Add WordPress.com Features to your Self-hosted WordPress blog

Are you missing some of WordPress.com’s nice features in your self-hosted WordPress blog?

These include integrated spam protection, site statistics, spelling check, and more.

Two of the best plugins for WordPress, Akismet and WordPress.com Stats, both require a WordPress API key.

Head over to WordPress.com, and login with your standard account.

In the menu bar at the top, click My Account and then select Edit Profile.

poke the API Key and other Personal configs link here.

Now, you’ll see your API key listed at the top of this page.

Copy it, as you’ll need it to activate these other plugins on your self-hosted WordPress site.

Head over to WordPress.com, and hit the orange Sign up now button to get started.

input your information, and then at the bottom of the form select Just a username, yo.

This will give you a WordPress account without creating a new blog.

Once your account is setup, find your API key using the instructions above.

You’ll notice that two extensions are installed by default: Akismet and Hello Dolly.

Scroll down and select use Akismet for free.

Otherwise, choose the plan that fits your business.

You will now receive an email containing your API key.

Now, back in the Plugin page of your WordPress dashboard, click Activate under the Akismet plugin description.

The page will refresh, and let you know that the plugin is ready to use.

hit the put in your Akismet API key link to finish setting it up.

WordPress.com StatsMany bloggers love Google Analytics or other stats tools that let them know more about their traffic.

But one of the simplest stats tools is the one built into WordPress.com.

Enter WordPress.com Stats in the search box, and click Search Plugins.

This should bring up the WordPress.com Stats as the first result.

Click Install Now under its name.

Click Ok at the prompt to confirm that you want to install it.

WordPress will now automatically download and roll out the plugin.

When it’s finished, poke the Activate Plugin link at the bottom.

You’ll see a banner on your Plugins page letting you know that Stats needs an API key.

hit the WordPress.com Stats link in the banner.

drop your WordPress.com API Key you found above, and click Save.

Click View All to see more detailed statistics.

Click Install Now under its description, and then accept the prompt as above.

Once its installed, click Activate Plugin underneath the information.

It will underline spelling, grammar, and context problems it notices.

smack the underlined word to chose the correction, or click Explain for more information.