Good morning everyone. It is around 10AM here in Chicago, a beautiful fall morning! I have stepped outside onto my balcony and taken a deep breathe of the fresh incoming Lake Michigan air. I suggest on Friday’s, that we all take 10 deep breaths and concentrate for a minute on clearing your mind. To be a successful entrepreneur, you must clear your mind of other worries and become creatively clear.

We are going to briefly give you the TOP 5 Wordpress plugins that will turn your blog into a professional source for information.

1. WP-Tiger Administrator

This is a great Wordpress plugin which we have discussed before. It will turn your current Wordpress backend into something more organized and better designed. If you have a large amount of users that you want to have “sign up” to your blog (to comment, write stories, whatnot), then you are going to want to make your blog a little more professional. You don’t people to know that you are JUST using Wordpress. Let them know that you are an experienced Wordpress user!

Resources: Download WP-Tiger Administrator

2. Binary Moon’s Custom Login

This one corresponds with numer 1! If you have a large amount of users that you want to be interactive with your website, make them feel as if your website is a place they WANT to be. Start customizing your login page to differ yourself from the other Wordpress blogs/websites. This is a very easy plugin to install, much like plugin number 1. You can view a demo of the login on our login page: Click Here

Resources: Download Binary Moon’s Custom Login

3. Author Hightlight

If you have contributing writers or many people writing for your blog/website, many professional bloggers and writers use the Author Highlight plugin. What does this do? Well, whenever a certain user writes a story and a visitor views that story, it displays a certain amount of information about that author. Websites that currently use examples of this type of plugin: YoungGoGetter.com & DevLounge.net

Be aware that this plugin does require a bit more knowledge about editing Wordpress themes in order to activate. If you do not already understand how to install the Author Highlight, I suggest you take some time to play with it and eventually you will understand it (don’t worry, it won’t take much time!).

Resources: Download Author Hightlight

4. MyAvatar / MyBlogLog Avatar

This plugin is amazing. It will take any avatar that a user is using via mybloglog.com or gravatar.com and display it on their comments. This is great, because it makes it a bit more universal. Not everyone uses gravatar and not everyone uses mybloglog! So why not have the best of both worlds (why can’t this happen with HD-DVD & BluRay). This plugin is a bit more advanced than the first two, but after installing the Author Highlight plugin, you should be able to do it in no time! We currently use this plugin, if you would like a demo, be sure you have a gravatar of mybloglog avatar and post a comment!

Resources: Download MyAvatar (this page has high processor usage because of its MySQL queries - tons of comments - be aware before you click)

5. Related Topics - Asides

This is tough to decide on what number 5 is, there are so many great Wordpress plugins that we ran into a tie! The related topics plugin is one that everyone should be using. It is very simple to activate but can be very creative on how it is displayed. I suggest that everyone have this plugin, but I also suggest that everyone learns how to display the Asides. Asides are small posts that can be made (I suggest posting them from your mobile while in class, like me), displaying short news content to your readers. Many websites have hacked this Asides codex to also use a “featured” post. You will see great examples of these usages in the next Hell Yeah Dude! Wordpress theme.

To find out more information on the Asides codex please visit this website.

Resources:  Wasabi Wordpress Related Topics

Thanks to everyone for viewing. Come back soon for more discussions, tutorials, how to’s, & design chit-chat!