As bloggers, our most valuable asset is time. We can spend it on writing useful content, promoting our blogs, networking and so on.
Yet we also need to check stats, moderate comments, use social media and so on, and these tasks tend to suck a large part of our time. For example, if I want to check my earnings, I will have to go to 3 or 4 different sites. And then, if I decide to tweet, I have to go to Twitter!
It would save a lot of time if we could do those maintenance tasks from within the WordPress dashboard right?
That is why I decided to write this post with some plugins you can use to carry out these tasks without leaving WordPress. Enjoy.
1. Analytics 360 Plugin
Analytics 360 is an awesome WordPress plugin that can pull your Google Analytics and MailChimp data and display it in your WordPress dashboard.
You will need a MailChimp API key(optional) and Google Analytics account for it to work. Once installed, go to Settings → Analytics 360 and enter your API key and authenticate it with Google Analytics to start pulling data.
Once that is done, you can view stats your Analytics and MailChimp stats anytime by simple going to Dashboard → Analytics 360°.
2. My GMail
My GMail plugin simply displays your unread mails on WordPress dashboard. However, make sure to check “Always Use HTTPS” in your GMail options because it works over HTTPS only!
For more GMail productivity and time saving tips, check out this long post by me: How To Turn GMail Into Productivity Powerhouse.
3. Google Adsense Summary
Google AdSense Summary lets you check AdSense earnings for Today, Yesterday, This Month, Last Month and All Time. After installing, go to Settings page and enter your username and password. After that, you can see earnings for your account from dashboard anytime!
4. Full Comments On Dashboard
Do you reply to your comments? No!
Oh my god!
That can’t be true.
If you do not reply to comments, the sky will fall down and you will lose all your visitors!
OK, OK, nothing like that will happen, but replying to comments can help you a lot. Here are 5 Good Reasons Why You Should respond To Every Comment.
Now, WordPress dashboard has a pretty widget called “Recent Comments”. The only problem with it is that it displays comment excerpt. So, you have to go to recent posts or comments to reply. This takes another 1 or more clicks. How about replygin straight from WP dashboard?
Full Comments On Dashboard is a simple plugin that will show full comments instead of excerpt on your dashboard. This allows you to easily reply to comments. The widget can show up to 30 comments(hover mouse over it’s title bar to see a “Configure” link and set number of comments to show from there). And there’s no mumbo-jumbo associated with it, just install and forget!
5. Twitter Tools
Twitter Tools is another excellent plugin that can reduce lot of work. Using it, you can:
1. Tweet from WordPress Dashboard (See Posts → Tweet)
2. Tweet from any page on your blog where twitter tools widget is present.
3. Automatically tweet about new posts.
4. Create a “digest” of your tweets and publish on your blog.
5. Add a list of recent tweets to sidebar and filter @ replies from it!
After installing plugin, just enter your Twitter account details in Settings → Twitter Tools and optionally, bit.ly username and API key. Now, you can tweet right from your blog anytime!
Note: Do not expect a complete Twitter client though! Plugin is very simple in terms of tweeting and is best for 1 or 2 odd tweets you want to write quickly!
6. Feed Stats
Feed Stats will, as the name suggests, allows you to view FeedBurner stats.
Install it, go to Settings → Feed Stats and enter your feed URL. Click save and now, you are ready to view all you feed data easily by going to Dashboard → Feed Stats. You can view feed stats for last 10 days. Stats you can view are Subscribers, Hits and Reach.
You can find more about some interesting features of FeedBurner here: 6 Useful FeedBurner Features That Are Normally Ignored.
7. Plugin Central
Plugin Central will help you manage and upgrade your plugins easily.
When upgrades are available for any of your plugins, it will add the plugin name along with changelog and “Update” link to your WordPress Dashboard “Right Now” widget. And yes, there is “upgrade all” option too!
And at last, you can install multiple plugins by entering URL or just typing in name of plugin!
Note: I have checked all these plugins on my blog running WordPress 3.0 and they work fine. However, I’d advice to take a backup of your database before installing any plugin! And if you have any questions, feel free to ask in comments, I will be replying to all of them!
About Author: Hi, my name is Ishan Sharma and I am a teen entrepreneur. I love blogging and I blog at Blogging With Success about Blogging Tips and Resources. If you liked this post, consider subscribing to Blogging With Success via RSS or email!
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