If publicity is desirable, the use of social-networking sites such as DiggandDeLicio.us can bring in loads of readers. Many blogs include links to allow visitors to submit blog posts to such social-networking services and these can be manually included with individual posts by pasting in some HTML code provided by the site in question.

However, adding such links manually can be time consuming. In Wordpress, it can be automated using the Bookmark widget from . Full details of how to configure this add-on can be found in the walkthrough on the next page. This widget is just one of the many add-ons available for Wordpress, and being a widget rather than a plug-in means it can be quickly and easily placed into Wordpress' sidebar without the need to edit any code.

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Ordinary plug-ins, on the other hand, can add extra features to any part of a blog, either from the point of view of the visitor or behind the scenes for the editor. For a list of available plug-ins, visit the official directory at. Perhaps the best place to start browsing through some of the available widgets is at the Wordpress Widgets blog. Before installing a widget, a widget-compatible theme (page template) must be in use, and this information is generally provided in a theme's description. It is sometimes possible to convert an ordinary theme into one that is widget friendly, as well as making a standard plug-in into a widget. This can be quite an involved process and requires the php pages that make up a theme to be edited. Full information on how to proceed can be found at .