ShareIn 2003 WordPress launched as a rudimentary tool to improve typography. Now in 2017 over 27% of the entire World Wide Web is using WordPress to power their websites, with more than 24 posts being published every second.
So with 1 in every 4 websites using WordPress as their CMS, it’s more than likely that you’re going to come across it in your digital marketing endeavours. And with more than 47,000 WordPress plugins, we thought we’d save you the time of sifting through them all by picking out the best plugins to help support your digital marketing activities.
1. Yoast SEO
Commonly referred to as the #1 WordPress SEO plugin with over 40 million downloads, the Yoast SEO plugin is a comprehensive solution for your technical search engine optimisation requirements, including:
1. Keyword Optimisation
2. Google SERP Snippet Preview
3. Meta Information
4. Readability Checks
5. Breadcrumb Control
6. Canonical Tags
7. txt
8. XML Sitemaps
9. Social Integration
The plugin can be downloaded for free, however there is also a premium option which includes additional features and support, starting from an annual fee of $69 for a single website.
Download Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars Cost: Freemium
2. Redirection
Redirection does exactly what it says on the tin. It provides the capability to implement various redirects on pages and articles of your WordPress website. Although this feature is available in the premium version of the Yoast SEO plugin, this provides you with the ability to avoid paying and utilise the same features.
Some of the most useful features are the fact that it logs 404 errors and allows you to easily map 301 redirects to quickly resolve these. The Redirection plugin also automatically establishes a 301 redirect when a post URL is modified. These features can be particularly useful if you’re in the process of migrating pages from an old website, or are changing the directory of your WordPress installation.
Download Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars Cost: Free
3. Gravity forms
Gravity Forms is now actively used on more than one million WordPress powered websites. It’s often referred to as one of, if not the, best contact form plugin for WordPress. One of the contributing factors to this honourary title is the fact Gravity Forms also enables you to easily integrate with a variety of additional third party services such as PayPal and MailChimp.
On top of that the plugin also has configurable email routing based on field values, along with a REST API for adding form submissions from decoupled websites/apps. This means a separate project or landing page could post form entries to a single Gravity Forms installation without having to be integrated with the WordPress site. Amazing!
Download Cost: $39
4. Campaign Tracker for WordPress
The Campaign Tracker plugin solves the issue of accurately tracking the source of your website leads. They support Google’s campaign variables, you probably know them as “Source”, “Medium”, “Term”, “Content” and “Name”. When you have campaigns that use these URL variables the values can be passed directly to your WordPress forms and sent though your forms in a hidden field.
Basically, on any contact form on your website this plugin will allow you to select exactly which hidden fields you require. It also provides full support for the GCLID variable, which is going to be very useful if you’re using Google AdWords. On top of this it also has the capability to host up to 6 custom variables, which enable you to add additional parameters to your URLs and track them in the same way.
Download Cost: $49
5. WooCommerce MailChimp
In a nutshell; WooCommerce MailChimp provides simple MailChimp integration for WooCommerce. In greater detail this means the plugin can automatically subscribe customers to a designated MailChimp list and, optionally, MailChimp interest groups upon order creation or order completion. This can be done quietly or based on the user’s consent with several opt-in settings that support international opt-in laws. This can be an incredibly useful tool for your email marketing activities if your site is using WooCommerce.
Download Cost: $49
Hopefully this list has either confirmed you’re already using some of the best plugins, or provided you with new opportunities to do so. Of course this list only contains a fraction of the 47,000 WordPress plugins that are out there. So out of the other 46,995 WordPress plugins, please share with us which of them are essential to your digital marketing activities?
