Want to give your readers a better way to share your blog posts with their Twitter followers? You already see a number of buttons and other widgets that provide this kind of functionality, but WP-Tweetbox offers several unique features that separate it from the pack.

Instead of showing a simple button that will just redirect your visitors over to the Twitter website, WP-Tweetbox lets your readers compose the tweet while still on the same page as your original blog post. Further still, you can get the plug-in to auto-generate the tweet text ahead of time. This way, the user really can just click on “tweet” to send it out.

This WordPress plug-in supports a number of URL shortening services too, so you shouldn’t have any trouble fitting the auto-generated tweet text into the 140 character limit. WP-Tweetbox can be configured to work with Su.pr, Bit.ly, Bitly.pro, and Wp.me.

For more information, including a live demo of WP-Tweetbox, check out the plugin page at riyaz.net.

Any time that you have a blog that allows for comments, you are opening yourself up for comment spam. That’s just part of the territory and that’s where utilities like Akismet and Captcha codes can come in handy. Similarly, if you publicly post your email address somewhere on the Internet, you become increasingly susceptible to spam that way too.

In regards to comment spam, you may find that your filter is constantly picking up comments left by a certain IP address or IP address range. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could prevent people from that IP address from posting spam comments (or malicious code, for that matter) on your blog? You can. And all it takes is a simple plugin.

The appropriately named IP Ban is a plug-in for WordPress that, when activated, will return a 404 error message “for IP’s visiting your blog specified in the IP Ban option on the Discussion Options page.” This “page not found” error will effectively prevent them from not only leaving spam comments, but from viewing your site at all.

You can download IP Ban directly from the Plugin Directory on WordPress.org. As always, it is a free download.

Twitter can represent a huge source of traffic for your blog, but how you can best capitalize on this phenomenon? Part of it has to do with syndicating your blog content via your Twitter stream, but what if your readers want to share your articles with their followers too?

Well, the folks at Twitter have now released the official Tweet button that can be implemented on just about any website. In short, it puts a small “tweet” button your page, automatically generating a shortened URL, and allowing your readers to share the link with just a couple of mouse clicks. This is implemented right on your blog itself. The button also shows the number of times that the link has been shared.

There are two ways to go about implementing this feature on your WordPress blog. You could use the official utility from Twitter.com. This generates a couple lines of HTML code that can then be inserted into your theme templates as you see fit.

Alternatively, you could use any number of different WordPress plugins, like WP-Tweet, to achieve much the same functionality. Both approaches have their respective pros and cons.

Blog should be more than soapbox platforms. They should be a venue to facilitate a two-way conversation between the blogger and his readers. One part of fostering this relationship is through blog comments, but having a good comment form is very valuable too. This is true of both personal and professional blogs.

Offering a robust set of features is Fast Secure Contact Form. As its name implies, this WordPress plug-in allows you to create both a fast and secure contact form. It fully supports anti-spam measures like Captcha and Akismet, but it also comes with a number of other notable features that separate it from other contact form plug-ins.

For instance, it allows for the creation of multiple contact forms on the same blog, the creation of a single contact form with multiple destinations (e.g., sales, support, customer service, advertising inquiries, etc.), optional extra fields of any type, support for file attachments, configuration as a newsletter signup form, optional redirects to any URL after message delivery, e-mail syntax validation, automatic form fills for logged-in users, and customizable CSS style.

To get more information on this updated version of Fast Secure Contact Form (formally Si Contact Form), check out the official page in the WordPress Plugin Directory or the developer’s site. Both sites include screenshots and download links.

Given the nature of most blogs, you don’t really need to have perfect spelling and grammar. At the same time, it certainly helps to elevate your respectability and legitimacy when your blog is largely error-free. It is still a public space, after all.

To this end, it may be useful to consider After the Deadline. Available as a WordPress plugin, this will intelligently search for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and even issues related to writing style. This way, you can feel better about putting out the best possible product.

Instead of using a simple database to find your spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, After the Deadline makes use of artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology. This, in turn, offers smart suggestions on how you can “fix” the problems. The best part is that it is available for free for personal use under the GNU General Public License.

Get more information at afterthedeadline.com.

Social media and social networking are as popular as ever. People are updating their Facebook statuses, sending out pictures through Twitter, and connecting with fellow professionals on LinkedIn. They’re also sharing their locations and favorite places with Foursquare, so how can you best integrate that network onto your blog?

One way to do it is with the recently released Foursquare Map WordPress plug-in. After installing and configuring this plug-in, you can place a widget in your blog’s sidebar that displays your most recent Foursquare check-in. This not only provides the name of the place, but an actual map to the location as well.

This way, people can stay on top of your Foursquare activities without actually having to go to the Foursquare website or using a compatible client of some kind. The plug-in was built using the Foursquare and Google Maps APIs, so you can expect “blistering fast speeds” for the map loading on your site.

Head over to DigitalCortex.net for more information and to download the Foursquare Maps plug-in for your WordPress blog.

You’ve surely encountered more than one blog out there that highlights a series of “related posts” at the end of each entry. This is a great feature to have on your blog, because it can direct interested visitors toward additional reading on your site that is relevant to what they just read. That much makes sense.

This kind of functionality is largely attained through the use of WordPress plugins, but the majority of the plugins are algorithm-based. In this way, the selection of the so-called “related” posts is done automatically by the plugin and these kinds of associations aren’t always completely accurate. You might be writing about the produce you found at the supermarket and it pulls up a “related post” on your new Apple iPod.

Offering a different take on the “related post” function is the Custom Post Relationships WordPress plugin. This allows for the manual selection of related posts, ensuring that you are indeed getting reading for your visitors that is relevant to the current post.

The integrated system lets you filter through based on category and you can type in a few words to narrow the search even further. From there, you can click to add posts to the “related posts” section and even organize their order. For more information, check out webtoolkit4.me.

Search engine optimization is a very important whether you are running a small blog or you are trying to promote your business website. If you have WordPress as your chosen content management system, you also have access to a wide range of plugins and customizations that can aid you in this effort.

An oldie but a goodie in this realm is SEO Slugs. This WordPress plug-in accomplishes one very simple task, but it does it very well. In short, it shortens the “post slug” portion of your URI, removing superfluous words. This generates a shorter URI and one that is more easily indexed by search engines like Google.

The example used in the plug-in main page has a blog post called “What You Can Do Immediately For Higher Rankings.” If left at default, the post slug in WordPress would be “/what-you-can-do-immediately-for-higher-rankings”. By using the plugin, the slug is automatically shortened to “/immediately-higher-rankings.” That’s shorter and more efficient.

For more information and to download SEO Slugs, head over to vretoolbar.com.

Social networking is as popular as ever, so how can you go about capitalizing on this interest for your business, your brand, or your online presence in general. Sure, you could try investing in some freelance web coders to create a social network for you, but it’s a lot easier to use a free plug-in instead.

WordPress may largely be known as a blogging platform, but it can also serve as a social networking platform thanks to the BuddyPress plug-in. In effect, this serves as a social network “in a box.” It includes all sorts of features you’d normally find in a standalone network.

For instance, you can get users to register on your website. From there, they can set up their profiles, post messages, make friends (connections), create groups, and so on. This social network can be good for businesses, to be sure, but it can also prove useful for schools, communities, clubs, and other similar organizations.

Check out the live demo and find more information about BuddyPress in the WordPress Plugin Directory.

Did you just publish a new blog post only to realize that you made a typo or some other kind of error that needs to be fixed? Normally, you would need to head back into the backend of your WordPress installation, find the post in question, hit the edit button, make the necessary changes, and then hit the “Update” button on the right hand side. That’s a lot of work for such a simple change.

To help ease this process, you might want to try checking out the Front-End Editor WordPress plug-in. As its name implies, you can edit your pages and posts right from the “front end” of your blog, rather than having to head into the main WordPress dashboard to get anything done. This means that you can edit right from the page that your visitors see, making for a much faster and more efficient process.

Further still, this same plug-in allows for the editing of widgets too. This goes beyond just changing the widget titles and the text widgets. You can actually edit the widget right from the main screen, using the same controls that you would get from the widget management screen from within the WordPress dashboard. Front-End Editor will handle any kind of post type too; not just posts and pages.

Go to Scribu.net for more information on Front-End Editor, including support, revision history, and the much-needed free download link.