The great thing about WordPress is how easily you can customize it for your own needs. That doesn’t just go for the program itself either, but the thousands, no tens of thousands of plugins that have been made over the years. Of course, that many plugins do bring a problem along with it and that’s the fact that you can’t possibly know which ones are and aren’t good without finding out what other people are thinking.
That’s what this article is for. Here we’ll cover some of the most popular plugins to help you optimize your content for social media, search and more. So what are we waiting for, right? Let’s jump straight on it.
Jetpack
Jetpack is a great, well, package. It has lots of different functions which will really help you make your site better all-around without you needing to install ten different plugins. Instead, you’ll just need to use this one.
So what can Jetpack do? It’s got social media sharing buttons, for one thing. You can select yourself which sites you want to link to and how you’d like the buttons to look. It’s also got share post by email, which does exactly what it suggests. And another neat function is the related post function, where it automatically links with similar content so that readers stick around on your site for longer.
And really that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more options. What’s more, as the package is totally free you don’t risk anything by installing it.
Google Analytics
The only way you’re going to know what your users are doing on your site and what pages are being read more often than others is by having some way to track what users are doing on the site. And if you’re going to track users, why not go with the most trusted plugin of them all? That’s Google Analytics, in case the title hadn’t given it away.
Here you can track everything from where your users are from, what page they entered through, how long they stuck around and how many pages they saw – to name but an extremely small sample. As an extra bonus, it’s free too!
BJ Lazy Load
This plugin is useful for sites that have a lot of images, as it means that the images that only the actual images that a user will see will load. If they’re still off-screen, then instead they’ll be filled with a placeholder.
Thus, BJ Lazy Load significantly speeds up the loading time of your website, which is incredibly important if you want your users to actually stick around to see your sight (many users leave your site if it doesn’t load within 8 seconds, you see).
Post Title Formatter
One of the very first things people see of your articles is the title. For that reason, you want to make sure it’s formatted correctly. That’s where Post Title Formatter comes in. It will remove some of those niggling problems that plague your headlines, like incorrect punctuation and capitalization.
In that way, you’ll have a few more errors that will no longer pop up, allowing you to avoid losing audience members through typos and stupid mistakes. This gives your articles the best chances it can have.
Floating Social
Question: What’s better than having social media buttons on every page so that they’re easy to access for your audience? Answer: Having them float along on-screen while they’re reading so that they don’t even have to scroll if they want to share your content.
For that reason, you should consider installing Floating Social. That’s exactly what it does. And it does it exceptionally well. What’s more, there is a wide range of different formatting that you can choose from, so that the icons represent the feel and style that you want your page to have.
Broken Link Checker
Planning to rework your page so that some page disappear, some are merged and others are divided? Then make sure you install Broken Link Checker. The name gives you a pretty good idea of what it’s supposed to do – it checks for broken links.
Why do you need to do that? Because people don’t like to be told there is something magical just a click away only to find out that that click leads to a broken link. Besides, it makes you look unprofessional.
At the same time, it’s incredibly hard to check all the links by hand. So why not have a computer do it for you? That’s what you can use this plugin for.
Last words
These are some great plugins that can make your site a rock star. All of them help make your site that bit faster, more efficient or easier to share. And that can make a world of difference. After all, even if it pushes up your rates of retention and conversion by a few percent, that can mean thousands of dollars over a period of a few years.
So go on, check them out. They’re free so the risk is low. What’s more, all of them have good reputations so the chance they’ll blow up your site is close to zero.