Ten Awesome WordPress Plugins for Website Marketing
First and foremost, if you’re going to put a list like this together you’d better have an idea of what you’re trying to accomplish with plugins and that’s exactly what I’ve done here. This is designed for people who want to market their real world business online.
Let’s take a look at ten plugins I install for every customer and what they do.
1. Askimet
This sweetheart of a plugin comes straight from the makers of WordPress and its sole purpose is to get rid of SPAM from your website. The plugin works by checking comments against a database of known spammers and highly suspect patterns, then it either tosses the comment out or passes it to your site for processing.
What makes a contact form so awesome? Simply that without one, what’s the purpose of your website? Contact Form 7 helps put website owners exactly where they need to be, within easy reach of the people surfing the site.
On its own, this plugin does almost nothing, but combined with Google Web Master Tools it’s fantastic, because it publishes content directly to a special file for Google. Using Greenwich Mean Time, it allows Google to quickly update your website in the search engine rankings.
This is one of my own plugins, which doesn’t distract from the fact that it’s awesome. It’s designed to send website owners an email every time Google scans the website. This allows site owners to know which pages Google is scanning and how often, vital data for any web master. The plugin has [wpplugins "google-bot-bling"] downloads to date.
5. Google Analytics for WordPress
Google Analytics is a powerful analysis package which ties into WordPress and reports everything– from where your website traffic is coming from to what city they live in and everything else you can imagine.
Analytics lets you view traffic patterns, top pages and search queries, as well as tie your AdWord and AdSense accounting into the reporting tool. I think this is a great marketing plugin for WordPress because it makes adding analytics to your website so easy.
Simply download the plugin, install it and activate it.
The WordPress Stats plugin isn’t nearly as powerful as the Google Analytics, but what it lacks in features it makes up for in reporting skills. Most website owners don’t need to know how many users from Tibet accessed an article on discount travel, but they do need to see traffic patterns and that’s where this tool is perfect.
7. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
The plugin is exactly what it sounds like, it lists related posts at the bottom of each post and helps website users find content on your website that might interest them. That’s great for helping users but it also helps search engines by providing deep links to content you might have forgotten about.
Hands down, the greatest plugin ever built. No, that’s not true but it is another one of mine and with [wpplugins "easy-popular-posts"] it is great plugin. Since this is a list of plugins I install on my client sites to help them market themselves, I’ll keep it in here. The reason this plugin is so great is because just like the related plugin above, it helps visitors find a reason to stay on your website longer and also helps Google find content that you may have ignored in favour of fresher content.
This plugin has a bad rating on WordPress.org and I can’t understand why. It’s designed to scan a post and automatically suggest tags. Don’t know what tags are? That’s exactly why you need this plugin. Tags are like keywords for an article and the plugin suggests keywords for you that both help search engines find you and help users find similar content on your website.
10. WP Super Cache
I’ve saved what I consider to be the best marketing plugin for WordPress for last. How is a caching script a marketing plugin you ask? To understand that, you’ll have to appreciate two basic facts. First, WordPress is a pig. It’s a memory intense application which can take 10 to 20 seconds to load a page. Second, Google won’t list your website if it takes that long to load, so by ensuring your website is stable and fast loading with this great plugin, you’re more likely to be able to reach higher positions with Google.
Feel free to disagree or add your own suggestions below.
8 Comments
James Hallam
Another great post Chris. I have all of those installed except for YARP, auto tagger and Contact7! WP SuperCache and (of course) Google Bot Bling were installed as a direct result of you talking about them on your blog – so thanks for putting so much effort into both the blog and plugin development.
By the way, I’d recommend Chris’s Google Bot Bling plugin to anyone interested in pagerank and traffic. While I’m at work Google Bot Bling sends me little emails throughout the day to let me know when my site’s being crawled. Seems to happen whenever I write a new post or tweak a few key elements – good to know it’s being noticed.
24 Sep 2010 06:09 am
Christopher Ross
Thanks for that James, the Google Bot Bling plugin is one of my favourites from both an administrators point of view, as well as a blogger. It’s exciting to know when Google’s paying attention to the sites
24 Sep 2010 06:09 am
Ludwig König
You wrote something about Google Analytics. And there are a few really cool plugins for WordPress bringing this well known Analytics tools to your blog. But there are a lot of other plugins for tracking data and analyzing all kind of strategies you will do. Mostly I like Piwik and Woopra. Both are available for WordPress as plugins. Since a few days I try Clicky, another tracking tool which brings data in real time to me. The reason why I#m using all the other tools and not using Google Analytics is that there are a lot of rules in Germany for this one. And when there is it difficult to use GA I’m using alternative tools like Piwik, Woopra, GoingUp and Clicky.
Thank you Chris for this helpful list and please keep writing those articles!
07 Oct 2010 01:10 am
Bonn Joel
Nice List. For me, Toolbar Plugin should be included in the list, it is the best wordpress marketing plugin.
15 Oct 2010 06:10 am
Greg Flewelling
Thanks for Google Bot Bling and your take on Auto Tagger and Contact Form. Can’t wait to install them on my new site.
18 Nov 2010 06:11 pm
Healthcare BPO
Excellent list. Do these plugins help increase Google rankings? Anyone having experience in this context and willing to share the same?
07 Dec 2010 01:12 pm
Healthcare BPO
Just to add, we are seeing the benefits of adding the plugins and thereby ranking improvements for keywords like
07 Dec 2010 01:12 pm
Connie
Hey There!
You really made an excellent post! Keep up the good work!
15 Nov 2011 10:11 am
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