WordPress Plugins: Jetpack
Jetpack is a FREE Plugin developed by WordPress that serves several different functions for your website/blog. You can actually replace several different Plugins with Jetpack for things like your Contact Form or your Sitemap. Here’s a few more things:
Favicons – Those little pictures beside your website title in the address bar of your browser
Related Posts – Display a list of Related Post after each blog Post
Monitor – Receive notifications from Jetpack if your site goes offline
VideoPress – Upload videos directly to your site
Likes – Add a Like button to your Posts and Pages
Publicize – Share your content automatically to your Social Media profiles
Mobile Theme – Make your site mobile-friendly (responsive) automatically
Sharing – Add Social Media share buttons to your Posts and/or Pages
Stats – Get stats for your Dashboard
There’s a lot more! Jetpack is just that, a Jetpack for your WordPress website. The set up is easy and your website will be coming together nicely with all of the standard functions the Pros use.
Getting Started With Jetpack
You can find and install Jetpack with a quick search of the Plugins directory. Once you have installed and activated the Plugin, you need to connect a WordPress.com account.
If you don’t have a WordPress.com account, you can create one right through your Dashboard via Jetpack. Once your account is connected, you have access to all of the great features Jetpack has to offer. Let’s do it!
Firing Up Your Jetpack
You’re all connected and ready to go! The first thing you’ll see is is a confirmation that you are now connected, and you have the option of activating Site Management. Site Management is a fantastic feature that lets you manage multiple WordPress dashboards from one place. If you don’t have have multiple sites, this feature won’t be useful to you, so you can leave it deactivated. However, for example, if you are a writer, and you have multiple sites for your different books or aspects of your writing platform, you can manage them all from a single Dashboard with this feature. Try it out!
Exploring Jetpack’s Features
Scroll below the Site Management option to view the different features that are available. Some of them will be automatically activated; however, you can deactivate any you don’t feel you will use, and activate the ones you will!
First, you will see the Jetpack developer team favorites. All of the features have a brief description of their functionality.
Keep scrolling to Jetpack Features. Here, you will a search box, and some filter buttons where you can view features by Newest, Category, or Alphabetical. If you are new to Jetpack, you’ll want to keep scrolling. If you’re a seasoned JetPack user and know what you’re looking for, this area is for your convenience.
To view the entire list of features, scroll to the bottom and click the View all Jetpack features button.
Activating and Deactivating Jetpack’s Features
If you see a feature in the list that interests you, click it for more information about that function. If you like what you see, you can activate that feature by clicking the blue Activate button in the lower right corner.
That feature is now available for you to configure and use, but where? Click the feature again in the list inside Jetpack and you will notice the Activate button has been replaced by two buttons: Deactivate and Configure. Configure your new feature using this button.
Most likely, additional options have been added to your Dashboard. For example, clicking the Configure button on the Carousel feature takes me to my Media tab in my Dashboard. Additional options have now been added to that tab. I can use this feature directly from the Media tab from now on, so I don’t have to click it in the Jetpack feature list each time I want to use it.
If a feature you have activated isn’t quite what you were going for, you can click it in the list and Deactivate it easily. Once the feature description opens, simply click Deactivate in the bottom right corner (as shown above). That’s it. You are rid of that feature unless you decide to activate it again at a later time.
How Are You Using Jetpack?
Pretty nifty, eh? I use Jetpack on all of my websites as a general rule. It just does too many things to ignore. When I first started using it, I was astonished by the number of Plugins I was able to replace with just this one.
How are you using Jetpack? Have you found creative ways to use the features? Are you using it as a workaround for something more complicated? Have you managed to duplicate features from more complicated websites you admire by using Jetpack’s features?
Do you hate Jetpack? Does it slow down your site? Have you found something better?
Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.
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