• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Marc's Blog

Content Writing and Marketing Services

  • Home
  • About
  • Work With Me
  • Podcast
  • What I’m Doing Now
  • Writing Portfolio

wordpress

12 WordPress Plugins That You Need To Have

December 17, 2014 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

12 WordPress Plugins That You Need To Have

One of the biggest advantages WordPress.org has on the free version is that you gain access to various plugins that can be used to enhance your blog. These plugins perform a variety of functions such as get more subscribers, boost SEO traffic, and improve the way your blog looks.

Not every WordPress plugin is created equally, and after using hundreds of plugins for this blog, I have been able to identify the most effective WordPress plugins that your blog should be utilizing. Here’s the list.

 

#1: Optin Forms

Compared to other free plugins that perform similar functions, the Optin Forms plugins does a great job at getting more subscribers. This plugin connects with a variety of emailing options such as iContact and Aweber, and it allows you to include an optin box at the end of every blog post. After you read this blog post, you will be able to see the Optin Form plugin in action asking for your email address (you get free goodies).

The optin box that you see at the end of my blog post was also very easy to create. The Optin Forms plugin gives you five pre-made themes to choose from, and you can change any of the colors and text in your optin box. You can even change the button’s color to match your blog’s color. If you want to grow your email list, the Optin Form is the next WordPress plugin that you need to install.

 

#2: Quick Page/Post Redirect

The Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin allows you effectively redirect people to different pages on your blog or any webpage on the web. You can set up a Page in your menu that, when clicked on, can redirect your visitors to a product page, even if that product page is not a part of your blog.

When you go to this blog’s menu and click, “My Books,” you are immediately brought to my Amazon Author Page which consists of all of my books. This is a more direct approach than you clicking that page, staying on my blog, and having to click a link that leads to my Amazon Author Page first.

In addition, the URLs for your blog posts have an impact on SEO. For a blog post like “5 Blogging Tips For Success,” the usual URL would be www.yoursite.com/5-blogging-tips-for-success. However, a good SEO practice is to use fewer words in the title, and only focus on the keywords. The ideal URL would be www.yoursite.com/blogging-tips-success.

Many people realize this difference late in the process and are left with blog post URLs that are not SEO optimized. Changing the link to www.yoursite.com/blogging-tips-success would result in all of the people who go to www.yoursite.com/5-blogging-tips-for-success being led to a 404 error page. You can use the Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin to fix this issue by having www.yoursite.com/5-blogging-tips-for-success redirect to www.yoursite.com/blogging-tips-success.

 

#3: Comment Redirect

As long as your blog posts are valuable and do not have grammatical errors, most of the people who muster up the courage to leave a comment on someone else’s blog enjoy the value that your blog provides. As a result, these people will be more likely to subscribe to your blog, but some people may not subscribe to your blog just because they do not know where the optin box is.

Even when people see my optin box made by Codeleon at the end of my blog posts, not all of them will subscribe at that moment. That’s even true for the people who comment on my blog. Some of the people who comment on my blog are not on my email list, but the Comment Redirect plugin allows me to change that.

All this plugin does is redirects someone to a different page on your blog immediately after that person submits a comment. The Comment Redirect plugin only gets applied when a visitor leaves his first comment on your blog. On this Comment Redirect Plugin, you can lead people over to a landing page, promote your most popular blog posts, or if you choose to do so, promote your products. Personally, I recommend promoting a landing page, and the last thing you want to do with the Comment Redirect is promote one of your products.

 

#4: Optimize Press

Speaking of landing pages, Optimize Press is a great plugin for creating great landing pages. I used Optimize Press to create my landing pages for my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter. I was able to create the page in just 10 minutes, and it works. If you enter your email address on that page, you will properly get added to my list. You can create multiple landing pages for specific giveaways or reasons such as a good URL for the Comment Redirect plugin.

In addition to creating great landing pages, Optimize Press also allows you to create training courses and membership sites. Although Optimize Press is not a free plugin, it is worth every penny, and if you are confused with anything about the plugin, Optimize Press comes with great videos and support so you can get your questions answered.

 

#5: Hello Bar

Hello Bar allows me to display the message that appears on the top of my blog. The actual message up there has varied over time, but you can always promote a link (preferably a landing page or product), or you can use it as an optin form that collects email addresses.

Hello Bar has a variety of functions to choose from, and creating the actual bar is extremely easy. Hello Bar has a simple approach that allows you to easily add text, identify where you want to direct visitors who click on the link, and change any of the colors that you see. Hello Bar also has email integration for numerous mailing services such as iContact and Aweber.

One of the advantages of the Hello Bar plugin is that the message on the top can scroll down. Each time you scroll down while reading this blog post, the Hello Bar follows you. In addition, it is tempting to click on because it offers something valuable and the color combination was chosen to match the color psychology of consumers.

 

#6: Add Meta Tags

#6 is an SEO tip and a plugin’s name at the same time. Adding meta tags makes it easier for Google to understand what your blog post is about because you get to provide keywords, a short description for your content, and the title.

Keywords allows Google to identify what search terms should be used to lead people to your blog. With this knowledge, many people assume a great strategy would be to stuff their meta tags with keywords, but this is a mistake. My recommendation is to only have 5-7 keywords per blog post because if you add too many, they will lose their effectiveness on Google.

When you choose the keywords, be sure to use long-tail keywords (the ones that consist of multiple keywords). I could have chosen the keyword “WordPress plugins” for this blog post, but instead, I chose, “WordPress plugins that all blogs need to have.” Which one paints the better picture for what your blog post is about?

 

#7: Google XML Sitemaps

Not having a sitemap is a big mistake for your SEO. Google uses your blog’s sitemap to index your blog posts and make sure they get seen on their search engine. That means if you want more SEO traffic as well as a reliable way to track results, then you need a sitemap.

Normally, a sitemap is very difficult to properly create, but this is when the Google XML Sitemaps plugin steps in. This plugin makes it super easy to create your own sitemap. Then, you can submit that sitemap to Google with the webmaster tools. What may take just 15 minutes of your time may result in hundreds of extra visitors later.

 

#8: Limit Login Attempts

We must embrace the fact that the internet is not secure, and hackers are everywhere. The Twitter accounts of Burger King, Donald Trump, and Uber Facts are three of the many accounts to have been hacked. There are also hackers who are hacking into blogs and putting up bad content.

Regardless of how popular you are on the web, chances are there is a hacker who is trying to obtain your password. Some of these hackers use a computer system that logs in and enters as many password combinations as it possibly can (which means thousands per day). This is one of the reasons why many websites including WordPress encourage you use to long passwords. However, that is not enough protection.

If you gave them the opportunity, some hackers would spend days trying to log into your account until they identified your password. The Limit Login Attempts plugin is the fix to that problem. This plugin limits the number of times that you (or any hacker) can log into your blog. If any IP Address exceeds the limit, that IP Address gets locked out for the time you specify. I choose to lock people out of my blog for 12 hours just in case I am the one who enters the wrong password (or someone tries to guess my password just for fun).

I get an email each time this plugin catches someone, and I have been amazed with the results. Initially, I thought this plugin was a joke because no one would ever hack my blog. Since installing this plugin, I have learned about thousands of attempts for logging into my blog.

Another great perk of this plugin is that it gives you the IP Address that was used for the login attempts. If you Google search an IP Address, you can find the location of the computer, and better yet, you have the option to prevent that IP Address from visiting your blog. I only recommend to use this as a last resort (if the same IP Address is a repeated violator), but with limits in place, your blog is very unlikely to get hacked. In a four number password, there are 10,000 possible combinations. That means someone would have to enter 10,000 passwords before they identified whether your password has four numbers or not. This does not even include letters, special characters, or if you wisely decide to use a longer password. My password exceeds 10 characters and is filled with special symbols, numbers, and letters. With the Limit Login Attempts plugin in place, I don’t have to worry about a robot guessing until it identifies the right password.

 

#9: Pinterest Pin It Button For Images

Pinterest is a social network that does not get as much credit as it deserves. While some people are thriving on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, there are not nearly as many people making it big on Pinterest. If you are not on Pinterest, then you are missing out.

Regardless of whether you use Pinterest or not, plenty of your visitors will have Pinterest accounts. Over 70 million people use Pinterest, and many of these people love to share pictures. If you make it easy for people to pin your blog posts, you will be able to get more traffic from Pinterest. Even if you do not have a large presence on Pinterest, some of the people who visit your blog may have large audiences on Pinterest.

The Pinterest Pin It Button For Images plugin is a plugin that adds a “Pin It” button to all of your pictures. This button only shows up when you drag your mouse on the image, but by clicking on the image, a new window that allows you to send the pin opens up to the side.

The more people share your content, the better, and Pinterest is a great source for more blog traffic.

 

#10: WWSGD

The abbreviation for this plugin stands for “What Would Seth Godin Do.” Although I wish this plugin allowed us to get business advice from the famous marketer himself, WWSGD allows you to put a message on your blog welcoming new and returning visitors alike.

You may have seen a message on the top of this blog post welcoming you back or welcoming you for the first time. These types of messages build a strong connection between you and the reader. You can customize what the messages say, and with some basic knowledge in HTML combined with Google searches, you can also modify how the box surrounding the text looks. This plugin is critical towards making your visitors feel like they belong on your blog. Making them feel like they belong will encounter those people to visit your blog numerous times. The more someone visits your blog, the more likely that person will be to buy your products and subscribe.

 

#11: WordPress Editorial Calendar

As you schedule more blog posts, it will be more confusing to remember when you scheduled blog posts. When I was writing two blog posts every day, I would accidentally send out three blog posts on some days because I scheduled two blog posts to get published at the same time. That did not help out towards keeping people on my email list.

That problem happens less often because now I only write one blog post every other day. In addition, I use the WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin. This plugin allows you to  stay organized by displaying all of your sent and scheduled blog posts on a calendar. If you do not know whether you properly scheduled a blog post three weeks in advance, you no longer have to scroll through your blog posts and look at the dates to see if that blog post was scheduled at the right time. The WordPress Editorial Calendar allows you to see the exact date and time you are scheduling certain blog posts.

 

#12: Widget Context

Isn’t it annoying when you put widgets on your blog only to realize that they should not appear on certain pages of your blog. You may not want a certain widget to be on your homepage, and you may want another widget to only show up on your homepage.

The Widget Context allows you to choose where widgets appear on your blog. If you want a widget to be displayed everywhere on your blog, then you don’t have to do anything else. The Widget Context is set to that default. However, if you only want to show your widget on certain blog posts and pages, the Widget Context plugin can be used to specify where you want the widget to show up.

The Widget Context is especially great for testing a widget. Some widgets that get put up for the first time do not work as intended just because we are not used to them. You can use the Widget Context to test out the widget on one of your blog’s pages that does not get a lot of attention. You can keep testing the widget until it works, and then you can display the widget everywhere on your blog knowing that it works.

 

In Conclusion

There are numerous WordPress plugins to choose from. However, not all of them are created equal. These 12 WordPress plugins have been the most beneficial for my blogger journey, and they have enhanced my blog in one way or the other. Plugins are essential to a blog’s success because they provide a blog with enhancements that a blog cannot provide for itself.

What are your thoughts on the 12 plugins? Do you have a favorite plugin? Please share your thoughts and plugins below.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: blogging, wordpress, wordpress plugins

5 Places To Get Good Statistics

November 11, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

I am a big fan of statistics. I use statistics for all of my social networks, all of my YouTube videos, and for this blog as well. These are 10 places that I use to look at my statistics:

  1. WordPress provides so many statistics that it’s mind-boggling. You get to find out how your visitors were referred to your blog, which of your blog posts are the most popular, who’s subscribed to your blog, which countries visitors are from, what people click on once they get to your blog, and search engine terms people use to get to your blog.

You get to see all of the websites and search engines that refer traffic to your blog. My favorite part about this feature is that you also get to see which social networks are referring traffic. I know when Twitter is referring traffic and how many people came from Twitter in a particular day. When you get traffic from Pinterest, you also get to see which pins are referring people to your blog. You also get to see how many times an individual pin gets clicked on.

You also get to see your top posts and pages. If one of your posts is doing very well compared to the others, that is the content your visitors want to see more often. If you write a blog post similar to your popular blog post, that blog post will increase your traffic.

You also get to see which links on your blog are getting clicked. You’ll be able to identify which of your products are the most popular, and this will allow you to learn about where your sales are coming from. You will also be able to learn which of your social network icons is getting clicked on the most.

For blog subscribers, you get to see how long it has been since they subscribed to your blog. You get to see the number of hours, weeks, months, and years since they subscribed to your blog.

Most search engine terms are going to remain as unknown, but some search engine terms will show up. Those are the search engine terms that you should build your blog around, and they should appear as tags on your blog.

2. TwitterCounter is great for Twitter. You get to see how many people followed you on a particular day, the number of people you followed on a particular day, and the number of times you tweeted on a particular day. Free users get access to up to 6 months of their history while Premium users get more features such as statistics for mentions, retweets, and more than 6 months of statistics. TwitterCounter provides all of its users with estimations of when they will reach certain milestones. If you want to know when you will reach 1,000 followers, TwitterCounter will give you an estimate. TwitterCounter’s estimations are based on the average change in followers every week. Higher milestone estimates become available as you get more followers. When you get in the thousands, your milestones are going to be in factors of 500 (8,000 followers, then 8,500 followers, etc). When you reach 10,000 followers, your milestones are going to be in factors of 1,000 (11,000 followers, then 12,000 followers, etc). If you want to reach a certain number of followers before the New Year, looking at the milestones will help you determine if what you are doing right now will allow you to accomplish that goal.

3. PinAuthority is similar to TwitterCounter, but it works for Pinterest. Unlike most places where you can check Pinterest statistics, PinAuthority is free and provides statistics for up to 3 months. However, there are some problems with PinAuthority. The first problem is that once your statistics get updated, they can’t be updated until the next day. The second problem is that you have to manually check in on PinAuthority every day in order to get the statistics that TwitterCounter automatically provides for you. There are paid options that are better than PinAuthority such as Pin Reach, but PinAuthority will provide more statistics than any other free Pinterest statistics site. Pinterest is a new social network, and there aren’t any free Pinterest statistics websites like TwitterCounter just yet.

4. You can’t call yourself a statistics guy or gal if you don’t know about Bitly. Bitly provides statistics for the number of clicks based on intervals of 30 days, 14 days, 7 days, 24 hours, and the past hour. Bitly allows you to see which of your links are popular and where people are clicking those links. Just like WordPress, you get to see all of the referrers, but in addition to seeing the referrers, Bitly organizes the data into a pie chart. Right now, the referral traffic I get from Twitter looks like a Pac-Man compared to my other sources of traffic for my Bitly links. There is also a pie chart that allows you to see which countries these people are coming from. You can even track the statistics for individual links. Bitly provides a lot of amazing statistics, and it’s also a URL shortener for all of those long links.

5. Pin Alerts only offers one statistic, but the statistic they offer is crucial towards success. Pin Alerts sends an email informing you when something on your website gets pinned. You get informed about when your website was pinned, a link to the board that the pin resides, a link to the pin, and the person who pinned your pin. Pin Alerts allows you to receive this information, and if you keep all of Pin Alerts’ emails together, you can create a list of your fans who are on Pinterest. You can follow all of the people who pinned a picture from your website, and you can share the pin since you have the link. If your website has pictures and a Pin It button, then you really need to use Pin Alerts.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bitly, pinterest, social media, twitter, twitter statistics, twittercounter, wordpress

TV Advertising Is Dead

August 17, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

The old methods don’t work anymore, but some people refuse to admit it. There are still a lot of commercials on TV. Those commercials don’t work as well as they used to. Everyone just wants to watch their favorite show now, but that’s not all.

The invention of cell phones–the cell phones with all of the apps like the iPhone–have hurt the marketing value of TV commercials dramatically. Instead of watching the commercials, I can always play the game Risk on my iPhone.

I’m not alone. There are more people with cell phones (4.8 billion) than there are people with toothbrushes (4.2 billion). I am not making that up.

That’s one of the possible reasons why people don’t watch TV commercials anymore. There might be other people who just don’t like the advertiser. I eat healthy, and my mom is a certified nutritionist, so I either mute or turn off the TV during all of the commercials promoting fast food restaurants.

People are also being taken away from the TV because of YouTube. Instead of waiting for all of the commercials to go by, you can watch the re-runs. There are some commercials on YouTube, but you get to skip most of them in 5 seconds. Then, you get to watch what you wanted to watch.

With TV advertising, there’s tons of commercials. Three minutes of commercials feels like a half an hour. You might as well watch paint dry. There’s no skip in 5 seconds option. The only option is to watch the entire commercial which turns people and their TVs off (although the Super Bowl is an exception).

When the TV advertisement reaches some people who are interested, most won’t buy the product. That’s because those people already have a similar seller that they trust. If you create blogs on WordPress, you won’t like the transition from WordPress to Blogger and vice versa.

Finally, that big audience you advertised to turns into the lone remainder. The few people who forgot to charge their cell phones, didn’t have the TV remote nearby, and decided to listen to your commercial since it was the only option.

TV advertising is not what it used to be. Change isn’t an option, it’s a necessity.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: business, business tip, marketing, wordpress

Counting Down

May 31, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Is your business going to be around for 10 years soon? WordPress recently celebrated its 10th year of service, and if there is an important event occurring, you should create a count down for that event. Count the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the special day is reached.

By counting down, you can recollect all you accomplished while working on what you are going to be celebrating. Count down to that special day and constantly remind yourself of all of the things you were able to accomplish within a short amount of time.

I’ll be doing a countdown for my last end term which is June 6, and then there’s 3 months of no school.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: business, business tip, inspiration, wordpress

Primary Sidebar

I am a business freelance writer who writes for individuals, small businesses, and corporations. My content will help drive engagement and sales to your business. I have produced content for several companies, including…

  • Upwork
  • MoneyLion
  • Freight Waves
  • Westchester Business Journal
  • Property Onion

Listen to the Podcast

Copyright © 2023 · Genesis Sample on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in