WordPress Content Plugins

These WordPress plugins will save you time planning, creating, and managing content.

There are many WordPress plugins you can use to help you plan, organize, curate, protect, and even create content for your site.

This section provides examples of various plugins that will help you do this.

Refer to the WordPress User Manual if you need help installing, activating, updating, or deleting plugins in WordPress, and ALWAYS make a full backup of your website’s files and database before making any changes to your site.

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Legal Information Plugins

Your website needs to comply with many laws and regulations and there are a number of legal pages that you should add to your site.

You can add these manually, or use a plugin like the one shown below.

WP Legal Pages

WP Legal Pages automatically generates 25+ legal policy templates for your website.

Simply add your business details and the plugin will quickly create the following pages:

• GDPR Privacy Policy
• GDPR Cookie Policy
• Terms of Service
• Terms & Conditions
• CCPA (California Consumers Privacy Act)
• Amazon Affiliate Disclosure
• Privacy Policy Wizards
• Linking Policy
• Blog Comments Policy
• Affiliate Agreement
• Affiliate Marketing Disclosures
• External Links Policy
• DoubleClick DART Cookie Policy
• Returns & Refunds
• Digital Goods Refunds
• Anti Spam Policy (CASL Compliant)
• Privacy Policy for Facebook Apps
• Earnings Disclaimer
• Medical Disclaimers
• General Disclaimers
• FTC Disclaimer Widgets
• FTC Testimonials Disclosure
• California Privacy Rights Policy
• DMCA Policy
• Children’s Online Privacy Policy (COPPA)
• Newsletter Subscription Policy
• Refund Policy
• FTC Disclosure Statement
• Impressum

Watch the video below for an overview of the plugin:

More info: WP Legal Pages

Additionally, see this tutorial: How To Add Legal Pages to Your WordPress Site

Content Generation Plugins

There are a number of tools and plugins that can help to speed up your content creation process, as the examples below show.

We recommend using plugins like the ones listed below as tools to aid in your content research and content creation, not as content generators per se.

Search engines like Google reward quality content designed to add value to humans, not content aimed at search bots, so keep this in mind when using tools like the ones listed below.

MyCurator

MyCurator is a content curation plugin for WordPress that can help to speed up your content research by showing you relevant articles related to your topic using AI technology.

You can train the plugin to deliver more reliable information in its results using upvoting and downvoting features.

The plugin lets you curate articles in your WordPress Editor
and adds an excerpt, image, and attribution.

You can curate content for topics for free, but accessing its cloud services requires an API Key. Low-priced monthly plans (with a free 30-day trial) are available for users that want to curate content on lots of different topics or multiple sites.

The video below provides more information about this plugin:

There are also a number of training videos available on how to use this plugin.

More info: MyCurator

Learn more about content curation here: Content Writing Tools

Watsonfinds

Watsonfinds analyzes your content and provides insights about how your audience may respond emotionally as they read it.

The plugin displays a popup when you analyze your content with insights divided into 5 different emotions (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear).

You can then modify the words used in your content to match your message with how you would like your audience to respond.

The video below explains how the plugin works:

More info: Whatsonfinds

WPRobot

WP Robot is a popular autoblogging plugin for WordPress.

This plugin allows you to drip-feed content to your site on auto-pilot at regular intervals that you specify. Your posts will then be targeted to any keyword you select and in any topic you choose.

You can autopost articles from over 20 content providers and specify which modules you want to autopost content from, run multiple posting campaigns using a different template for each campaign, run, copy, and pause individual campaigns, and much more.

More info: WP Robot

Content Organization Plugins

WordPress makes available various content organizer plugins. Here are a few popular ones:

Content Views

Content Views is a popular WordPress plugin that allows you to display and organize your posts in a grid or list layout. It provides various customization options to organize your content effectively.

Key features of this versatile plugin include:

• Grid Shortcode & Block: Easily display various content types like posts, pages, images, and taxonomy terms in attractive layouts such as grids, lists, sliders, and accordions.
• Flexible Content Display: Effortlessly showcase recent posts, category-specific content, tag-filtered posts, and more.
• Editor Compatibility: Compatible with both the classic editor and Gutenberg block editor for seamless integration into any WordPress environment.
• Multiple Layout Options: Offers a wide array of responsive layouts, including grids, lists, sliders, masonry, timelines, and more, catering to diverse website needs.
• Powerful Query Filters: Enables precise content filtering by post type, taxonomy, custom fields, keywords, authors, dates, and other criteria.
• Front-End Filtering (PRO): Advanced filtering options for website visitors, including category, tag, taxonomy, and custom field filters in various formats.
• Pagination Options: Supports both normal and AJAX pagination styles, enhancing user experience.
• Theme Layout Replacement (PRO): Easily switch to alternative layouts for specific WordPress pages without altering the theme.
• Integration Compatibility: Seamlessly integrates with popular plugins like WooCommerce, The Events Calendar, Advanced Custom Fields, WPML, and more.
• Additional Features: Mobile-friendly design, complete control over layout and styling, lazy loading for images, SEO optimization, and social sharing integration.

With its extensive feature set, Content Views simplifies content management for users of all levels.

For a more detailed tutorial explaining how to use this plugin effectively, go here: Organizing Your Content With The Content Views Plugin

More info: Content Views

PublishPress Series

PublishPress Series is a plugin that lets you organize multiple posts on the same topic or time periods into issues or series.

This plugin is ideal for sites that want to publish content in the style of magazines or newspapers, as well as short-story writers, teachers, comic artists, etc.

For example, you can:

• Turn posts into monthly issues for a magazine.
• Group together newspaper articles on the same topic.
• Organize chapters into a story.

You can easily add a post that you are writing to an existing series, or start a new series. You can also add a new post into the middle of an existing series, and the plugin will adjust the order, and filter the post list by series to see all the posts you’ve already added to the series.

The free version of the plugin lets you display options for your series information, supports advanced layouts, provides widgets and blocks, and allows you to quickly manage all posts linked to a series. You can re-order, schedule, publish, and unpublish all the posts in a series.

The paid version of this plugin supports custom post types, multiple series, shortcodes, and extra features, such as allowing you to add multiple authors and guest authors to WordPress posts, manage user roles, permissions, and capabilities (e.g. moderation, revisions, etc.), group content together into a series, and more.

More info: PublishPress Series

Content Control

Content Control is a versatile plugin that lets you control the visibility of different elements on your WordPress site. It’s useful for organizing content by restricting or displaying it based on various criteria.

Post Types Order

Post Types Order allows you to reorder posts, pages, and custom post types using a drag-and-drop interface. It helps you organize your content effortlessly.

Before installing any plugin, make sure to check the compatibility with your WordPress version and read user reviews to ensure it meets your specific requirements. Additionally, always create a backup of your site before making significant changes.

Content Collaboration Plugins

Multicollab Team Collaboration

Multicollab is a collaboration plugin tailored for editorial teams that allows team collaboration with Google Doc-style content editing directly within the WordPress Gutenberg interface.

It seamlessly integrates into the WordPress dashboard to bring real-time commenting, suggesting, and collaborating directly to your WordPress interface, eliminating the need to juggle between Google Docs and WordPress, the frustration of copy-pasting, and the limitations of traditional editorial processes.

With this plugin, users can effortlessly share feedback, comment on text and media blocks, and invite team members to collaborate seamlessly.

Features include inline commenting, team collaboration, detailed reports, and instant email notifications, all within your WordPress environment.

Designed for Gutenberg, Multicollab streamlines content collaboration in WordPress and enhances your editorial workflow without disrupting your existing processes. It is a valuable tool for efficient, organized, and high-quality content creation in WordPress.

Atarim Visual Collaboration

Atarim Visual Collaboration is a user-friendly plugin that simplifies website collaboration, allowing seamless feedback collection and efficient project management. Almost 10,000 agencies and freelancers worldwide use it on over 120,000 websites, making it an essential productivity tool for any collaborative project.

Atarim reduces project completion time by automating workflows, freeing up valuable time for team members and making gathering feedback and managing tasks effortless, whether it’s submitting feedback directly on WordPress websites or managing requests and tasks efficiently.

The plugin caters to various users, including freelancers, agencies, and website owners, streamlining collaboration processes. It replaces multiple project management tools, eliminating fragmentation and the need for constant screenshots.

Atarim offers a plethora of features, including visual collaboration, urgency updates, status changes, automated screenshots, file uploads, and technical information tracking. Its cloud-based platform allows centralized request management, enhancing efficiency and communication.

With Atarim, collaboration extends beyond project completion, facilitating ongoing communications and feedback. Plus, it’s free to use forever, empowering teams to embrace visual collaboration and enhance project and task management.

Additional collaboration plugins include:

• Admin Page Notes – Add notes and links on your pages to give your clients, authors or other editors clear directions when editing their site.
• BuddyPress Docs – BuddyPress Docs enhances BuddyPress communities with collaborative workspaces akin to Google Docs, offering wiki-style collaboration, document editing and management, and shared Dropbox functionality. Key features include:
  • Document linking to groups or users, customizable privacy levels.
  • Support for fully-private document uploads.
  • Document taxonomy with tags.
  • Sortable and filterable document lists.
  • Front-end document editing with TinyMCE.
  • Overwrite prevention and idle detection/autosave.
  • Comprehensive revision history access.
  • Dashboard management of documents for site administrators.

Content Protection Plugins

If you want to protect your content from being copied or stolen, there are WordPress plugins you can use to help protect your site from content theft.

WP Content Copy Protection

WP Content Copy Protection is a free plugin for WordPress that uses various methods to protect your online content from being stolen by mouse, keyboard, and browser content-copying methods like right-clicking and saving images, highlighting and copying text, source code viewing, and common keyboard copy shortcut keys.

The premium version of the plugin provides everything included in the free version, plus advanced content protection features for WooCommerce-powered eCommerce sites, the ability to exclude specific pages, posts, or categories from being protected, enabling or disabling protection for site admins only, or registered users only, or admin and registered/logged-in users, advanced image protection, feed removal, extended keyboard copy protection commands, and more.

The plugin will not affect your SEO, embeddable codes, or advertising (e.g. Adsense).

More info: WP Content Copy Protection Free | WP Content Copy Protection Pro

For additional content protection plugins, see this article: How To Prevent Content Theft In WordPress 

Anti-Spam Plugins

Spam adds unwanted content to your site (e.g. comment spam) which can have a negative impact on your visitors and search engines.

WordPress has a number of plugins that can help you combat and prevent spam.

Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if these look like spam or not and lets you review any spam it catches under your site’s Comments admin screen.

The Akismet servers monitor millions of blogs and forums, watching the methods and tricks used by spammers in real-time.

When spambots, comment factories, buffer sites, and social engineering tricks are identified, Akismet uses this knowledge to try and prevent automated or human spammers from trying to place a spam comment on your site.

Akismet was developed by Automattic, a company founded by the creator of WordPress itself, Matt Mullenweg, and has proven to be very effective in fighting SPAM. Millions of WordPress users have Akismet installed on their sites.

More info: Akismet

For more anti-spam plugins, go here: WordPress AntiSpam Plugin

Related Content Plugins

One way to keep visitors longer on your site is to let them know that your site provides other content related to the topics they are interested in.

With WordPress, you can automatically provide links to related content on your site using a plugin like the one below.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)

YARPP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin) is a simple and easy-to-use plugin that inserts related post links at the end of each of your site’s posts, pages, and custom post types intelligently and automatically.

As discussed in the WordPress CMS Plugins lesson, YARPP works with related posts, pages, and custom post types. It also provides a templating system that lets you choose how your related posts are displayed.

YARPP finds related content across your site using a customizable algorithm that takes into account elements such as post titles, content, tags, categories, and custom taxonomies, then caches the related posts data as pages on your site are visited, helping to improve overall site performance.

More info: YARPP

Learn How To Add Related Posts In WordPress

The above is just a small sample of plugins you can use to save time creating content with the WordPress CMS.

If you need help using WordPress, see the resources below:

• WordPress Training Manual – A detailed and comprehensive step-by-step WordPress user manual for non-technical website users (non-coders).
• WPMU DEV Blog – Tutorials for advanced WordPress users.

Make sure to subscribe to our updates to receive our free email course on managing your content effectively, which includes useful information and practical tips on using WordPress as a CMS.

Return to the main WordPress Plugins section.

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Image: Laptop

WordPress Engagement Plugins

These WordPress plugins will help to boost and improve user engagement with your content and your website.

There are many different ways for your visitors to engage with your business through your website.

Most of these ways involve interacting with some form of content on your site, so it’s important to be able to manage this content effectively.

WordPress provides many different kinds of plugins to boost and improve engagement with visitors on your website in areas like:

• Contact Forms
• FAQs
• Knowledgebase
• HelpDesk
• Chat
• Advertising
• Lead Generation
• Event Calendars
• Event Registrations
• Bookings & Appointments
• Maps
• Membership Sites
• eCommerce
• Courses
• Social Sharing
• Testimonials
• Company Pages (e.g. Meet The Team)
• etc.

This section provides examples of various WordPress plugins you can use to improve user engagement with your website in the areas above and manage the content in these areas.

Many of the plugins described below can also be easily configured and added to your site’s pages or content using a shortcode.

Refer to the WordPress User Manual if you need help installing, activating, updating, or deleting plugins in WordPress, and ALWAYS make a full backup of your website’s files and database before making any changes to your site.

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Managing Content On Your Site With WordPress Engagement Plugins

While using plugins can save time and money on web development costs, using plugins to boost and improve user engagement on your site usually requires adding additional content to the plugin and managing it via the plugin itself.

Let’s look at some examples of WordPress engagement plugins and what kind of content you would need to add and manage to boost user engagement effectively.

Analytics

Features like custom reports and segments in Google Analytics allow businesses to delve deeper into specific engagement metrics, gaining a comprehensive understanding of how visitors interact with their content.

They can then use a data-driven approach to implement specific steps and methods with proven tactics and tools to effectively track and boost user engagement on their WordPress websites and further increase user engagement.

WordPress analytics plugins play a crucial role in enhancing user engagement on websites. These tools provide valuable insights into user behavior, allowing site owners to make informed decisions to optimize their content and user experience.

By tracking various metrics, such as popular content, bounce rates, and user interactions, these plugins enable website administrators to tailor their strategies for maximum user engagement.

Analytics plugins like those listed below offer a user-friendly solution to set up and monitor user engagement in WordPress.

Beehive – WordPress Analytics

Beehive is an all-in-one Google Analytics Dashboard plugin that lets you easily track all of your important website statistics straight from your WordPress dashboard.

Beehive Pro features beautiful charts and graphs, Google Tag Manager, Custom Stats Dashboard, User Roles & Permissions, and more. It also allows you to enable display ads and view their current analytics in real-time and includes personalized authentication screen icons and project names, eCommerce compatibility, and constant updates with enhancements.

More info: Beehive (Free) | Beehive Pro

Forms

Most WordPress form plugins typically forward the sender’s message through to an email address and then store the information on your site’s database.

Using a contact form on your site effectively, then, requires having documentation and processes for areas like:

• Forwarding the information (i.e. who gets which kind of information, e.g. sales, support, billing, etc.?)
• Replying to senders (e.g. policies, guidelines, attachments, etc.)
• Handling stored contact information on your database to make sure that your site complies with all data storage and privacy laws (for example, the GDPR if your site processes information about European citizens).

Here is an example of a WordPress contact form plugin you can use on your site…

Forminator

Forminator is a free custom form builder plugin for WordPress that lets you create and add different kinds of forms to your site like contact forms, opt-in forms, payment forms, and even quizzes and polls.

You can easily set up a professional contact form for your site in just a few clicks.

Forminator adds its own block to the WordPress Block Editor.

The plugin integrates with many applications like Zapier, Slack, Trello, Google Sheets, and different email marketing apps.

Use Forminator to create forms that allow users to upload files to your site, collect electronic signatures, etc.

The plugin includes advanced features to help your site stay compliant with GDPR and a form preview button so you can view and adjust your form before embedding it on a page.

You can also use the plugin to create and add payment forms to your site. Forminator features codeless styling that lets you create the look you want without knowledge of code or CSS, use conditional logic to create dynamic forms, and add calculations and data validation fields to your forms.

The forms let you accept payments from users with PayPal and Stripe.

The plugin also lets you submit blog posts from a form and build interactive quizzes and polls.

You can publish polls that display real-time graphs and stats

To learn more about using this plugin, see this tutorial: How To Get The Most Out Of Using Forminator or watch the video below:

Plugin info: Forminator

To learn about other WordPress contact form plugins, go here: How To Add A Contact Form To WordPress

FAQs

Including FAQs on your site helps visitors and prospective customers get their questions answered and overcome objections before making purchasing decisions.

WordPress FAQ plugins can save you time and resources when providing customer support by allowing you to create a “self-service” help center for a fraction of the resources of hiring a support team to handle customer inquiries.

Many FAQ plugins also make it easier to organize your questions by allowing you to group your FAQs by categories (e.g. for questions about products, ordering, etc.), and place these on a dedicated FAQ page using a shortcode.

Look for FAQs plugins that let you easily add new FAQs and update your FAQ content using a drag-and-drop interface, and build an FAQ section for your website using different categories and customizable styles and colors.

There are many great FAQ plugins for WordPress available.

For example…

Ultimate FAQ

Ultimate FAQ is an FAQ and accordion plugin for WordPress that includes easy-to-use Gutenberg blocks, shortcodes, widgets, an advanced FAQ search, and FAQ schema.

Creating and adding different FAQ categories in the plugin is just like using regular post categories.

FAQs are essentially custom post types, so you can treat each FAQ entry as you would when creating a regular WordPress post…

You can easily view all your FAQs inside your WordPress dashboard using the plugin’s FAQ Summary panel…

To display your FAQs to site visitors, simply create a dedicated FAQs page, add the shortcode (or use the FAQ plugin’s block), and publish.

For example, here is a page with the FAQ shortcode inserted…

And this is what your site visitor will see after the page has been published…

Additional features of the plugin include the following:

• Create unlimited FAQs
• Create unlimited FAQ tags and FAQ categories
• Add an FAQ block (WordPress Block Editor)
• Add an FAQ shortcode
• A responsive accordion layout that works on all sites and devices
• FAQ page ordering and sorting options
• Group FAQ options
• Translation ready
• Bulk import FAQs from a spreadsheet
• Style your FAQ page layout

This plugin is user-friendly and includes a guided walk-through wizard that helps you configure the plugin’s settings, create your first FAQs, and create an FAQ page.

Watch the video below for an overview of this plugin:

As you can see, managing your site’s “frequently asked questions” using an FAQ plugin is both time-saving and very effective.

Plugin info: Ultimate FAQ

Tip: See this article for great tips on building an FAQ section on your website.

Customer Support – Knowledgebase, Helpdesk, and Live Chat

Like FAQs, Knowledgebase, Helpdesk, and Live Chat plugins allow you to automate and manage important areas of your business like customer support and help sections for a fraction of what it would cost to hire, train and set up a live support team.

If you plan to add a Knowledgebase, Helpdesk, or Live Chat section to your website to provide customer support, answer user questions, or address their concerns, it’s important to plan and create as much of the content that you will feed into these sections as you can beforehand.

You can use a WordPress plugin like the one shown below to continually add and update support-related content.

ThriveDesk

ThriveDesk is a light and fast knowledgebase, helpdesk, and live chat plugin for WordPress.

The plugin lets you provide timely customer support by integrating live chat, helpdesk, and a knowledgebase into one feature-rich application.

To learn more about all the features and integrations included in this plugin, see the plugin info here: ThriveDesk

Advertising

If you plan to display ads on your website through banners, text ads, or contextual ads (e.g. Google AdSense), then you will need to manage your advertising content effectively, especially if you are promoting content like time-sensitive offers, products of the week, expiring discount codes, etc. on multiple pages or sections of your website.

This means having an organized system for storing and accessing information like:

• Banner ad images
• Ad copy and destination URLs
• Scripts (e.g. Google AdSense publisher code)
• Details of advertisers, ad inventory, ad schedules, where ads are placed, etc. (e.g. a spreadsheet)

There are many WordPress advertising plugins you can use to display and manage ads on your website.

Here are a couple you can check out…

AdRotate

AdRotate is a plugin that lets you easily manage all your advertising campaigns, affiliate banners, text links, etc. from one location.

You can create advertisements using any kind of ad banner or text link, group adverts together, and place them anywhere on your site using shortcodes or  AdRotate’s Post/Page Injection sections.

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to use this plugin, go here: How To Add Rotating Advertising Banners To Your WordPress Site

Plugin info: AdRotate

WP AdCenter

WP AdCenter is another advertising plugin you may want to look at if you plan to monetize your WordPress site with banner advertising.

WP AdCenter is an advanced ad management plugin that lets you:

• Create and manage different ad zones.
• Place your own banners anywhere on your site
• Notify your advertisers after 80% of the campaign is over
• Export your campaign details as a spreadsheet
• Rotate banners or place multiple banners in one Ad-Zone
• Use the same slot to display different ads (without requiring refresh)
• Automate your income – with PayPal
• Monetize your WordPress site with affiliate banners, Google AdSense, etc.

The plugin integrates with payment gateways like PayPal and lets you offer advertising spots for sale on your site. Your advertisers can buy available spots and use the plugin’s built-in intelligent reporting features to review AdZone performance and optimize revenue.

Additional features include:

• Unlimited ad zones.
• Unlimited banner sizes.
• Unlimited campaigns.
• Set automatic start and end campaign dates.
• Place ad zones into your WordPress theme using shortcodes and widgets.
• Add media easily.
• Detailed statistics with downloadable/printable charts.
• Collect payments automatically.
• Add different effects to your ads (fadezoom, blindX, blindY, and more).
• Responsive ads work well on mobile and desktop devices.
• Display multiple banners per AdZone and multiple ads in a row, column, or grid.
• Auto-disable expired ads.

See the video below for an overview of the plugin:

Plugin info: WP AdCenter

Lead Generation

After working out your marketing and content promotion strategies for generating new business leads, using content promotion tools with lead generation plugins like the ones listed below will not only make it easier to implement your strategies but also manage their content.

Hustle

Hustle is a versatile free marketing and lead generation plugin that you can use to build a mailing list and convert site traffic on a WordPress site.

The plugin includes opt-in forms, targeted marketing popups, slide-ins, embeds, shortcodes, designer-made form templates, and social sharing capabilities.

You can fully customize the look of your campaigns in the plugin’s settings.

You also have complete control over your lead generation forms.

With pop-ups, for example, you can choose the visibility conditions that will display your pop-ups to visitors (e.g. only display the pop-up if visitors land on certain pages or visit posts published under certain categories, or use specific devices/browsers, or are visiting from a specific country, etc.).

You can also use pre-built layouts, align the position of your images in your selected layouts and more.

Hustle not only lets you easily grow your mailing list and display targeted ads across your site with pop-ups, opt-ins, and slide-ins, but you can also add social sharing widgets to your site so visitors can share your content across different social media platforms.

Additional plugin features include:

• Fully customizable and mobile responsive layouts with granular control of all form design elements (e.g. adjust images, typography, color, margins, padding, borders, spacing, shadow, module sizing, etc., or use your own custom CSS).
• Smart triggers for pop-ups and slide-ins (e.g. time on page, scroll, exit intent, and more).
• Set campaign schedules (e.g. start and end dates, schedule modules to show on specific days of the week, at a certain time of day, choose a custom timezone, etc.)
• Follow-up emails with manual or automated email messages.
• Integrations with social media platforms, form builders, email services, etc.
• Smart exit intent technology (detects when visitors are about to leave your site and displays a pop-up or slide-in to grab their attention).
• Recaptcha to protect your signup forms from spam.
• Adblocking detection and override.
• Intelligent results tracking of individual modules with conversion stats, and insightful charts.

For additional options (e.g. unlimited pop-ups, slide-ins, embeds, and social sharing bars), we recommend upgrading to the Pro version of the plugin.

Watch the video below for an overview of the plugin:

Additionally, see these tutorials to learn how to use the plugin:

• How To Get The Most Out Of Using Hustle
• How To Get The Most Email Subscribers Using Hustle
• How To Make The Perfect Popup with Hustle

Plugin info: Hustle

Post Gopher

Normally, you would need to create content for your lead magnet AND for the article or post that will promote your lead magnet to your visitors and prospects. What if your articles or blog posts already contain compelling content? Couldn’t you use these as lead magnets?

This is where this clever little WordPress plugin comes in that automatically turns your articles and blog posts into lead magnets, helps you get more free web traffic, and grows your subscriber list … all completely on auto-pilot!

Post Gopher is a WordPress plugin that converts your blog posts and pages into downloadable PDF books. It builds beautiful forms, integrates directly with your autoresponder, captures leads, and sends out download links completely on autopilot.

Post Gopher does the following while you focus on creating content:

1. Automatically converts your blog posts or pages into PDF lead magnets,
2. Auto-generates lead capture forms that integrate seamlessly with all major autoresponder services,
3. Sends a customizable email to your new subscribers with the download link to their PDF version of your blog post or article.
4. Tracks your results with a built-in dashboard that provides details on your most popular posts, conversion rates, and when readers return to your blog using the links inside their PDF file.

After the plugin has been activated and configured, Post Gopher displays a fully customizable lead generation banner on your posts and pages.

Everything can be customized to suit your preferences, from the text and design of your call-to-action banners to pop-up form colors, text and fields, and even your PDF templates.

You can also specify which posts and pages will display the lead generation banner, where to position it in your content (e.g. top, bottom, top & bottom), and more.

If someone visits your site, decides to download and read your post content later, and clicks on the banner, Post Gopher automatically converts your post or page into a downloadable PDF book or report, adds the user details to your autoresponder, and emails them a link to download the PDF file.

Post Gopher integrates directly with your autoresponder, capturing leads and sending out download links to your new subscribers on autopilot.

The plugin includes built-in statistics reporting for tracking views, clicks, opt-in rates, downloads, and return visitors, and analyzing your best performing lead generation content and most popular blog posts.

Post Gopher, then, is an easy “set and forget” tool that passively collects leads, grows your list, boosts user engagement, and helps you get more traffic on autopilot.

If your website or blog provides lots of high-quality content, use this plugin to help you leverage your content creation efforts into growing an engaged subscriber list, increasing your reach, and getting you more dedicated content readers.

Plugin info: Post Gopher

Thrive Leads

Thrive Leads is a lead generation plugin for WordPress that combines a list-building solution focused on cutting-edge conversion tactics and conversion optimization.

The plugin combines every kind of opt-in form you need with a simple drag-and-drop design editor designed to help you build a profitable list by showing relevant and highly targeted offers to your visitors based on posts, categories, tags, and more.

Thrive Leads also includes an advanced but easy-to-use A/B testing feature and actionable reporting & insights covering the most important metrics you need to assess how your opt-in forms are performing and where your most valuable traffic is coming from.

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to use this plugin, go here: Thrive-Leads: List-Building Plugin For WordPress

Plugin info: Thrive Leads

Event Calendars

Does your business run or promote events like:

• Social or community events (e.g. art classes, camps, golf tournaments, church events, etc.)
• Community events (fundraisers, festivals)
• Workshops, Seminars, Conferences (physical or virtual)
• Or any other event?

If so, then plugins like the ones listed below will help you manage your events and all the information associated with running these events.

WP Event Manager

WP Event Manager is a lightweight and scalable plugin that lets you implement a full-featured event management system for live and virtual events on WordPress.

The plugin works out of the box with practically every available WordPress theme saving you time and money on developing custom solutions.

The free version of the plugin has all the core features and functionalities you need to create a robust event management system on your site in a few minutes.

You can also purchase and install a number of premium add-ons that will enhance your event management capabilities by allowing you to do things like:

• Sell tickets
• Accept registrations
• Display an event calendar on your website with upcoming events
• Add Google Maps
• Add recurring events
• Collect information about the attendees at the point of registration
• Send notifications to event managers
• Change event colors to match event types and categories
• And even turn your WordPress website into a live streaming platform for virtual events.

Check out the video below for an overview of the plugin, of go here for a step-by-step tutorial on using this plugin: How To Create An Event Listing Website With WordPress

Plugin info: WP Event Manager

Event Espresso

Event Espresso is another popular event registration and ticketing manager plugin for WordPress.

It can turn your existing WordPress website into a fully-featured event registration and ticketing website that can accept online payments, add custom registration forms and emails, seating limits, multiple price options, discount codes, and printable tickets and event apps on your phone.

For a more detailed article on this plugin, go here: Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management Plugin

Plugin info: Event Espresso

Bookings & Appointments

If your business depends on taking bookings and appointments, you will need to manage a calendar for scheduling your bookings, sending confirmation emails, rescheduling appointments, etc.

All of these processes can be automated using WordPress plugins like the one shown below

Booking Calendar

Booking Calendar is a free booking and reservations plugin that allows you to manage your time more effectively by adding appointment bookings to your site and sending out customized emails automatically.

The plugin works right out of the box. Your visitors can check the availability of your services and book appointments online quickly and easily (and even pay for appointments online) using an intuitive and user-friendly interface.

The plugin sends notifications to site administrators and users. You can access information about your bookings and easily manage all of your scheduled bookings and appointments from the plugin’s Booking Listing screen.

The plugin also provides a number of features and screens where you can view detailed information about your bookings and appointments and make changes.

And you can manually schedule bookings and appointments by entering customer information via the Add booking screen.

Booking Calendar is also widget-ready, supports multiple languages, and is also available in a premium version that offers many more features and functionalities.

Watch the video below for an overview of the plugin:

This plugin is suitable for a wide range of business services – medical, dental, health & fitness, repair services, massage therapists, yoga classes, restaurants, making room reservations, event venues, etc.

Plugin info: Booking Calendar

Maps

Adding maps to your site, such as Google Maps, can also help visitors and customers find you more easily, increase local SEO, and allow you to display the location of events.

Popular Google Maps plugins for WordPress include:

• WordPress Google Maps Plugin
• Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
• WP Go Maps

Note: If you plan to add maps to your site, make sure to store the coordinates of your physical location in your documentation.

You can obtain this information by following these instructions: Discover Coordinates Or Search By Latitude And Longitude

For a step-by-step tutorial on adding maps to WordPress, go here: How To Add A Map To WordPress

eCommerce

The WordPress CMS is powerful and flexible enough to transform any website into a full-featured eCommerce store using plugins.

eCommerce stores built on the WordPress platform can range from anything like regular websites offering users the ability to pay for a service online through a payment processor (e.g. PayPal, Stripe, etc.), to running enterprise-sized eCommerce sites selling thousands of products.

Your store content and information are normally managed from the plugin within your WordPress dashboard, although there are many solutions that integrate with WordPress, where your WordPress site serves as the “shop front” for your customers and you manage all the content on your store from your eCommerce solution’s website.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the leading eCommerce plugin for WordPress.

Installing the plugin automatically adds eCommerce capabilities to any WordPress site.

The WooCommerce core platform is free. You can enhance the functionality of your store with hundreds of free and paid extensions from the official WooCommerce Marketplace, and manage your store from anywhere using the free WooCommerce mobile app (Android and iOS).

Being open-source also means that you retain full ownership of your store’s content and data.

More info: WooCommerce 

For more plugins, go here: WordPress eCommerce Plugins: A Comprehensive Guide

Membership Sites

WordPress lets you turn a simple website into a large, professional, and feature-rich membership site containing private content that is accessible only to members using plugins.

There are many membership plugins available for WordPress. While they all perform a similar function (i.e. restrict content access to members only),  most membership plugins will let you set up different membership levels, manage registrations and members, set different access levels to content, and automate actions like content sequencing and delivery (e.g. drip feeding of content with monthly subscriptions).

Restrict Content Pro

Restrict Content Pro is a membership plugin for WordPress that lets you restrict exclusive content for members using a lightweight built-in eCommerce solution.

With the plugin installed, you can create unlimited subscription packages with membership levels (e.g. free, trial, premium, etc.), set up content previews that display an offer for visitors to sign up to access the rest of the content, offer discounts and coupon codes, and much more.

Plugin info: Restrict Content Pro

For more membership plugins, go here: WordPress Membership Plugins: A Comprehensive Guide

Courses

An e-Learning or e-Course site incorporates features found in e-commerce and membership sites with a Learning Management System (LMS).

You can build WordPress sites to promote and deliver one or many e-courses with course grading, quizzes, sequential modules, etc.

LMS WordPress Theme

The LMS WordPress Theme lets you build e-courses using any WordPress theme you like.

You can add class courses, timetables, registrations, quizzes, social logins, purchase options, and more.

All course information can be managed within the theme inside your WordPress dashbaord.

More info: LMS WordPress Theme

WP Courseware

WP Courseware is a learning management system plugin for WordPress that lets you set up professional training courses and build e-learning products quickly with WordPress.

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on using this plugin, go here: WP Courseware – WordPress eLearning Management Plugin

Plugin info: WP Courseware

Social Sharing

There are many WordPress plugins that can help your business reach a wider audience online and build your social following by sharing your content on social media.

For example, you can use the Hustle plugin mentioned earlier (see above) to add social sharing capabilities to your WordPress site.

The plugin supports all popular platforms and includes features like a social counter, a floating or inline social bar, style settings, visibility conditions, and more.

More info: Hustle

For more social sharing plugins, go here: Social Sharing Plugins For WordPress

Testimonials

Testimonials add powerful social proof content to your site.

Having testimonials on your site, however, also requires an effective system for requesting, collecting, managing, and displaying this content on your site.

Testimonial plugins like the one shown below can help you in all of these areas.

Thrive Ovation – Set & Forget Testimonials

Thrive Ovation is an all-in-one, set-and-forget testimonials management plugin for WordPress.

You can turn comments left on your site into testimonials with one click, leverage the power of social testimonials by integrating with Facebook and Twitter and collect testimonials on auto-pilot.

Thrive Ovation also provides a time-saving testimonial management dashboard, giving you a complete bird’s eye overview of user-submitted, comments, social media, and imported testimonials in one testimonial library that allows you to see testimonials that are ready for display, waiting for approval or review, have been rejected, are missing a photo, etc.

Additional plugin features include:

• Insert testimonials wherever you like using shortcodes.
• Edit and update testimonials from one location, which then update dynamically throughout your site.
• A library of fully customizable, professionally designed testimonial templates.

Plugin info: Thrive Ovation

For more plugins and a step-by-step tutorial on adding testimonials to WordPress, go here: How To Add Testimonials To WordPress

Company Pages

There are many plugins you can use to add and manage information about your company and your staff.

Here is an example:

Simple Staff List

Simple Staff List is a free plugin that lets companies display information about their employees on their website.

The plugin makes it very convenient to manage information about your staff and their profiles. You can add new staff members, edit existing team members’ details, remove profiles from employees who are no longer with the company, and more, all from one central location.

Enter information about your staff into the plugin’s profile fields…

After you have entered the information for all staff members and configured other plugin settings, copy and paste the shortcode into a page (e.g. “Meet the Team”) and publish.

Visitors now have a page where they can learn more about your team members.

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to set up and use this plugin, go here: How To Add A Staff Directory In WordPress

Plugin info: Simple Staff List

Summary

There are many WordPress plugins you can use to help boost user engagement with your content.

We recommend installing some of the plugins listed above and tracking your results to improve your content’s performance and boost user engagement on your site.

The above is just a small sample of WordPress plugins you can use to improve engagement on your website using the WordPress CMS.

For more plugin tutorials, go here: WordPress Engagement Plugins

If you need help using WordPress, see the resources below:

• WordPress Training Manual – A detailed and comprehensive step-by-step WordPress user manual for non-technical website users (non-coders).
• WPMU DEV Blog – Tutorials for advanced WordPress users.

Make sure to subscribe to our updates to receive our free email course on managing your content effectively, which includes useful information and practical tips on boosting user engagement with your content using WordPress.

Return to the main WordPress Plugins section.

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WordPress Media Plugins

Use these WordPress media plugins to make managing media files on your website easier.

This section provides examples of various WordPress media plugins you can use to manage files in your content and on your site, like:

• Images
• Videos
• Audio Files
• Documents
• Embedded Content
• Downloadable Content
• Media Stored Remotely

Refer to the WordPress User Manual if you need help installing, activating, updating, or deleting plugins in WordPress, and ALWAYS make a full backup of your website’s files and database before making any changes to your site.

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Media Library Plugins

Media files used in WordPress are typically uploaded to the WordPress Media Library if files are saved on your web server (as opposed to being stored in a cloud service like Amazon S3).

Plugins can extend the functionality of your WordPress media library.

Media Library Folders

Media Library Folders enhances the functionality of the WordPress Media Library by allowing you to add and build new folders and subfolders to label and organize your media folders and perform operations on these folders and their contents.

The plugin provides an effective way to manage image and video folders when creating WordPress image galleries and albums.

The paid version of the plugin offers enhanced functionality like the ability to organize media using categories, add images to WooCommerce product galleries, offload Media Library items to external cloud storage services like Amazon S3 or DigitalOcean Spaces, and more.

The video below provides an overview of the plugin:

More Info: Media Library Folders

For a step-by-step tutorial on using the WordPress Media Library and additional Media Library plugins, go here: How To Use The WordPress Media Library

Content Embedding Plugins

WordPress plugins can make embedding media files into your content easier.

EmbedPress

EmbedPress lets you easily embed media-rich content like documents, videos, PDFs, audio files, maps, charts, and slides into your WordPress site.

The plugin connects to over 100 services and media platforms and lets you embed content from these services by simply pasting in their URL. It also includes blocks for the WordPress Block Editor.

The premium version of the plugin gives you additional features like enabling lazy loading for loading embedded images on your website faster and adding custom-branded logos for all your video embeds.

Watch the video below for an overview of the plugin:

More info: EmbedPress Free | EmbedPress Premium

For a step-by-step tutorial on using the blocks to embed content into WordPress, go here: WordPress Embed Block

File Download Plugins

WordPress lets you manage your download files right out of the box but it doesn’t have advanced management features like:

• Download password protection
• Tracking file revisions
• Monitoring/restricting the number of downloads
• Preventing unregistered users from accessing your files
• Managing and selling digital downloads
• etc.

You can easily add these features using file management and download management plugins like the plugin below:

Easy Media Download

Easy Media Download is a free plugin that makes it easy for users to download digital media files from your website (music, videos, images, etc.). The plugin supports downloadable files in all formats. It creates buttons that begin downloading files immediately when clicked on. Shortcodes allow you to place download buttons anywhere in your content.

Check out the video below to see the plugin in action:

More info: Easy Media Download

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to add, edit, and manage downloadable files in WordPress and more WordPress download plugins, go here: How To Add Downloadable Files In WordPress

Image Plugins

There are many great WordPress plugins you can use to manage images on your site more effectively, compress and optimize images to make your pages load faster for visitors, add visual effects, styled borders, or frames to images, display images in galleries and slides, etc.

Smush – Image Optimization

Images can take up a lot of storage space on your server and slow down your site.

Smush is a free image compression and image optimization plugin that saves storage space, helps your site load faster and reduces image file size without reducing the quality of your images.

You can compress and optimize images automatically, manually, or in bulk. You can also Super Smush your images, which compress these even further without losing image quality.

This plugin is highly recommended for all WordPress sites, and especially for sites that use loads of high-quality images (e.g. photography, design, portfolio sites, etc.)

See this tutorial to learn how to use Smush: How To Get The Most Out Of Smush Image Optimization or watch the video below:

More info: Smush

Photo Gallery

Photo Gallery is a user-friendly and feature-rich plugin that lets you add responsive image galleries and albums to your website.

The plugin lets you add image descriptions and tags to gallery images and makes renaming, uploading, removing, and copying images in the galleries you create easier.

The plugin also lets you add videos and audios to your galleries, customize gallery layouts, create unlimited responsive gallery and album views, set up and manage multiple widgets, add image watermarking and right-click protection, and more.

The Photo Gallery plugin also provides additional extensions to take its functionality further, making this a great choice for image-heavy websites like photography websites, portfolios, blogs, and any sites that want to feature professional-looking image galleries with easy user navigation.

With the Photo Gallery Premium version of the plugin installed, you can add commenting capabilities with Captcha protection, add a dynamic tag cloud widget with an image tag cloud and text tag cloud options, and set role permission capabilities (i.e. specify who can edit galleries, albums, and images).

The video below provides more information about the plugin:

More info: Photo Gallery (Free) | Photo Gallery (Premium)

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to add, edit, and manage images in WordPress and more WordPress image plugins and image tools, go here: Using Images In WordPress

Video Plugins

WordPress lets you easily integrate videos into your content. You can add videos to your posts, pages, custom post types…even your sidebar menu using plugins.

Video Player

Video Player is a WordPress plugin that lets you manage the entire video player using a friendly interface. You can customize the player look & feel, playlist, and CSS file.

The plugin comes in two versions: Right Side playlist and Bottom Playlist.

Some of the plugin features include:

• Support for any type of video file that Flash Player supports: FLV/H.264 encoded video: MP4, M4V, M4A, MOV, Mp4v, F4V, YouTube, RTMP (using FMS or RED5), and RTMP live streaming.
• Ability to play audio MP3 files.
• Support for Google Analytics
• You can set this player to any size you want, changing the player width, the player height, and the playlist width.
• Ability to integrate with your posts and pages using a shortcode

For more details, go here: Video Player

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to add videos to WordPress and more WordPress video plugins, go here:

• How To Add Video In WordPress
• WordPress Video Player Plugins

Audio Plugins

Just like videos, WordPress also lets you easily integrate audio files into your content.

HTML5 Audio Player

HTML5 Audio Player is a compact and responsive audio plugin for WordPress that supports .mp3 and .ogg file formats and works on all browsers and devices.

You can add audio files and audio previews to your WordPress posts and pages using a shortcode.

For more info, go here: HTML5 Audio Player

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to add audio files in WordPress and more WordPress audio plugins, go here: How To Add Audio Files In WordPress

Plugins For Managing Media Stored Remotely

In addition to plugins that will help you better manage media files on your WordPress site, you can also install plugins that integrate 3rd-party media services and platforms with your site and allow you to manage media stored in remote locations (e.g. cloud services like Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.).

S3 Media Maestro

S3 Media Maestro lets you display videos hosted on Amazon S3 on your site, protects your files from unauthorized sharing, and lets you easily manage and deliver media or download files securely using Amazon’s S3 web storage services.

You can easily configure default media player settings for video and audio players like player type, skins, splash images, volume, size, metadata, etc.

You can use this plugin to set up online learning and video membership sites. S3Media Maestro prevents paying customers from sharing links to your content with others by creating unique expiring links that will only work for your customers. Anyone else who tries to use the same link to your content will be denied access.

More info: S3 Maestro

Google Drive Embedder

Google Drive Embedder lets you add files stored on Google Drive to your content and supports many files.

Use this plugin to:

• Locate files more easily
• Centralize your organization’s documents in Google Drive
• Host post and page file attachments, backed by Google Drive
• Control employee access (allow non-Google users to view Google Drive files and folders or restrict access by WordPress user roles)
• Allow drag-and-drop of files into embedded Google Drive folders, and explore folders without leaving WordPress.
• Display files through embedded viewers, or links to open or download.

More info: Google Drive Embedder

Dropr

Dropr lets you easily access files from your Dropbox account and add them to your WordPress website.

The plugin essentially turns your Dropbox account into a secondary WordPress Media Library. You can access your Dropbox files from the WordPress text editor screen, then drop files into your content without having to upload them to WordPress, saving you server bandwidth.

The plugin also includes its own block for the WordPress Block Editor.

More info: Dropr

Summary

There are many plugins available for managing media files on your WordPress site.

We recommend installing some of the plugins listed above and reading the additional tutorials on how to use media in WordPress.

The above is just a small sample of WordPress plugins you can use to make managing media easier on your WordPress CMS.

For more plugin tutorials, go here: WordPress Media Plugins

If you need help using WordPress, see the resources below:

• WordPress Training Manual – A detailed and comprehensive step-by-step WordPress user manual for non-technical website users (non-coders).
• WPMU DEV Blog – Hundreds of WordPress tutorials for advanced WordPress users.

Make sure to subscribe to our updates to receive our free email course on managing your content effectively, which includes useful information and practical tips on using media with WordPress.

Return to the main WordPress Plugins section.

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WordPress SEO Plugins

Use these WordPress SEO plugins to optimize your content for search engines, boost your search rankings, and improve your content marketing results.

WordPress SEO plugins help to improve your content SEO and provide information to search engines that help them better understand and organize your content for indexing and displaying on search results.

Refer to the WordPress User Manual if you need help installing, activating, updating, or deleting plugins in WordPress, and ALWAYS make a full backup of your website’s files and database before making any changes to your site.

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Website SEO Plugins

The plugins listed below help to optimize your content and will even notify search engines when you publish new content for faster page indexing.

SmartCrawl

SmartCrawl is a free plugin that helps to improve your content’s SEO and search rankings on search engines like Google and Bing with built-in keyword optimization tools, XML sitemaps, meta tags, titles and descriptions, and more.

SmartCrawl features one-click setup, automatic XML sitemaps, improved social sharing, real-time keyword, and content analysis, Schema Types builder, traffic redirection, SEO scans and reports, and integration with 3rd-party tools (e.g. Moz SEO Tools).

You can quickly and easily set up and use SmartCrawl with the plugin’s setup wizard.

Once installed, you can run a scan of your site’s content…

After running your scan, go to the plugin’s dashboard to activate various SEO features and begin configuring SEO settings for your site…

You can create optimized title and meta descriptions for each post and preview how these will display on Google Search results…

You can also customize post titles, descriptions, and featured images for social shares…

And configure advanced SEO settings and instructions for displaying your content in search results…

Smartcrawl also lets you configure Schema markup settings for your website.

You can also add preset Schema types that include all the properties recommended by Google or add your own custom schema types.

SmartCrawl is a powerful WordPress search engine optimization plugin that makes your site easier to find and improves your website and content ranking, for free.

Watch the video below for an overview of what the plugin can do to help improve your site’s SEO:

The PRO version of the plugin offers advanced features like reports, automated scanning, automated linking for specific keywords, a crawler that checks for broken URLs, 404 errors, and multiple redirections, plus access to 24/7 support for all things WordPress-related.

More Info: SmartCrawl

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a popular and widely used WordPress SEO plugin.

The plugin includes many SEO features designed to help site visitors and search engines to better understand your content, like canonical URLs, meta tags, title and meta description templates, XML sitemaps, Schema, SEO and readability analysis tools, Google preview, and more.

The premium version of the plugin includes additional features like extensions for news SEO, video SEO, local SEO, and WooCommerce SEO, integrations with other SEO tools and services, blocks for the WordPress Block Editor, and advanced optimization tools.

If your WordPress theme does not support breadcrumb navigation links by default, you may have to edit your theme’s templates and add a snippet of code to display breadcrumbs.

More info: Yoast SEO

All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is a powerful plugin that helps you optimize your website for search engines. It offers features like XML sitemap generation, meta tag optimization, social media integration, and advanced options for more experienced users.

More info: All in One SEO Pack

Rank Math

Rank Math is a feature-packed SEO plugin that provides a wide range of optimization options. It offers features like advanced schema markup, redirection management, XML sitemap generation, and easy integration with popular SEO tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

More info: Rank Math

IndexNow Plugin

IndexNow Plugin is a free plugin for WordPress that enables the automated submission of URLs to multiple search engines without having to register and verify your site.

The plugin automatically generates and hosts an API key on your site and detects when you create, update, or delete a page or post, and notifies search engines to ensure they have the latest updates about your site.

You can also toggle the automatic submission feature, manually submit a URL, view a list of recent URL submissions, retry any failed submissions from the recent submissions list, download recent URL submissions for analysis, and view the status of recent successful and failed submissions.

More info: IndexNow Plugin

Analytics Plugins

It’s important to track how, when, and where users are visiting your site. This data lets you see where you can make improvements to your site, increase rankings, and drive more web traffic.

BeeHive

Beehive gives you access to powerful data insight from Google Analytics reports inside your WordPress dashboard.

With the Beehive Google Analytics Dashboard plugin installed, you can track visits, page views, bounce rate, average visit duration, and referrers, and enable advanced settings to track your site’s demographic and interest for advertising as well as analyze shopping behaviors to boost your products’ performance.

You can also easily track statistics for your entire site or network with the quick setup display.

Once installed, you can use the plugin’s dashboard to see what promotional channels are performing the best and driving the most traffic to your site.

Set up analytics reports that include information like:

• Analytics Overview – See all Users and Page Views for the current day, yesterday, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, or across the year.
• Session Report – See the number of interactions with your website taking place within a specific timeframe.
• User Report – The total number of users for the requested time period.
• Pageview Report – Know when a page containing your tracking code is visited.
• Pages/Sessions Report – The average number of pages visited on your website per session.
• Average Time on Page Report – See how long visitors are staying on your site.
• Bounce Rate Report – See how many people leave your website after visiting one page.
• Top Countries Report – See where your visitors are coming from.
• Most Visited Page Report – Know what pages are being visited and how long visitors are staying.
• Trends Report – Monitor trends and improve your content based on user behavior.
• Referrals Report – See where most of your traffic is coming from and where you should be focusing most of your effort.
• Medium Report – See how much traffic is coming from direct, email, referrals, social, or organic channels.
• Search Engines Report – Know which browsers users are visiting your site from and use this information to improve and test your site’s performance across different browsers.
• Social Networks – Learn which social networks are driving the most traffic to your site.

Beehive is one of the best free Google Analytics WordPress plugins available and comes packed with additional features to suit all kinds of websites, from blog and small business websites to eCommerce sites and enterprise networks, including:

• Google Tag Manager integration
• Built-in display advertising tracking for remarketing campaigns, Google Display Network Impression Reporting, demographic and interest reports
• Security and GDPR privacy tracking features like Toggle IP Anonymization to anonymize your visitor IPs, stop demographic reports, protect user IDs, and more.
• Roles and capabilities manager that let you customize reports, set what users have access to, and hide traffic data based on different user permissions.

For a tutorial on how to use this plugin, go here: How To Get The Most Out Of Beehive

More Details: Beehive Google Analytics Dashboard plugin

MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is a very popular and widely-used Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.

The plugin provides a website analytics dashboard inside WordPress with real-time stats, reports, and actionable insights.

MonsterInsights includes many features like universal website tracking and Google Analytics 4 setup across multiple devices and campaigns, enhanced eCommerce tracking, page level analytics, tracking for affiliate links, ads, authors, categories, tags, searches, custom post types, users, and other events, GDPR compliance, and seamless tracking integration with many popular WordPress plugins and services.

More info: MonsterInsights

Sitemap Plugins

Site maps help visitors find what they are looking for more quickly and easily on your site and search engines to discover more of your content.

Typically, search engines crawl your site’s content using XML Sitemaps, while visitors use HTML site maps. You can also add news sitemaps, video sitemaps, etc.

There are WordPress plugins you can use to add all kinds of sitemaps to your website.

To learn more about the differences between an HTML site map and an XML sitemap, what they are used for, and how to add them to your WordPress site, see these tutorials:

• How To Add An HTML Site Map To WordPress
• How To Add An XML Sitemap To WordPress

XML Sitemaps

From version 5.5 onward, WordPress has included its own in-built XML sitemaps.

Since XML sitemaps are now a core feature in WordPress and it’s not recommended to have more than one XML sitemap on your site as it may confuse search engines, you could simply use the native WordPress sitemap instead of a plugin.

The native XML sitemap feature of WordPress, however, is very basic and supports only a small set of content types.

SEO plugins like SmartCrawl and Yoast SEO also include XML sitemaps that are more advanced and give you options to decide what goes into that sitemap.

For example, if you noindex a post or page in Yoast SEO, the plugin immediately removes it from your sitemap. Other features of plugin sitemaps include properties like last modified date to help crawlers distinguish between what’s new and what’s old, images, etc.

If you plan to use SmartCrawl or Yoast SEO or have installed either of these SEO plugins, you don’t need to install an additional XML sitemap plugin and can override the native sitemap that ships with WordPress.

With SmartCrawl, for example, you can configure all of your sitemap settings from the plugin’s Sitemaps screen. This includes switching to the native WordPress sitemap (which will disable SmartCrawl’s sitemap), choosing which post types to include in your sitemap, and including/excluding other posts and post types.

The plugin generates and updates your sitemap when new content is added, changed, or removed, and automatically notifies Google.

SmartCrawl also generates a News Sitemap if your site publishes news-related articles and a Multilingual sitemap for each language you have on your site.

If you want to use a standalone plugin to create XML sitemaps, there are a number of sitemap plugins available in the WordPress directory.

For example…

XML Sitemaps

XML Sitemaps is a standalone XML sitemap plugin for WordPress.

The plugin supports all kinds of WordPress-generated pages and custom URLs and notifies all major search engines when you create and publish new content on your site.

More info: XML Sitemaps

Remember to add your XML sitemap (and RSS feeds) to search engines like Google and Bing via their search consoles. Also, see this section of the Content SEO lesson for more information.

HTML Site Maps

WP Sitemap Page

WP Sitemap Page is an HTML site map plugin that automatically generates a sitemap of all your pages and posts using a shortcode.

To see an example of an HTML site map generated by this plugin, visit our own Site Map page.

Note: This plugin does not generate an XML sitemap. It simply allows you to list all of your pages and posts on a single page for human visitors (i.e. not search engine bots) and exclude pages from displaying on your site map.

More info: WP Sitemap Page

Redirection Plugins

Whenever you change or redirect the URL of a post or page on your website to another page or website, it’s a good idea to let search engines know.

Use a WordPress plugin like the one shown below to manage your link redirections and to notify search engines that links have been redirected.

Redirection

Redirection is a very popular link redirection management plugin for WordPress. Use this plugin to point old, removed, deleted, or trashed posts to new posts on your site or URLs on external sites, easily manage 301 redirections, and keep track of 404 errors.

Simply enter the old URL (i.e. the Source URL) and the new URL (the Target URL), click a button, and the plugin will add the necessary code to your site to inform search engines that the page with your content has moved to a new location.

Simply enter the old URL (i.e. the Source URL) and the new URL (the Target URL), click a button, and the plugin will add the necessary code to your site to inform search engines that the page with your content has moved to a new location.

For more instructions on using this plugin, see this section of the WordPress CMS Plugins lesson.

Summary

In addition to SEO tools and services, there are a number of WordPress SEO plugins you can use to optimize your content for search engines,  automate and speed up search engine notifications, and help search engines (and users) find and index more of your site’s content.

We recommend installing some of the plugins listed above and tracking your results to improve your content’s performance in the search engines.

The above is just a small sample of WordPress plugins you can use to improve your content SEO.

For more SEO plugin tutorials, go here: WordPress SEO Plugins

If you need help using WordPress, see the resources below:

• WordPress Training Manual – A detailed and comprehensive step-by-step WordPress user manual for non-technical website users (non-coders).
• WPMU DEV Blog – Hundreds of WordPress tutorials for advanced WordPress users.

Make sure to subscribe to our updates to receive our free email course on managing your content effectively, which includes useful information and practical tips on improving your SEO using WordPress.

Return to the main WordPress Plugins section.

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