WordPress hosts over 59,000 plugins on their marketplace. But how are you supposed to rummage through and test each plugin to determine if it’ll positively impact your business websites?
We’ve made your life easier by gathering a list of some essential plugins to boost your productivity when working with WordPress.
Throughout this guide, you will find the best WordPress plugins for different categories. You’ll also learn how each piece of software will help you meet key performance indicators (KPIs) and generate results.
How Do WordPress Plugins Affect Content Marketing?
WordPress plugins are extremely useful in content marketing because they reduce the overall workload of managing your site by automating certain tasks.
WordPress plugins have the ability to:
- Improve website schema
- Improve technical search engine optimization (SEO)
- Fix broken links
It would appear that you should take advantage of all of these plugins. However, you should be careful not to download too many plugins as that can risk slowing your website.
Unfortunately, a slow website can impact your website’s ranking and user experience according to Google’s Core Web Vitals algorithm update.
With that said, there are some critical WordPress plugins that content marketers need to implement.
8 Best WordPress Plugins for Content Marketers
Throughout this section, you will learn about each of the WordPress plugin features, how they’ll enhance your content, and whether they’ll enhance your online marketing strategy.
1. RankMath (Free and Premium)
People typically suggest Yoast for managing SEO on your website. However, you may want to find an alternative like RankMath. It’s 3x lighter than Yoast, yet it still offers various features to bolster your content.
Some of the plugin’s various features that’ll make your life easier include:
- XML sitemap: Generates a sitemap to submit to search engines
- Schema Gutenberg blocks: Its FAQ and Product Review schema blocks raise your content’s chances of ranking in SERP features
- Content optimization scoring: Helps you better manage keywords throughout your post to enhance your on-page SEO
2. Broken Link Checker (Free)
This plugin won’t benefit you if you already have software that monitors your website for broken links. However, if you don’t, Broken Link Checker performs automated scans on your website and finds broken internal, image, and external links
3. Autoptimize (Free and Premium)
Rather than manually dealing with technical SEO, Autoptimize will remove unnecessary code from your website by minifying HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Making these adjustments will reduce the likelihood of visitors leaving your website due to sluggish loading times.
If you want to load only CSS that’s critical to your website—this enhances website speed—you’ll need to enter a subscription. Otherwise, you can access the plugin’s various features for free.
4. Editorial Calendar (Free)
While WordPress already has built-in features to schedule when you publish your content, you will need a visual reference to see when posts go live. With Editorial Calendar, you can have a reference and use its drag-and-drop user interface. With this interface, you can easily move posts and adjust your scheduled times.
5. Advanced Custom Fields (Free and Premium)
If you’re not using a plugin like RankMath or Yoast, you’ll want to use Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) to add additional fields to your post or page editing. You can add schema and other areas to enhance your workflow when building content with these fields.
6. LuckyWP Table of Contents (Free)
If you’re not using a table of contents in your content, you’re missing out. These elements give you additional links to increase your website’s chances of being on page one of the SERP.
Crafting these tables is tedious, though. LuckyWP automatically generates a Wikipedia-style table of contents list and saves you from entering everything manually.
7. i2 Pros & Cons (Free)
It’s tiresome creating an appealing pros vs. cons list using code. That’s where i2’s Pros & Cons plugin enters the picture. First, you enter where a product or service excels and doesn’t do well. Then the plugin generates list columns with icons.
Also, after your pros and cons list, you can add a CTA button with this plugin.
8. ShortPixel Image Optimizer (Free and Premium)
When checking your website on Google Page Speed Insights, you’ll often receive warnings about not properly sizing your images. Instead of taking your media to an image editor, ShortPixel automatically adjusts image sizes.
The plugin will also convert your images into modern image formats like WebP. Doing so will significantly enhance your website’s performance.
Unfortunately, ShortPixel runs on credits. While the plugin will optimize a certain number of images for free per day—this includes converting images to different file formats and adjusting thumbnails. To optimize more images, you will need to purchase additional credits.
How Do You Install WordPress Plugins?
To install a plugin on WordPress, you will need to navigate to the “Plugins” menu and click “Add New.” From here, you have two options: search for the plugin you need or upload a plugin from a zip file you downloaded.
The easiest route to take is to search for a plugin because all you need to do is press install and click activate. Also, you can find almost any free plugin from WordPress’ marketplace.
While uploading a plugin is almost as simple, it may add a couple of extra seconds to your workflow due to searching for files. However, all that you need to do to upload plugins is click the “Upload Plugin” button, select your plugin, and wait for the following text to appear on your screen: Plugin Installed Successfully.”
Afterward, you will click activate and adjust your plugin’s settings.
If you download a plugin from a third-party website, you may be compromising your computer and your website’s security. It is possible that potentially untrustworthy vendors may code malware into their plugins.
Are You Using the Best WordPress Plugins?
Choosing the best WordPress plugins makes an enormous difference in investing your time. For example, instead of spending your day hunting broken links to prevent potential penalties, you can have a plugin do the work for you.
Now that you have a toolbox for your website, you can focus on your content.
Get a free content evaluation with okwrite, and we will help you find the best marketing solutions for your business website.
