10 WordPress Plugins That Will Transform Your Website
WordPress is the number one content management system (CMS) used globally by websites and blogs. Owning a website or blog with this content management system is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your industry. WordPress makes it incredibly easy to build and maintain a quality website, blog or portfolio. Being able to pick up and modify the code for your site and make changes as needed is one of its greatest attractions.
However, nothing can make up for poor quality content. To that end, you may want to consider investing in some WordPress plugins that can make the creation and marketing of content easier and more enjoyable. Here are ten of the best WordPress plugins that can help you improve your content strategy and transform your website.
1. Shorten News Stories With Shortsign
Shortsign is a WordPress shortening service that can be integrated into your website using shortcode generation. With Shortsign, you can take any long URL and turn it into a relatively short link that will direct users back to your content or product. For example, let’s say that you run a blog about travel and you have a post containing a URL to an affiliate product that you want to promote:
You can take that longer URL and shrink it down to something like this:
And then, if someone clicks the link, they will be automatically redirected to your blog post about Spain rather than the longer URL of the product.
The great thing about this plugin is that it handles the heavy lifting for you. All you have to do is enter your affiliate link and shortcode, and the plugin will do the rest. Of course, you can also enter a shortened link manually if you prefer.
2. Create and Publish Your Own Content Without Losing Control
As the name implies, Publish What You Create (PWYC) gives you complete control over the content that you publish on your website. This is a great choice for bloggers and content creators who want to keep an eye on their content instead of having it published automatically by a content management system.
With PWYC, you can start a blog or website, and then utilize the content that you create to draw traffic and subscribers to your site. You can also use this plugin to build a community around your content, allow users to comment and engage with you on your blog or website.
The great thing about this plugin is that it allows you to edit every aspect of your published content including the look and feel of your blog post. And if you ever want to, you can take the content that you’ve created with this plugin and use it to publish your own book, course or podcast.
3. Have Individual Posts Stand Out
If you’ve ever shopped at Nordstrom, you may have found the individual items in their online store to be among the best in the world. The reason for this is that each item, including the packaging, has been designed to appeal to you as a unique customer.
With this in mind, you may want to consider implementing the same technique into your blog or website. The Keyword Enhanced Post Rewriter (KEPR) plugin from WordPress.org allows you to take any post and make it stand out from the crowd by enhancing the content with keywords.
For example, let’s say you have a blog post about shopping for men and you want to use keywords to make the content more appealing to an audience that typically searches for that content.
You can use the plugin to enter a keyword or phrase that appears in the text of your post and then use the auto-complete option to enter further keywords or phrases. As you start typing, a pop-up menu will appear showing you options for what you’re typing.
When you find the right combination, the plugin will enhance your post with these keywords and phrases. You can then take this content and use it to attract traffic to your blog or website, or use it to build a marketing plan for your company.
4. Create Video Content That Will Appeal To Your Audience
If you’ve ever shopped at Nordstrom, you may have found the individual items in their online store to be among the best in the world. The reason for this is that each item, including the packaging, has been designed to appeal to you as a unique customer.
With this in mind, you may want to consider implementing the same technique into your blog or website. The Video For WordPress plugin allows you to take any video and make it stand out from the crowd by enhancing the content with keywords.
For example, let’s say you have a three-minute video on your site about the history of tennis. You can use Video For WordPress to enter a keyword or phrase that appears in the text of your video and then use the auto-complete option to enter further keywords or phrases. As you start typing, a pop-up menu will appear showing you options for what you’re typing.
When you find the right combination, the plugin will enhance your video with these keywords and phrases. You can then take this content and use it to attract traffic to your blog or website, or use it to build a marketing plan for your company.
5. Create Event Calendars For Your Blog
An event calendar is a must for any business that operates on a regular basis. This type of tool allows you to plan events ranging from weddings to birthday parties and everything in between. Having an event calendar allows you to ensure that every aspect of your event is planned and executed flawlessly.
However, a lot of businesses, especially those that are based online, don’t bother making their own event calendars primarily because it’s a lot of work. Instead, they depend on online tools like Eventbrite or Google Calendar to keep them organized.
If you decide that making your own event calendar is worth the effort, the WordPress Events Plugin can help you out. With this plugin, you can create an event calendar from your blog and then utilize it to plan your events online.
The great thing about this plugin is that it makes creating an event calendar a lot easier. You can simply import your blog posts and turn them into events or meetings. You can then add these events to your calendar, which you can share with your followers.
6. Promote Your Product Or Service Through A Blog
If you decide that making your own event calendar is worth the effort, the WordPress Events Plugin can help you out. With this plugin, you can create an event calendar from your blog and then utilize it to plan your events online.
However, a lot of businesses, especially those that are based online, don’t bother making their own event calendars primarily because it’s a lot of work. Instead, they depend on online tools like Eventbrite or Google Calendar to keep them organized.
If you decide that promoting your product or service through a blog is worth the effort, the Affiliate Marketing for WordPress plugin can help you out. With this plugin, you can set up affiliate programs for your products and then track the sales that come from affiliate programs. You can then utilize this information to determine how much you’ll make from a given product or service.
7. Generate Backlinks To Your Site From High-Quality Blogs
If you’re looking to improve your site’s SEO (search engine optimization), you may want to consider implementing the SEO PowerSuite plugin. This plugin will help you track backlinks to your site, discover spam blogs that are linking to your site, and then remove these links.
As a link builder for SEO professionals, I can attest that this plugin is extremely powerful. Not only can you detect and remove spam blogs that are linking to your site, you can also track the performance of these links over time and then create custom keywords or phrases to improve SEO.
8. Use Keyword Density Analyzers To Find The Perfect Keywords For Your Site
To find the perfect keywords for your site, you can use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or Amazon’s Keyword Finder to enter your website’s URL and get a comprehensive list of the most relevant keywords to your industry.
These tools can be extremely helpful when determining the right keywords to use in your content. Sometimes, with sheer volume alone, you can find the right keywords without using any tools at all.