I’ve been asked quite a few times lately what plugins I use on Orgasmic Chef and I’ve even been asked who “did” my blog. If you’ve been a friend for a while, then you know that I often describe myself as technically challenged .
Luckily I have a husband who is pretty cluey when it comes to all thinks geek. He will tell people (often) that I’m not to be trusted with technology but that’s not 100% true. I know my way around but I don’t think logically – I’m more emotional. I know things because my guts say so and that drives a logical person NUTS.
When I decided that if I was going to continue blogging about food I knew I needed to lift my game. A total redesign of my site was desperately needed and a photography class was necessary. I use WordPress and I self-host. Yes it costs a bit of money every month for the server but I love the control that it gives me.
Now those of you with bags of money can just pick up the phone and order a design from a graphic artist and your blog is gorgeous. I know. I’ve been to your site. I lusted. Sadly, I couldn’t afford a clever designer — I wish I could have but reluctantly, I had to do the design job myself. It’s not a nifty designer theme but it’s mine and I’m okay with it. It’s got my food on top and not much else. I figured people were coming to see the food so it made sense to use that as my header.
I can’t tell you how many times I changed everything before transferring it over to my blog. I don’t “see” things in my head, rather, I feel them. You’d never hire me as an architect, I promise you. When I want to rearrange my furniture I just start moving stuff around. John rolls his eyes and says, “honey, that’s not going to fit there, measure it first.” Measure schmesure.. move it and you’ll know it’s 2 inches too wide, then you move it somewhere else. Same with my blog. I clicked all the buttons on the Thesis theme to see what they did and some looked great and some looked pretty awful.
Thankfully for those times when I erased the whole bloody thing, my hero was there to put everything back in order. “Maureen, it’s tricky to try to edit the .php code,” he said as nicely as he could. I’m blessed that he never ever gets angry. About anything. I went to my new blog design unafraid! I also mucked it up a time or three.
I don’t use tons of plugins on Orgasmic Chef because a lot of plugins will slow down the loading of a blog. A slow blog gets penalized by Google. That says it all, really. So here are what I use:
Akismet (gets rid of spam)
CommentLuv (a way to show what my commenters are doing)
Easy Recipe (my recipe plugin. I love the live formatting.)
Facebook Button Plugin (pretty obvious)
Fast Secure Contact Form (also pretty obvious)
Google Analytics (the king of stats)
Google XML Sitemaps (Google likes it when you have this)
Image Widget (this puts an image box in your sidebar)
Jetpack (I like the ease and compactness of the stats)
Related Posts Thumbnails (puts the little picture links after a post)
Social Media Widget (those little icons at the top of the sidebar)
WP Smush.it (please get this.. it reduces the file size of every photo as you upload it with no loss of quality)
I also use these two plugins but they aren’t launched yet.
Easy Blogroll (blogs I follow showing a popup screen cap of their site)
Easy Visual Index (popup thumbnails of all my posts)
I could very well be missing some fantastic plugins that would make my blog rock. If you use plugins that you think everyone should try, please share in the comments. When a few of us support one another, then we’re way ahead of the pack, I reckon.
Just so there is some food on every post, here’s a plate of puff pastry scraps sprinkled with sugar, rolled up, sliced and placed into a mini muffin tin and then sprinkled with demerara sugar. Sort of like a palmier but made from scraps and rolled one direction only. Okay, the only thing that makes them like a palmier is that they’re made out of puff pastry and they have sugar on them. However…. they were perfect alongside a cone of maple walnut ice cream.
see?
Lot’s of great info here, and I love that you “had” to share a food photo on the post 🙂 I’m not very technologically inclined either, but, sadly, my husband is probably less so than me, so he isn’t much help at all. His role is to be taste tester for all my recipes. So far, I think he has only wrinkled his nose up at 1 or 2-not bad! I use most of the plug-ins you do, buy hadn’t heard of image widget and I’ve always been wondering how people can get images on their sidebars. Now I know…Thanks for sharing!!
I hear you sister! I am also the worst of the technically challenged. Sounds to me like you’ve learned a lot in a very short time. This has been very helpful. I love your pastry twirls and I’ll have a couple of those but first, please pass the ice cream xx
Great info! I recently redesigned my site and I know how you feel – it was a lot of work! Just glad it’s behind me now :). Please pass the puff pinwheels!
Oh me too! I also click a button and preview to see what it did. It’s a very steep learning curve this blogging is!
Thanks for sharing the great sites that help your blog… 🙂 Great information.
You are generous to share this helpful info! I’m not techie so my husband does research and does all that (and I’m grateful…). I’m going to make this pinwheel thing – glad to know it’s made of puff pastry. I can’t call myself “a beginner baker” without puff pastry. LOL. But it’s true!!!
You have no idea how timely this information is!!! Thanks for all your hard work for us lesser ones to learn from! 🙂 I am also moving my blog onto a hosted-server-thing-a-me-whats-it. I am so technically inept that I have to ask my 15 year old son to help!! But you CAN teach an old dog new tricks…..I am living proof 🙂
Thanks so much Maureen! This is such a useful list of plugins, I was really thinking of installing some of these. My boyfriend is pretty techy himself but he doesn’t really help me with these things as he finds it quite troublesome. 🙁
OMG I just realised when I clicked on the EasyRecipes plugin page that you actually created this plugin? That is so cool! Fantastic work and it looks most useful! Will add it to my blog too. 😀
Thanks Jenny. If you have any trouble, just let us know.
Thinking about technology this way makes me cry 😉
You are so lucky to have a not-geeky but techno-mad-awesome husband!
Thank you for this post I have bookmarked it for when I make the inevitable move 🙂
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
We’ve got your back when you do make the move, Uru! 🙂
Such a pretty blog you have too, Maureen! What a great job you’ve done! 🙂
wow, that’s really something coming from you! Thanks a lot. 🙂
WOW! I am over whelmed. I just am not techie at all. All I want to do is the bloggin portion. I need someone to help me install and work with and learn how to use many of these things.
Thanks a milion for sharing your list. I learned a lot.
Thanks for all the work you have done on this list. I look forward to downloading your non geeky wordpress plug in. I wish I had someone to help with the techie stuff!
I wish I was better technologically but alas I am the plumber’s wife and Mr NQN has been working on a redesign for me for the last 4 years. I’m not kidding 😛
Great info and links Maureen. I think your blog is great!
I’ll have to try the Smush it plug-in!
If only I had WordPress… I always toss around the idea, but still with Blogger. I do love your easy blogroll and easy visual indexes as well as your recipe plug-in. Saving for the future…in case I ever take the plunge! 😉
This post was very informative for a truly technically challenged person like me. I will spend sometime and figure out what works for me.
Love Easy Recipe, I started out with a different recipe plug in and this works much better for me. On a rare occasion I had hoped for a way to include a second recipe in a post but can’t figure out how to make that happen. Thanks for writing a user friendly plug in! Love the rolls with puff pastry…
Maureen…for someone who is technically challenged…you really have a good grip on this blogging thing! I use many of these same plug ins…but I will have to look into the Easy Recipe one. Your blog is really so professional….really well done. I’m impressed you’ve done it all on your own. I had help. My eye can see the things that I want, but I can always make that translate…you know? And I will gladly eat your pastry scraps anytime! They look delish! This was such a great post, Maureen! : )
I am definitely technically challenged. I appreciate these great tips. Those puff pastry treats look yummy!
Hi Maureen,
Thank you for sharing the technical information about plugins that you are using and it helps me discover some new ones. You are absolutely right some of these plugins really slows down the page load. Oh, this is a good post.
These look delicious!
great plugin advice and I am drooling over that ice cream and puff pastry scraps! puff pastry can be used so many ways! It is just awesome
I started with Blogger 4 years back and hated it. Tweedled my thumbs and didn’t get any idea why I was even in there. Had no followers, no idea what to do, so I more or less abandoned it.
They one fine day realization hit, I discovered WordPress and self hosting, and I was on a roll. Technologically, I can figure out a lot of stuff and quite quickly, though I am HTML challenged. But it hasn’t been too bad and I got a lot done in a short time, though to be honest I did have in setting things up from a dear friend.
One plugin I love is ’email me only on my comment’, that helps me in personally connect with the visitor.Btw, I fell in love with your site the very first day. It is one of the MOST ‘lustworthy’ sites I have seen.
I love those rolls Maureen. Yummm!
And you know I am addicted to your blog. I have awarded you the Addictive Blog Award 😀
http://www.thelady8home.com/2012/07/12/awarded-the-addictive-blogger-award/
I love how wonderful and share-y you are! And you’re braver than I am–I’ll click buttons til I’m blue in the face, but a php thingy scares the crapola out of me! lol Aside from Easy Recipe which I Love-Love-Marry-It-Love, I also use Search Everything: https://github.com/sproutventure/search-everything-wordpress-plugin/ I run a bunch of others, lots of which are similar to the ones you use. Oh, for comments, I use Disqus. So far, I’ve been very pleased w/how it runs.
A very generous set of tips. I took the easy way and got the youngest Glam Teen to set up my blog with all the hosting etc. however he’s now got bored with the constant questions. I may be on my own! GG
The plugin looks interesting thanks for shaing I will be checking it out!
Some great plugin suggestions there, and you are right, the most important tip is to make your blog fast so it isn’t penalised by Google. Thanks for your recipe plugin too! It’s definitely the best of the recipe plugins out there.
Dear Maureen,
I’m totally hopeless and a real technausaurus when it comes to plug-in etc. I think your blog looks sensational. Just curious what plug-in you use for the “Subscribe By Email” button. I don’t think my Google Feedburner works particularly well and was looking to install a new plug-in for subscribers.
great info, I like Stat Counter for my visitor stats.
Very helpful, Maureen. My site went down a couple of times last month apparently because of all the plugins I had installed. I’ve cleaned it up some but I have a way to go before my site is optimized. I love, love your recipe plugin, though!
You’re lucky to have a tech savvy husband. My hubs and I are both clueless so we just get by.
Thanks for the tips!
Mine has never gone down for that reason but I’ve pressed too many buttons and knocked mine off before. mea culpa 🙂
Hi Maureen,
Thanks for sharing such helpful tips. I am not at all tech savvy and most often just get stuck. Like this one time I accidentally wiped out my entire layout of the blog by clicking the forbidden “RED BUTTON”.
Luckily, the person who designed the blog for me was able to restore it back.
The pinwheels look amazing! I will have to try that out soon.
That’s a great list Maureen! Thanks a lot for putting it together! I’m going to get smush.it! 🙂
I like your design – it’s clear and simple. Too many blog designs I see are all about “design” and actually make it hard to see the content sometimes. Yours works. Great info, too. I probably should look into self-hosting, although Blogger is so easy to use (frustrating sometimes, however). WordPress does seem the way to go. I probably won’t change – too lazy! – but I do think about it.
Thanks a lot for the kind words. 🙂
Lol love how you had to include food in the post 😛
Thanks for this list, will def be checking them out when i get a moment 🙂
I love you right now. Like huge, mad, crazy love. Thanks for this.
Maureen, thanks for sharing your technical advice. (One of these days I’ll make the switch to self-hosted, but for now WP.com has been doing a fine job for me.) FYI, I tried adding your Easy Recipe to my blog last year (in my state of unknowingness about .com vs .org…) and the huge “no no” I got in response made me think I was about to start an international incident!
I think your site looks GREAT — don’t downplay the uncluttered visuals or ease of use. The most frustrating thing I encounter when visiting blogs is waiting (and waiting…) for a comment section to load (either due to huge photos or a multitude of ads) — or having it disappear entirely after putting some thought into replying. Yours is tidy, FAST, and appetizing, and I appreciate that greatly. The less time I spend waiting, the more time I have in the kitchen! Take care and thanks.
I love all the changes you’ve made, although you lost me after the first plug-in. I’m just waiting for Santa to answer my letter for technical help before I fix things. He he. Keep up the great work my dear.
-Gina-
Great list of plugins! Off to check out the Smush.it plugin. Sounds interesting, and thanks for sharing 🙂
Great list of plugins! I pretty much have all of them so I guess we have good taste 🙂
I really like your blog design and it’s really neat that you did it yourself!
Hey, I have your Easy Recipe plugin! Thanks. I was wondering if you’re using a plugin for your Recipe Index Gallery. It’s taking me forever to find a plugin for something like that. Thanks in advance.
I am! The plugin is nearly ready for public use. It’s the recipe index and the sidebar index as well.