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If you’re using WordPress to run your CrossFit site—and I hope you are—don’t think for a minute that you’re stuck using it “out of the box.” WordPress has great functionality built right in, for sure… but with a few well-chosen plugins of exceptional caliber, you’ll be able to take advantage of some excellent features, designed to make your life much, much easier in no time at all.

And the best part is, all these plugins are free. You can get them from their creators, or from within WordPress 2.7’s Plugin menu. And if you’re not using 2.7 yet, then use the Instant Upgrade plugin to get you there in about three seconds flat. Before you press ‘upgrade’, though, be sure to backup your database… a task made ultra-simple with the wp-dbmanager plugin. Once you’ve upgraded, drop the Instant Upgrade plugin (2.7 has instant upgrades built in), but keep wp-dbmanager… you’ll want it for periodic backups and ease of restores, if you should ever need it.

SPAM protection

Akismet : yes, it comes standard with every WordPress installation, but this is a gem that shouldn’t be overlooked. Just go grab a WordPress.com account (you can just get an account there, not a blog, if you like), which gives you a free Akismet key, needed for registering Akismet for your self-hosted site.

Bad Behavior : another big winner in the battle against spammers. Whereas Akismet blocks spam comments once they’ve been made, Bad Behavior stops spam by stopping spambots from getting access to your site in the first place. Think of Akismet as tossing somebody out of your gym because they’re acting like a jerk, while Bad Behavior is like having a bouncer at your door to keep them out in the first place.

SEO Optimization

All-in-one-SEO : This hugely popular plugin allows you to add additional data to posts’ and pages’ meta-data, augment their titles, and much more.

Contact Forms

If there’s a favorite plugin of mine on this list, cforms could just be it. It takes the hassle out of creating contact forms by giving you an easy way to configure multiple contact forms and all of their settings from an easy-to-use admin interface. A little hint: Oliver is very active in updating this plugin to keep it bug-free, feature-rich, and current with WP development, so if you want to style out your forms and not have your css changes get overwritten when you upgrade, put css changes into your theme’s stylesheet, and put “!important” at the end of each selector, like this example:

.cform fieldset { background-color:#FFF !important; border: none !important; }

The !important tag tells it to use this value above all others, so what shows up on your site will be this, and not what the plugin’s css says.

Site Archives

Clean Archives Reloaded : Normal WordPress archives are about as easy to search through as a labyrinth, and as visually stimulating as typing paper. With this plugin, your readers will get an Ajax-enabled look at every post you’ve written without getting overwhelmed. Click here for an example.

Blog Subscriptions

If you’re using FeedBurner’s free service to manage your RSS/email subscriptions, then I’d recommend using the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin. It effectively corrals all forms of your site’s feed into your FeedBurner subscription, which gives you accurate stats, clean email subscriptions, etc. All the FeedBurner bonuses, basically… with no one left out in the cold.

Media Gallery

NextGEN Gallery : okay, I have to admit I’m just checking this plugin out now, and I haven’t used it yet… but from what I’ve seen so far, it’s a keeper. It adds a great deal of functionality and customization to WordPress’ gallery features, allowing you to makes the most of your photos, slideshows, etc.

Site Navigation

Since most themes use the wp_list_pages function to add navigation links—and your theme does, too, if you have a new link show up on your site every time you publish a Page—having an easy way to manage those navigation links would make sense, right? Well, Joel Starnes thought so, too, when he dreamed up PageMash, another of my top favorite plugins. It allows you to hide, rename, or shuffle the order of your nav links at any time with an Ajaxified drag-and-drop interface. Rocks.

Also, have you ever seen those “Previous” and “Next” links at the bottom of a page of blog posts, and thought, “ugh!”? I have. Talk about a less-than-enticing way to get people to read your past articles? I mean, how many “Previous” pages are there? Well, end the confusion with WP Page Numbers, which adds a much more user-friendly navigation setup for all the pages of your posts.

Testimonials & Quotes

If you want to have a randomized, rotating list of testimonials show up in your sidebar—and yes, you do, because testimonials are golden—then look no further than Quotes Collection. Simple method for adding new quotes, and easy to plop into your sidebar. Could just as easily be used for a “Glassman/Rippetoe/Burgener Quote Extravaganza”, too.

Tags, Tag Clouds

Simple Tags : Simple Tags makes easy work of using and organizing key topics in your posts. It’s what generated the tag cloud in the example I mentioned before, although it has tons of other functions, too, chief of which is making it easier for your readers to search through your site and—gasp—actually find what they’re looking for! Seriously!

And speaking of searching…

Search Functionality

By most accounts, the standard search feature in WordPress is a bit limpy. Not for long, though… with Sem Search Reloaded and Search Excerpt installed, searching your blog just went from the equivalent of an 8-minute to a 3-minute Fran.

Commenting

If you’re wanting to make it easier to grow community with your blog (and who doesn’t?), the Subscribe to Comments plugin can be a huge help. A reader just has to tick the box, and they’ll get updates to the conversation on any post automagically sent to their email.

And speaking of community…

Social Media

If you use Twitter, why not have your tweets show up on your site? Use the Twitter for WordPress plugin, and you can.

Also, if you’re wanting to make it easier for your readers to add your posts to their favorite social bookmarking sites, plugins like I Love Social Bookmarking and Social Bookmarking Reloaded, Social Bookmarks, or Sociable, and the ever-popular Share This are right up your alley. Each one has its own unique look, so choose the one that best suits your blog.

Upcoming Events

Are you looking for a way to publicize your business’ special events? Why not have a list in your sidebar that has all the details of your event, including a pimped-out description and a GoogleMaps link? Sound amazing? It’s a snap with the wpng-calendar plugin. You use a Google Calendar to manage all your event information, and this plugin will pull it all into your blog’s widgetized sidebar.

And last, but not least…

Video

Do you like to embed video on your site? You should, if you don’t already… video captivates like nothing else. By using Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin, you can embed videos from Vimeo, YouTube, and a bunch of other video hosting sites with the click of a button.

Whew!

Those should keep you busy for a while… . Seriously, though, plugins are an amazing way to beef up the functionality of your site, and make it easier and more enriching for your reader community, which, of course, is better for your CrossFit business.

Have a favorite plugin that didn’t make the cut? Well hey, add it to the list! There are tons of plugins being released all the time, and I’d love to hear your favorites.

Oh my. Santa came early.

Okay, so this isn’t technically a CrossFit site… well, it’s not a CrossFit site at all. I’m just posting it here as an example of what can be done…

I was approached by Jennifer Louden, a best-selling author, coach, consultant, and speaker to redesign her main website, JenniferLouden.com. She had gone through a number of life changes, and wanted her site to reflect her new direction and focus.

She had also been writing on a Typepad blog for a couple years, and the more we talked, the more she realized she wanted to bring that blog into her other popular site, ComfortQueen.com. Our focus then became to unify the two sites with a similar design, using JenniferLouden.com to showcase her business offerings, and ComfortQueen.com to express her voice and message to her readers.

Some features in this completely-from-scratch design include:

• random display of artwork in header and sidebar
• custom color schemes and advanced typography
• grid-based design for visual uniformity
• integration of visual elements from her old design, repeated throughout the new… to give long-time readers a sense of familiarity, while refreshing the overall look and feel
• custom blog loops to allow for easy archiving and sending of newsletters
• and much, much more…

This was a fun project, with a great client. Jen had a strong sense of what she wanted, yet trusted in my design sense, which allowed us to go back and forth to create the fresh look she was after.

Okay, so not a CrossFit site, but… I think you’ll get the point.

For my wife Laila’s site, she found a theme she mostly liked, but wanted to change a few points. Namely,

• the graphic in the header, to be doubled in the sidebar,
• the colors,
• the fonts,
• the sidebar content, and
• to not have the blog show on the front page.

Now, these are pretty normal modifications, but as your typical non-webdesign-savvy person, she had no idea how to do it. But she added it to the Honey-Do list, and voila!

Again, not a huge customization job, but a good example of how a few simple tweaks to a theme can make huge differences.

Welcome to Black Box Websites, the niche division of my webdesigning efforts, geared specifically for CrossFit Affiliates and enthusiasts.

The plan for the blog is to offer up helpful articles, resources, links, etc. to help Affiliates create better websites, and help CrossFit take over the Globogyms of the world and spread its message of true health and fitness for anyone willing to put in the sweat equity.

If you’re reading this, but you’re not a CrossFitter, and you want a website of your very own, head over to Monk at Work, which is my alter-ego-business. Same great service, without you having to sweat so much.