Guest post by Pam Moore
Keeping your website and blog visitors engaged is paramount to success.
Below are my favorite WordPress plugins that help keep my web guests engaged, SEO rockin and the geek in me satisfied. Note there are many options when it comes to plug-ins, tools and gadgets.
This is by no means an all inclusive list. However, if your website is looking a little grim and/or you’d like to increase engagement, rank better on the search engines, the below is a good place to start!
Social Sharing & Engagement
1. LinkWithin
This is one of my all time favorites. This plug-in displays up to 5 related blog posts at the bottom of each post.
2. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms provides the ability to make custom forms for anything! Create a contact form, quote request, or even a survey. Only takes a couple minutes and you’re on your way. Inserting the form on a page is as simple as copying a short line of code that correlates to the form number right into the html section of the wordpress page editor.
3. Wbiya Toolbar
Keep your readers engaged while offering them the ability to share and bookmark with this fun toolbar that displays at the the bottom of your site. It is easily customized and easily incorporates Facebook likes, Facebook recommendations, Facebook activity, Twitter feeds, retweets, and the ability to share on almost any platform. It doesn’t add any website performance latency and I get compliments on this one everyday. A must have in my opinion.
4. Social Slider
Just as people learn differently, people socialize differently. I believe in offering numerous ways to share and engage. This cute lil’ plug-in includes floats on the left or right side of your page. You’ll hardly know it’s there. It supports a good majority of social platforms.
5. Billboard
Another one of my favs this plug-in lets you create a set of social share icons, bookmark icons or links to other pages in a nice little widget. You can choose each icon, insert the url and choose the size of icon all within the widget. Once developed you simply drag and drop it to your theme widget, select how many of the icons you want to display, if you want it centered or justified to left or right and you’re done. I love the fact I can make unique billboards for each page if I want. I often create one for bookmarks and one for social share icons.
6. Disqus Comment System
There are many comment systems out there such as CommentLuv etc. I like the simplicity and clean look of Disqus. It is easy to install and is widely used across social internet land. It provides an easy way to view where visitors have commented on other sites while also keeping track of where you comment. It can help you build social relationships as you engage on other people’s blogs and websites.
7. Tweet Meme Retweet Button
A must have on any blog is an easy way to retweet. This plugin is a no brainer and makes it easy for your visitors to show the love with a retweet!
8. Facebook Like Button
Make it easy for your visitors to show the Facebook love with this stimple little button. A must have for sure!
9. Facebook Like Box
Great plugin to help you build your Facebook community. This adds the additional functionality of letting the visitor instantly “like” your Facebook fan page, displays photos of their friends who are already a fan of your page, shows the number of fans and recent activity. A great tool to pull people to your Facebook Fan page.
10. Facebook Activity Feed
Pretty self explanatory, this plugin displays the latest Facebook activity feed for your website and blog content.
11. Sexy Bookmarks
Sharing is both sexy and fun with this sassy little plugin. It makes it easy for your visitors to share your awesome content with beautiful, dynamic icons that you can place at the top or bottom of your blog.
12. TwitterCounter
Creates a cute little button you can place in any widget that displays the number of Twitter followers you have right next to the friendly little blue bird.
13. Twitter Goodies
Twitter offers numerous widgets and opportunities for you to engage your visitors while also growing your Twitter community. Create a widget with your tweets. Or create a widget that displays a search term or hash tag. It’s a great way to share the buzz as your community grows!
Design Enhancements
1. Drop in Image Slideshow Gallery
Insert images with ease with this nifty little plug-in. No coding required. Even a newbie to WordPress can figure this image feature out!
2. Dynamic Headers
Open your blog header up to new possibilities with this plug-in. You are no longer limited by media type, or only one header for the whole site. Now you can have a unique header for each page!
3. Next Gen Gallery
This plugin turns any website into a beautiful gallery. It even has a flash slideshow option.
Search Engine Optimization
1. All in One SEO
If you want SEO to rock with little effort, this is your plugin. I have seen great results with this plugin on both my sites as well as many client sites.
2. SEO Smart Links
Also great for SEO, this plugin helps engage your users by linking keywords within your site. Google likes to see links within your site. This is a great way to drive engagement as well as SEO with little to no effort once it’s installed. You can customize and select how many links you want to appear on each page.
3. XML Sitemap
This plugin creates an XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap for your WordPress blog. It is supported by Ask.com, Google, Yahoo and MSN.
4. WP Page-Navi
This widget adds navigation from one page to the other so visitors can easily view your numerous blog posts you’ve worked so hard on.
5. Akismet
Simply stated, stop the spam! Akismet keeps those spammer out and off your precious blog.
Developer’s Best Friend
1. WordPress Importer
Easily import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags from a WordPress export file. This plug-in is great when switching themes, hosts or testing.
2. Exclude Pages from Navigation
You are no longer dependent on theme features or a developer to be selective in what pages are included or not included in site navigation.
3. Mass Edit Pages for WordPress
A developers best friend and massive time saver when it comes to making simple pages to a mass number of pages.
4. Maintenance Mode
A must have for those long weekends when you decide at midnight you need to switch WordPress themes – ha! It provides a splash screen to your visitors informing them your site is under maintenance while you work the midnight oil on your next creation!
What’s Your Favorite?
Share your favorite plugin or website extra!
Pam is a Social Media consultant, speaker and trainer. She blogs at The Marketing Nut. Follow her on Twitter @PamMktgNut
Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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About Guest Author
Twitter: josyladblog
says:
Awesome list of plugins you got here!
Twitter: NnadiDonatus
says:
I love the seo smart link,with the explaination you gave here, i think is a way forward..
Thank for this great tips
Donatus recently posted..uefa.com: european football official website to check football updates
Twitter: ertekaz_tect
says:
Nice List Pam Moore. These plugins are enough to engage the visitors.
?????? recently posted..???? ??? ?????????
Twitter: green guide
says:
Weblogbetter always give me such a unique information that is not given by the other blogs…
thanks
Twitter: Beehive Bag
says:
Supercharge your WordPress site with powerful features previously only available to WordPress.com users.
Twitter: James Corn
says:
This list is very important for every one. We need the plug-ins to drive any special thing.
James Corn recently posted..5 Helpful Tips On How To Overcome Anxiety Successfully
Twitter: bricklee101
says:
These plug-ins are very helpful for us. When we follow these plug-ins, we are engaged to the blog.
Twitter: marcie_hill
says:
Amazing list! Do you use all of these plug-ins on your site?
Marcie recently posted..Want to Learn WordPress? Attend the 1-Day Workshop
Hi
These 25 plug ins are necessary thing for engaged the blogger to blog. We are increase our viewers.
thanks,
Jac Evans recently posted..LPN to RN Programs
The All in one SEO WordPress Plug in is one of my best favorite WordPress plug ins. It surely am a great help to me in making my blog and post more SEO friendly unlike before.
Jac Morton recently posted..Does Medicare Pay for Medical Walkers?
Hi Pam
Thanks to provided the list. This list is very useful for me. You have a very well research of this blog. I am also use the plugin but this is better than.
thanks,
Jac Evans recently posted..5 Fixed Blade Hunting Knives Everyone Should Own
This is wonderful blog.
trivia packs recently posted..5 Fixed Blade Hunting Knives Everyone Should Own
Hey! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I genuinely enjoy reading your blog posts. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that go over the same topics? Thanks!
Wayne recently posted..Internet Dating Help
My favorite plugin is commentluv. It encourages visitors to share their comments and ideas with regard to my article and it keeps my blog active.
The primary reason that I switched my site over to WordPress was to take advantage of the SEO plugins of which there are a good selection. I eventually chose All in One SEO and use it in conjunction with the Easy WP SEO plugin.
Disqus is nice, but I personally don’t like it a lot. IMO, commentluv has gotta be the most useful commenting plugin that helps you “engage” readers.
1) It encourages people to add to the discussion by commenting. After all, they’ll be getting free deep links – something Google loves. Let’s admit it – as bloggers, we’re all SEO obsessed.
2) It’s interesting to see what other people are talking about on their blogs. I don’t know about others, but I find myself clicking out to links of other commentors a LOT. I also find it an excellent way to find new interesting blogs and bloggers to network with. After all, blogging is all about being social online and sharing thoughts with group of people with same interest as you.
Anish G. recently posted..Best Laptops 2011 Under $1,000
Twitter: chowdhuryrahul
says:
These surely are some great Plugins, and the ones that are best are Disqus, LinkWithIn and XML Sitemaps, these should be installed in every blog!
Rahul Chowdhury recently posted..8 Innovative and Useful Plugins for Google Chrome!
Thanks for the list of plugs, good reading and agree with most of the comments here.. rock on..
roof repairs Chichester recently posted..Home
I just recently installed LinkWithin and I love it already! I am also thinking about adding the Facebook Like Button to my blog as I have recently established a Facebook Fan page. I used to use a version of Guest Blogger when I first started out but over time i noticed that the quality of these posts were not up to par with what I envisioned for my blog. Thanks for this list of your favorites.
Justin recently posted..FBI and Homeland Security Target Anonymous Hackers
Thanks for the ist, nice work
Great info on plugins , and a good article
Great list of plugins , put over nicely aswell thanks
Andy recently posted..Home
great list of plugins, this is great cheers
I noticed that some blogs have a “top commenting” list on the right hand side (so that someone that makes 10 comments gets put there if everyone else makes like just one or 2 comments…). I have a blog of my own, and I cannot decide whether to have that or not. I would think it would encourage visitors to comment? So here’s a question (actually, a couple of questions):
1.) Is it good to have lots of people commenting on your blog?
2.) If that is a “good” thing, then what if your blog is more informational, i.e. you don’t really care what others have to say?
What are your thoughts on that?
textbook buyback recently posted..Sell Textbooks
Hi Pam thank you very much for your plugins lists!! I’ll try to use one of thous
Dean recently posted..Most Expensive Mercedes 2011
great list of plugins. So nice to have all of them in one place :D Thanks a lot for sharing them.
I use the SEO Ultimate plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-ultimate/) for seo.
Besides being able to edit title tags, meta description and keywords, it provides an easy way to mask links (yoursite.com/go/external), monitors 404 pages and gives a bunch of more useful stuff.
Worths a try, I think.
Peter recently posted..How to Choose the Right Dental Plan
Thanks for the “LinkWithin” tip. I had been trying a few various “related posts” plugins but didn’t like the few I had tried.
Another plugin I like which isn’t a “necessary” one but one I like is “Guest Blogger”. Just to break up the spell a bit this pulls from EzineArticles at a schedule you dictate (e.g. once every 14 days, once every 30 days) and posts the article to your blog with the proper resource box per EZA guidelines. It’s just nice to see the guest author pop in every once in awhile and sometimes I find the articles are very very useful too. (But you can also set it to draft/pending as well).
Thanks for another great entry! I just found your blog and I’ll be looking around some more :)
Many thanks for this tip. We added your link to our webpage.
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi there!!
Thank you! That’s wonderfully generous of you!
nice article Pam , i use seo smart links plugins and facebook share .. my best friend. Also site design and structure is important …. also few more plugins are yet another related post plugin and insights plugin …
Sourish
Sourish recently posted..Jailbreak Iphone 4 41 – Pwnage Tool Tutorial
Nice list. I was unaware of most of them. Thanks a lot for sharing
Isabel Rodrigues – Pro Blogger Journey recently posted..How Can I be a Better Guest Blogger
Great list! Would love to try LinkWithin, where can I get it? Can’t seem to find it in WordPress search. Thanks!
Zelma’s Workshop recently posted..Wordless Wednesday- Birthday Memories
Wow! I love the plugin lists here. I’m using more than half of these. Good to know that I’m using the right plugins =) Nice detailed post!
Kevin/Simplebutcreative recently posted..Be Your Own Boss
I just discovered “maintenance mode” yesterday. You are right–it is totally a must-have for every web master! I’ll try out some of these other plugins you mentioned, too. It’s really helpful to come across “best of” lists like this, because trying to find a good plugin directly on the WordPress site is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You never know if it’s going to work right! It’s so frustrating! It helps to have recommendations.
jennifer recently posted..Voip- MPLS- Phone- and Internet Service
Thanks for this great wordpress plugins list, I’m using some of them, now I’m thinking to use more. It would be great if you provide links for that plugins.
Ganesh Maharjan recently posted..Microsoft Excel – Set 5
Wow, very good collections of plugins, I have more question about disques comment, anybody know how to make it load faster? I want to use it but it is load very slow at my blog, hope someone could give me a right solution thanks
Santel recently posted..Video of Inauguration two new buildings of council of ministers
I have never tried disquss, but it is obviously using external javascript.
You can make it faster by choosing fast web hosting (VPS) and having cdn for cookieless domain, etc.
I personally don’t see point why we should use disquss if we have our comment template.
That was my opinion :D
Kimi recently posted..WordPress Related Posts Without Plugin
ExActly. Like, seriously, I can’t think of any solid reason to use Disqus apart from the fact that it can look aesthetically cleaner to some (I’m not included in the “some”). And feel free to correct me but I don’t feel disqus seems to do much when it comes to functionality. And well, I prefer the normal comment system (like here on WBB) MUCH more.
I also don’t understand how Disqus can keep readers “engaged” (since that’s what we’re talking about in this blog post, right?). Commentluv and keywordluv can, yes, but Disqus? It just looks like a a common replacement to default one that doesn’t do anything more than what default system does.
Anish G. recently posted..Best eCommerce Platform
The Wibiya bar slows down the loading process a lot.
I can not recommend using this piece of software. If you need your “bar”, you can do one yourself.
Here is a link to a tutorial:
http://www.pvmgarage.com/2009/12/nice-and-simple-toolbar-for-your-website-with-css3-and-jquery/
Michael Pehl recently posted..The Loading Speed Of The Different Browsers
I didn’t realize they had a different sitemap plug-in for you tube videos do you use both or just the one?
@Selltextbook You should definitely use both plugins. One is for your content and one for your videos. Make sure you submit both sitemaps to Google via the Google Webmaster page:
http://www.google.com/webmaster
Cheers,
Hani
Hani Mourra recently posted..Grow Your Business with Online Video- Which Topic Would You Choose
@kieshaeasley and @Kimi: I’m using the Wibiya toolbar and from my end my blog doesn’t really load slowly. Could you be gracious enough as to load my blog from your end and tell me if it’s slow or not?
I’d really appreciate that ;-)
Hey Udegbunam,
I have tested your blog, it runs really fast.
But mine is faster sometimes =) Check this: http://goo.gl/iKU2 if you’re interested: eventhough i have infolinks and google ads (those i hate to mention if we talk about site speed ahaha)
But i also wanna earn cash from them.
Your blog runs really fine to me. I am in Europe.
Thanks for the feedback and the URL. Your site’s size is almost a third of mine and loads pretty fast too. ;-)
P.S: I’m heading over to your blog right now!
Udegbunam Chukwudi recently posted..How To Make Your WordPress Blog Posts Timeless!
This is a great list of plugins :)
Alex Dumitru recently posted..Sunday Must Read – Weekly Roundup 41- 2010
Another great must-have plugin is called “Google XML Sitemap for
Videos”. This will help Google index and find all the YouTube videos
embedded on your blog!
Also….if you are getting a lot if comments on your YouTube videos,
there is a great plugin that can automatically display them on your
wordpress blog itself! Double SEO bonus :)
Plugin is called “Genki Youtube Comments”
Cheers,
Hani
Hani Mourra recently posted..Grow Your Business with Online Video- Which Topic Would You Choose
thanks for the tips!
is it for wordpress.com or wordpress.org
thanks :)
I am not sure if I like Disqus or commentluv better. I use both on different blogs, but disqus seems to draw more spammers because they assume its autoapprove.
Dana recently posted..How to Promote your Facebook Fan Page
I am a bit confused after reading the post and the comments about the author.
Is it Keisha or Pam? =D
Whoever it is, great lists of plugins, but i personally would avoid installing wibya tool bar. It just makes the blog loads slower.
And to me, it is kind of annoying to see something pops up in a site, even it is in the bottom of my screen.
Just my opinion, and thanks for sharing Pam/Keisha!
Kimi recently posted..Get Rid Of Spam Bots In WordPress With GASP
Twitter: weblogbetter
says:
Hi Kimi,
This post was a guest post by Pam Moore. I agree with you above Wibya, I use it on my other blog and it does seem to slow things down a little.
Thanks for confirming Keisha!
Kimi recently posted..Upload Multiple or Several Plugins in WordPress
Looks like you’ve uninstalled the Wibiya toolbar. Any reason why? I recently installed it on my blog and I’m quite glad it only loads after the main content of the site has loaded.
Udegbunam Chukwudi recently posted..How To Secure Your Download Files And Bandwidth
Twitter: BrankicaU
says:
Just what I needed :)
I am going through each one of these and adding a bunch of them…
Can someone tell me is there a way to mess up your blog with too many plugins, is there a limit?
I am getting addicted to this blog of yours!
Brankica recently posted..Elisabeth Wiel in action
Twitter: BrankicaU
says:
BTW, I can’t seem to find the first plugin through my WP dashboard plugin search. Can someone post some links :) Thanks
Brankica recently posted..Elisabeth Wiel in action
Hey Kiesha!!! Fabulous article, i really those amazing lists of plugins will be trying some of them soon. Thanks for passing along such useful plugins with us here!!!
Hi Keisha,
Great list of plugins. I just love wordpress plugins. There’s a couple I like that I didn’t see on your list. I like tweet old posts to keep my old content alive on twitter. I’m also really liking the new spam plugin GASP. I’m actually using it over akismet right now.
Richard recently posted..How Much Cash Am I Going To Generate Through Adsense
Thanks for sharing these plugins, loved the ones I could find!
Becky recently posted..What I’m Learning from Twitter – highlights and blogging ideas
Didn’t knew about the Billboard plugin. Seems like a good plugin. Will try it.
Edit:- Can’t seem to figure out which Billboard plugin you have mentioned. Can you provide a link to it please.
Thanks
Nabeel Ahmed recently posted..18 Myth Busting Facts About Firefox
I have used most of them and found them amazing….
Rahul recently posted..Google Car No need to drive it!
Twitter: AlisonMSmith
says:
Superb list. Good research and explanations. :)
Alison Moore Smith recently posted..Changing Navigation Tab Names in Thesis
Great list Kieshia! i will check out some of this pluggins. thanks a lot for sharing. Have fun.
Twitter: technicallyeasy
says:
A great list of plugins. I have used similar plugins for some of the social network buttons, but have since decided to manually include them in my code.
The SEO Smart Links plugin looks interesting – one that I will definitely have to check out.
Paul recently posted..The Storage Server – Not Just For Large Businesses Anymore
Great List Pam, Developer Best friend are great and I use them all the time for changing themes, hosting, and its great if you doing blogs/websites for customers,
Thank you
Marios
Marios recently posted..AffiloRama Affiliate Marketing Training Portal
Thanks for the list, I’ve used quite a few of these and they are really helpful plugins. It would be great though if you placed links to these in your article.