Every website has this little orange thingie called rss. Most new bloggers (as I am) don’t really know what it does so they don’t click on this. RSS stands for “really simple syndication”, meaning, you can syndicate the content (posts) of a site by simply clicking on that yellow-orange thingie. The reader may view all the posts in just a single page via an aggregator (i use livebookmarks). It’s like a real newspaper subscription.

I’ve found a way for readers to feel more hyped, or at least more at ease with subscribing to my feeds. Read on…

The yellow-orange thinge icon corresponds to a url unique to your site. It’s usually “www.yoursite.com/feed”, but it could also be a custom one, created by feedburner and other aggregators. Why do you want people to subscribe? Simply because you want loyal readers. While these subscribers don’t need to visit your site anymore (and get deprived of viewing your cute blog accesories and ads), you are ensured that they are reading what your write, and getting addicted by the minute.

I had the idea that people will click my RSS feed icon more if it were packaged in an icon that shows off my personality. Here I go again with the personalization mantra. Lol.

You can see my personalized rss feeder live in my other blog, evilwoobie. It looks like this in my sidebar:

My photo niche has always been photobucket, and thus I use the photobucket code for this pic as my example. Below every image stored in your album are options on how you wish to embed or use that photo anywhere in the web. There’s an image code, an HTML code, a direct URL code and etc. For this purpose we need the HTML code.

This photo’s html tag in photobucket is the following:

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/

albums/<member number>/<albumname>/<photo name>.jpg" 

border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>

You simply replace the “http://photobucket.com” at the very start of the HTML code with your rss URL, in my case “http://evilwoobie.com/feed” and you can now embed that rss-feeder.photo anywhere in your site, by editing your html/php templates.

Voila! Your personalized feeder.

So you got a WP blog. You plan to accessorize. You go to plugins directories and you get overwhelmed with all the plugins you see there.

Some make you place photos on your sidebar, put color on your posts, signatures, audios, videos…. you have to urge to download them all… STOP!!!

While blog accessorizing is fun, getting only the plugins you need is the best option because:

1. you need to declutter your blog every once in a while (like cleaning your room), and the gazillion plugins you uploaded will not make it easy.

2. when errors occur, you will need to pinpoint the plug in that’s causing the bug, deactivating and activating all of them just to test which one is the culprit is tedious.

3. some plugins you don’t really need

Here’s the basic plugin suggestion for new bloggers. You can work from here to more advanced needs later on:

1. video player - This is a very simple plugin that allows you to show youtube videos in your blog.

2. Google Adsense Widget for your sidebar - If you’re unsure about pasting scripts in your blog’s templates, this google adsense widget will make it easier for you to monetize your blog by simply typing your google ad components (colors, publisher’s id etc) in the widget. Very simple.

3. Audio Player - This player will make playing mp3 files in your blog posts simple. Just follow the instructions exactly and you get a hassle-free music experience for that post. Very ideal for sentimental people who want their readers to listen to a “background music” while reading their post.

4. Sidebar Picture - If you dislike placing many photos on your sidebar and would like to focus on only ONE photo, this is the best sidebar widget find for you.

5. Flicker plugin - Some use the flicker plugin, the sort of cloud-like plugin that displays a lot of photos from your flicker account. For photo enthusiasts and travel bloggers.

6. Countdown Timer - Not all people are as time-obsessed as I am, but for thosse who are, you can place this little countdown on your site so people (and you) can tell how many more times they have to sleep to get to a particular event.

7. Popularity Contest - is included in WP enthusiast Alexking’s list of working plugins. It will show which of your posts are generating the most traffic.

Site counters are site accessories that you can’t live without. They show you how many people have been “blessed” enough to read your posts. Some even have dual purposes, a counter and a tracker in one!

A lot of site counters look like tiny rectangles with numbers, and some are just colored numbers. I have patronized the counters from Blogmad.net for a long time, because of the variety of counter choices.

I recently came across gostats.com free counter section and i got hooked. Cutesy counters are not for everyone, but they definitely are for me!

It’s a nice touch to have a counter that shows off your personality, and will complement your blog.

This is a suggestion for theme developers out there. While themes are a definite need in the blogging world, I do hope that more site counter designs will also be available in the near future. At present, I saw only a few counter sites that caters to the too-personalized bloggers like me.

Please create more counter designs!!!