cabrera, which allows you to do some basic configuring of how you’d like the popular posts to be determined (total views, number of comments, or average daily views) and within a time range (all-time, today, last week, last month, or last year), as well as the number of posts you’d like to display.

Another option is to use a Wordpress theme that includes the option for one or more featured posts that stick on your front page. Some themes’ default featured post is the most recent post. Instead, you’re looking for a theme that allows you to pick and choose which posts you’d like to feature, and this is usually done via an established category called something on the lines of Featured or Featured Article, and of course will depend on that particular theme’s options.

Yet another option that I like a lot involves adding a snazzy archive page to the site. Although it won’t be shown on your home page, you can name the page something more click-worthy than “Archives”, such as “All Articles” or “See All Posts”. A typical archive page is handy, but the Snazzy Archives plugin really jazzes the page up. You can set it up to show article snippets and image previews–and we all know that readers love images. Setting up this plugin is easy. There are two different layouts to choose from, and once you’ve chosen your options, you simply add a new page to your site (named Archives, or All Articles, or whatever you’d like) and place [snazzy-archives] into the page body. That’s it! Play around with it a little in order to make it fit your content the way you’d like it to. The only possible problem with this plugin arises when your theme requires you to add your image to a post through a Custom Field. Unless there is another image in the post besides that one, the Archives page won’t show the image.

Unfortunately unlike in the comment area, Wordpress automaticaly makes all links in your blog posts do-follow ones. So how do we make them no-follow? Read on and you will find out.

The first thing we need to do is download, unzip and uplad the TinyMCE Advanced plugin to our plugins folder. Then login to your Wordpress dashboard, click on plugins and activate it. Next click on  your “manage” tab at the top of your dashboard, and choose the “TinyMCE Advanced” option. You should then see a screen that looks like this:

On this page you will need to drag and drop the link button onto the bottom bar along with any other extra icons you want to use, then click on “save”. Now when you go to the “write new post” page you will see an extra toolbar with your added icons on it like this:

Now when you make a link in your dashboard and you want to make it no-follow you can follow these steps.

First write whatever words you want the link to look like, then highlight them. Click on your new link button that is in your extra toolbar. Type in the URL of your link like you would to make a regular link. Next click on the “advanced” tab and look to where it says “Relationship page to target”. This is automaticaly set to “not set”. Click on it and scroll down to the “no follow option and choose that. Then click on “insert”, and you have just made your link a no-follow one.

Once you have downloaded this plugin to your desktop and uploaded it to your /plugins folder, you need to activate it in your Wordpress dashboard. Once activated, and if your blog indeed needs updating, you will see something that looks like this at the top of your Wordpress dashboard:

Did you notice the little red sign that is next to the “plugins” tab? Well this sign is telling me that I have 5 plugins that need updating, so this is what I need to update first.

Click on your “plugins” tab and you will be able to see exactly which ones need upgrading. Go through each plugin that needs upgrading and click on upgrade automatically on each one.

Once all your plugins are updated you can now upgrade your Wordpress installation. You first need to click on “Click here to automatically upgrade Wordpress to the latest version” that is at the top of your dashboard, and you should come to a page that looks like this (click to enlarge):

All you need to do is simply click your way through the upgrade process until it says “Congratulations!!! Your Wordpress version is up to date”, and you’re done.

This plugin also allows you to download a backup of your Wordpress blog before the actual upgrade takes place, so don’t forget to do this once prompted just in case anything goes wrong with the process.

After you have downloaded the autoresponder plugin and uploaded it to your /plugins directory, you will need to activate it. Once activated you will notice an extra tab at the top of your Wordpress dashboard titled  ” [GWA Autoresponder]“. Click on it and you should see a screen like this (click to enlarge):

Take a look at the html code on this page because this is what we will need to put on your blog. Usually the best place to put this code is in the sidebar, above the fold, where it will get noticed. The next step is to copy and paste the code into a “text” widget in your sidebar.

Click on your “design ” tab at the top of your Wordpress dashboard and choose “widgets”. Scroll down until you find the text widget and click on “add”. Your text widget should now appear on the right hand side of your page. Click on “edit” and paste in your code, and then click “save changes”. Now when you visit your blog you will see something like this:

That sign up form looks pretty plain doesn’t it? So what we need to do next is give your blog visitors a reason to sign up to your mailing list. Why not give them something for free? A free report or ebook specific to your niche usually does the trick.

There are plenty of places online where you can find cheap or even free PLR ebooks that you can give away. All you need to do is google it. Once you have found a good ebook that you know your blog visitors will love, it’s time to add it to your autoresponder.

First thing you need to do is add the image of the ebook above the autoresponder and add some text, so your visitors know what they are going to get when they sign up to your list. To do this you need to upload the image in one of your posts by using the “add media” function. But instead of adding the image to your post you need to copy and paste the “link url” into your text widget above your autorsponder code. If you are unsure how to do this click on the screenshot below to see exactly how I added the image to the sidebar.

Now when we take a look at the front page of your blog you should see something like this:

Now you are able to start building your list with your Wordpress blog.

On Page Optimization

On page optimization is all about making your blog search engine friendly. Follow these three tips to ensure the spiders love your blog:

1.  Download the All in one SEO plugin. This plugin allows you to insert meta title, description and keywords into each post or page you write. You are also able to insert meta descriptions for the home page of your blog.

2. Download and install the Google xml Sitemaps plugin. This plugin automatically generates a search engine friendly sitemap for the spiders to crawl.

3. Make your URL’s search engine friendly. To do this login to your Wordpress dashboard and click on “settings”. Then choose the “permalinks” option. Choose the “custom structure” and type in “/%postname%/”.

Off Page Optimization

Off page optimization is all about the links. The more links that point to your blog the more the spiders will love you. Try to get links from other blogs or websites that have higher pagerank. These three tips show you how to get quick backlinks.

1. Write and submit articles on your niche to article directories. Most article directories allow you to leave a link or two back to your blog in the resource box at the bottom of your article. My favorite article directory to submit articles to is Ezine Articles.

2. Find “do follow” blogs to comment on. You should leave a meaningful comment that relates to their post otherwise you risk your comment being deleted or not published at all. You can find a list of do follow blog at Do Follow Diver.

3. Write super great content. If you write original helpful and informative posts, not only will the search engines visit you more often, but people will link to you too. These kind of links are the best types to get because it shows you are doing a good job with your blog.

First thing you need to do is sign up for a free Google analytics account. Once you have entered your blog details, you will receive a code that you need to insert into your theme code. That code will look something like this:

Login to your Wordpress dashboard and click on the “Design” tab. Then choose the “theme editor” link, and open up the footer theme file. Copy and paste your Google Analytics code into there, right after the </body> tag and before the </html> tag like this:

Click on save, and now you are able to track all your visitors and what they are doing on your site.

Alternatively, if you don’t like messing with your Wordpress code. you can download this free plugin: Adsense plugin that does all the work for you.

Whenever I install a new Wordpress blog there a few plugins that I immediately install I call these my “Must have plugins”.

All In One SEO Pack

This plugin helps with SEO. This plugin adds another option on your writ post or page screen so that you can choose your meta name, description and keywords for each individual post or page. If you go to “settings” in your wordpress dashboard and the choose “all in one seo” you can also choose to add meta information for the front page of your blog.

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade

Every now and again you will notice that your Wordpress installation or certain plugins need upgrading to the newer version. Normaly you would have to download the new version and upload it to your site which can become a pain in the butt. This plugin makes the upgrade process of both your Wordpress installation and plugins as easy as a few clicks in your dashboard.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin automaticaly generates a sitemap for the search engines to crawl and find all your new posts or pages. If you want your site to be indexed fast you definately need this plugin.

Statpress

This plugin helps you track stats about your bog. It tracks visitors, spiders, where your visitors come from and what keywords they typed in to find your blog. You can view all this information from right inside your dashboard.

Add To Any Share/Save/Bookmark

Once installed this plugin adds a little bar automaticaly at the end of each of your posts which lets your site visitors bookmark your blog to their favorite social bookmarking sites. This can help increase your traffic.

These are only my top 5 essential plugins and I use a lot more on different blogs, it all depends on what the blogs purpose is. There are literaly thousands of plugins to choose from, you can view a large list at the Wordpress.org plugins directory.

Installing plugins is similar to installing a new theme. Once you have downloaded and unzipped the ones you wish to use to your desktop. Use Core FTP to connect to your site similar to how you would connect if you wanted to instal a theme. But instead of opening up the “themes” folder upload it to the “plugins” folder.

Next login to your Wordpress dashboard. Click on “plugins” and then activate them.