I just got done recording TheSpew.fm podcast with Missy Ward, Karen Garcia and special guest Chris Pearson creator of the Wordpress Thesis Theme. Follow @TheSpew on Twitter to be notified when the episode is produced and uploaded online to listen!

On the show, we talked about various Wordpress Plug-Ins that we recommended.  Chris, on the other hand is “anti-plugin” and stated you don’t need plugins if you use the Thesis Theme from DIYThemes (hint, hint). Chris gasped and had to pull the sword from his chest after I said I currently have 36 plugins activated on my shoe blog (obviously I don’t use Thesis Theme…. as of yet anyway…) 

I picked 8 of the plug-ins I recommend to highlight…

1. Aggregate – Allows you to place the contents of an RSS feed into your posts, pages &/or sidebar.

2. All in One SEO Pack – Out-of-the-box Search Engine Optimization (I actually forgot to mention this one, but Karen brought it up!)

3. Google XML Sitemaps – Generates a Sitemap.xml for search engines (Chris recommends submitting your sitemaps to Google Webmaster Tools.)

4. Link Cloaking Plugin - Cloaks outgoing links (ie masks affiliate links). Missy recommended the MaxBlogPress Ninja that Shoemoney has been pimping, so I may have to give that plugin a try.

5. phpBay Lite – Adds eBay auction listings to your posts with just keywords.

6. Post-Plug Library Supports Similar Posts, Recent Posts, Random Posts, and Recent Comments plugins.

7. Subscribe to Comments – Allows readers to receive an email when new comments are posted to an entry. This is the only plugin that Chris recommended!

8. Youtuber – Adds YouTube videos to posts easily.

Other Wordpress Plug-Ins we discussed were…

AdRotator – Rotates Ads (duh)

Adsense Deluxe – Inserts ads into posts

Category Visibility – Post only certain categories (Karen recommends this for “hiding” personal stuff from the main category line up)

Linkshare Link Lookup – Shawn Collins reviewed this.

Do you have a favorite plugin for Wordpress not listed above?  Please leave a comment and tell us!

I was a panelist for Episode 2 of The Spew Podcast yesterday with moderator Missy Ward, Karen Garcia from GTO Management, Lisa Riolo and guest Brian Littleton from ShareASale.

Missy broke the ice by asking if any of us had seen Shoemoney’s post about GoGirl – the female urination device that allows girls to pee standing up!?  Although it didn’t sound like the other women would find it useful, me being a redneck would!  Trust me when I say you don’t want to know how many times I’m squatted in the ditch of tall weeds on a country road.

The discussion turned to the California Assembly Bill 178 that targets affiliate marketers and not in a good way.  I have to be honest that I haven’t followed the turmoil much since it hasn’t affecting me directly by living in Nebraska.  I was hoping the bigger states would resolve the issue before such legislation even hit Nebraska. C’mon Nebraska is eons behind other states – we still pee outside!  But Brian put me in my place, saying all affiliate marketers need to fight AB 178 and he tells us how we ALL can help. If you are unfamiliar with this proposed “Affiliate Sales Tax” then you should listen as they explain everything in layman terms. I learned a lot myself.

Since all of us women on the show work from home, we also talked about balancing time with kids.  And I just had to ask Bachelor Brian about his interview with VH1 about a matchmaker reality show.  Listen yourself over at Geekcast.fm.   After I shower for the day (I’ve been trying to shower before noon everyday….), I plan to listen myself to see how dim-witted I sound.

I received several free shirts while at Affiliate Summit in Vegas for my Free Shirt Friday posts. One of my favorites was this Bettie Page Embroidered Logo Black & Red Swingmaster Bowling Shirt I received during the Midnight Bowl-A-Rama at the Gold Coast Lanes from BowlingShirt.com!  We bowled after the ShareASale Under the Stars 80’s Party (my prom pic made the invitation), thus the reason for my high bangs, side ponytail, blue eyeshadow and Madonna gloves (thanks to Connie Berg for those - my daughter has been wearing them 24/7 since I arrived home). My web designer (aka my brother, Mike) received a Turquoise Hilton Encore Bowling Shirt.  Can you tell we had FUN?!

The BowlingShirt.com affiliate program is managed by GTO Management and housed at ShareASale.  Shown above is Joel & Karen Garcia (such a cool couple) from GTO with Josh from BowlingShirt.com.

Here’s the whole clan of bowlers clad in our new bowling shirts from BowlingShirt.com!  We ended up bowling again two nights later where I doubled my score (wasn’t hard when I didn’t even break 100 the first time)! Thanks for the bowling shirt, BowlingShirt.com!  Kind of makes me want to be on a bowling league just to order a personalized bowling shirt!