Mobile Friendly Project – Theme and Plugins
Published September 3, 2010 | 
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When you decide to launch a new blog site like Mobile Friendly, one of the first things that you are going to be confronted with is what theme and plugins to use. Your choice of a theme and the plugins for your site will make a huge difference in the way it looks and functions for your user. The better your site looks and the easier it is to use will greatly benefit you in converting visitors into subscribers and long-term readers.
I know what you are thinking… “What about great content, Gary?” Content is very important, and I will get to that in the next installment, but if your site turns the visitor off before he even reads one post then your great content is not doing you any good.
For the theme, as I mentioned in the previous article, I chose the Suffusion theme because of its flexibility and the fact that it is SEO ready so you do not need to add a plugin like the All in One SEO pack to it. It does take a bit of time to get the theme configured the way you want, but that is only because there are so many options available for you to choose from. There are several preconceived templates that you can choose from that will reduce the setup time dramatically, but I prefer the custom method myself.
After I installed the theme, I had to decide what plugins to use. The plugins added cover many areas including social networking, security, functionality, statistics, and additional SEO.
Security is always a major concern when you put a website online, so its a natural decision to look for ways to better secure it. WordPress is fairly secure straight out of the box but there are several vulnerabilities that can be exploited to get your site hacked.
One thing that all sites with an admin section face is a brute force break-in attack. With this type of attack, the login page is repeatedly bombarded with user name/password combinations until the site is broken into. This is easily preventable in WordPress by installing the Login Lockdown plugin to limit the number of attempts at the login page and then lockout the IP address of the attacker.
With social networking there are a couple of plugins that I always use. The TweetMeme button plugin is an industry staple and can be seen on nearly every blog out there. It is very effective in getting people to promote your blog to their Twitter followers.
The other social plugin that I like is AddThis. It allows your visitors to share your post with over 200 social networking and bookmarking sites. They can even share it with their friends and colleagues via email or print it out for sharing in a physical form.
There are many other plugins that I used in creating this site. Click here for a complete PDF list of them all and the reasons that I chose to use them.
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- The Mobile Friendly Project (wpblogmaster.com)
- Post-Install Plugins to Enhance & Protect WordPress (line25.com)
- Optimizing WordPress for Search & Social at Wordcamp Montreal (nvisolutions.com)
- 24 Impressive Blog Plugins You Should Consider (socialmediaexaminer.com)
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Hey Gary.
Thanks for another great post. I am glad that I came by to read your post here because me and my girl just finished putting together our website and there were a few plug ins that you have mentioned here we didn’t know about so it’s done. It’s always g0od to protect your baby (our website) because there are a lot of mean people out there. Wouldn’t have anything to do but harm others. 0OK having a website it’s like having a house; yes I might like blue but the people that are going to rent it may not like blue so I have to remember here it’s not about me it’s about them. It’s a business, they are the ones that bring the money in so we have to make sure they are happy. Like me, right now I keep coming back to your site because I like the site and content, we just need to put ourselves in their shoes.
pierre
I’m constantly tweaking things, whether it be colors, graphics, plugins or whatever. I want to make something that is easy to look at and easy to use.
Regarding content, I noticed that you mentioned “quick to load” as a criteria in your newest post on mobilefriendly.net, and I absolutely agree, not just for mobile sites, but for ANY site. I can’t tell you how many blogs I’ve come across – some by big names that you’d think would know better – that are so choked by plugins and scripts that they freeze my browser and take forever to load, and it makes me wonder if they even tested for and are aware of this. Apparently, they aren’t aware of WP Cache, either – and guess how frequently I visit those blogs? Exactly.
I’m wondering what the difference is between Login Lockdown and Invisible Defender, which I see you using below on this site? And, when you refer to “an admin section face”, you’re referring to any site with FTP control panel access – basically ANY site – and not membership-type sites with member login, correct? Does Login Lockdown
have anything to do with membership logins?
Regarding social plugins, I know that AddThis is one of literally dozens available out there, and very likely one of the best. I’m wondering whether this is needed if you’re using a theme like Socrates that has social bookmarking built in.
I love the PDF plugins list – thanks!
If the theme has social bookmarking built into it, adding a plugin is not necessary unless it provides some additional functions/sites that the built in list does not.
Invisible defender blocks most automated attempts at accessing your blog, but there are scripts out there that will make it through. There is also a blacklist associated with it that automatically blocks known serial spammers. Login lockdown will lockout both automated and live attempts at cracking in through the login form.
There are many blogs out there on guru sites that aren’t very good. I was invited to be a JV partner on a launch by a well-known marketer and after visiting the blog for more info and seeing the many issues he had there, I chose not to participate. If he can’t get his blog right, how good can the product actually be?
There are some plugins and themes that do not play well with WP Cache. Usually if you read the description they will tell you if there are any known compatibility issues, but sometimes you just get a surprise with the WP Whitescreen when you activate them.
Any site that has a login form is very vulnerable to attack. More and more sites are adding captcha to their login page to help prevent the automated brute force entries. I had a URL Rotator site that was hacked a few years back. I had to completely wipe the site and start over when all was said and done… Actually I haven’t even started over… The site has a placeholder index page until I have the time to get back to it.
Thank you for the guidelines. I started my blog just 3 weeks before. Now I write consistently and trying to write offer good content. On my second week of blog posting I got an offer to write in a popular blog. Even it was not very close to my expertise, I accepted it and writing already for a week. I am enjoying writing for myself and also for others. I feel nice when you are recognized. Mobile friendly project is famous project in the world.
I love WordPress and think the several shopping cart plugins available are superb.
Great post thanks!