Are you using the JetPack by WordPress plugin on your self-hosted blog yet? If not, you really should be. It gives you some of the functionality that’s included at WordPress.com hosted blogs, but all you really need to use it is a WordPress account to activate it and that’s free.
What makes it so totally cool today is that they just added a mobile formatting option. I’ve used WordPress Mobile Pack, which is OK, but JetPack is AWESOME. It will present a nice, clean format for your blog when viewed on a mobile device. Plus, it adds in all your widgets at the end of the three most recent posts that it provides readers. Very cool. Here are some other features that I love about this plugin.
That means your optin box is right there (or it should be) when people get done reading. WP Mobile Pack allows one widget, but the mobile formatting from JetPack shows them all. Plus, it just looks better.
But that’s not all JetPack does.
Here are some of the other features that I like a lot:
- Stats: JetPack keeps track of your visitors, what they read, and what they clicked. It also tells you about your organic traffic and what keywords people typed in to get to your web page. Plus, you can get a quick idea about how many people who came to your blog in the last 48 hours in the ribbon at the top of your pages when you’re logged in. The stats are really awesome. Love it!
- Email Subscriptions: This feature allows your readers to subscribe via email. I don’t use it because I use FeedBlitz now, which has this option as well. Feedblitz, however, allows you to format your “newsletter,” and add photos. Just spiffier, but then, I’ve not used JetPack’s subscriptions for a while. I’m guessing they look pretty good, too. If you’re not terribly tech savvy, this is a great folks to sign up and it’s easy. Just activate, and JetPack keeps track of your subscribers, too.
- Sharing: This is a big one for me. I hate to see too much clutter and it’s easy to clutter a blog up. JetPack’s sharing buttons are easy to configure and look nice at the bottom of your posts. They’re not obtrusive an any way, but they’re clearly identifiable. You can customize the buttons, too.
- Spelling & Grammar: JetPack adds spelling and grammar check functionality to your blog. Just click the check mark next to the “more” button when you’re done writing. Whether you realize it or not good grammar and perfect spelling is important to Google now.
- Extra Sidebar Widgets: You can see some of them in my sidebar. One is for rotating videos from YouTube, which is cool. But there are also widgets for adding images, for subscriptions, and for showing your latest Tweets.
There are other features that you might find useful, no doubt, and there are some features that are paid, and not free. All of the features I’ve described above are free. So, what are you waiting for?
Go to Plugins/Add New and type in “Jetpack by WordPress.” Install that baby now. It’s totally sweet!
