There are a huge amount of WordPress plugins out there that offer statistics. Some of them are as simple as easily inserting Google Analytics code into your theme while others are full-blown tie-ins with WordPress.com. If you’d rather not have your stats stored on someone else’s server you might want to look at StatPress.

Once you activate StatPress the plugin begins to store visitor data for your blog in real-time. Then you can check out information on your traffic in stats using a nice dashboard style interface (seen above).

I run and manage a handful of WordPress blogs that use a ton of different plugins. Of all those plugins, the one that is consistently used on all of the blogs is the Google XML Sitemaps plugin by Arne Brachhold.

This plugin automatically generates a valid XML sitemap of your blog every time you add or edit a post or page. The advantage to having a current sitemap is that search engines like Google and Yahoo have a much easier time crawling and then indexing your site. The faster and easier it is for search engine to do their jobs the faster and easier it will be for your blog to start appearing on search engine results.

This plugin is a no-brainer for me and is usually the first one I install and configure when I’m starting a new blog. There are other Sitemap plugins available out there but in my experience this one is the best.

I recently decided to use WordPress for a client’s site. The intention was to have a content management system running from day one to allow the client to enter in site content while I fleshed out the site’s look and converted it into a workable WordPress theme.

My biggest concern with this project was that as sleek as the new 2.5 admin is there are still some slight hiccups for less computer savvy individuals. I really wanted to find a way to trim down the options available to my client when they were logged into their WordPress account.

Luckily I found the Role Manager plugin which did exactly what I was looking for. With Role Manager I can define exactly what different levels of accounts can and can not do when they are logged in to the WordPress admin.

So I took my client’s account and made him an “Editor” with the capability to only manage the individual Pages of the site. This stops him from accidentally changing any of the other parts of the site like the theme or any of the other plugins we’ll be using. It’s the perfect solution to my problem because it hides the other parts of the admin that he can’t access as an Editor.

While WordPress is built on open source technologies and philosophies it’s also a proven tool for generating income with your design and/or programming skills.

Web designers offering to create custom WordPress themes is something everyone is probably familiar with. I’ve noticed that you don’t see a lot of WordPress plugin creators getting much recognition in the “WordPress marketplace” for their creations and I’m not entirely sure why that is. My hunch is that it has something to do, once again, with WordPress and its strong connection to the open source movement.

Let’s put that debate aside for now and focus on what capable programmers can do to earn a few dollars using their skills. While I know of a few people selling copies of plugins they’ve written to users I think there’s probably another large market for programmers interested in writing plugins for private clients. With the incredible explosion of WordPress powered blogs and sites these days there has to be a large need for custom-built plugin solutions.

I’m sure site owners have problems that can’t be handled by the current crop of freely available plugins. If you’re a good programmer with WordPress experience it can’t hurt to put yourself out there and offer your services to see if there are any opportunities available to you.

Comment spam is a problem that’s raging out of control and WordPress blogs have become the spammers’ favorite target. The default install of WordPress makes it incredibly easy for robots and spiders to submit garbage comments laden with spammy links at a constant rate.

It’s almost impossible anymore to handle these comments without the help of a plugin.

The most popular spam fighting plugin, by far, is Akismet by Automatic. This plugin has always been my weapon of choice against spam comments because of its clever use of a centralized database.

In short, Akismet collects and categorizes comments from every blog running the plugin. It then uses rules based on the comment’s content and also how other blog owners have judged similar comments to decide whether or not the comment is spam. Akismet even works on trackbacks and pingbacks.

Akismet requires an API key from WordPress.com to run so you’ll need to make an account there first. That’s the only big hurdle in the installation and it’s worth it based on how well Akismet performs against spam. Your API key can be found on your WordPress.com profile page but if you’re having problems you can check out their FAQ for help.

Once you have your API key and the plugin is installed and activated on your own blog you’re almost ready to go. With your API key in hand, go to the “Akismet Configuration” panel available under “Plugins” on the WordPress administration. Now you simply paste your API key into the box provided and save.

Akismet will begin to automatically filter your comments, trackbacks and pingbacks as they come into your blog. Be careful though as Akismet is known to occasionally incorrectly mark valid comments as spam. You’ll have to periodically go through the comment moderation queue to look for any of these false-positives.