Anyone who has worked with WordPress knows plugins are invaluable to creating a richer user experience or for optimizing your website.
But the problem is there are so many options to choose from even for certain functions whether it’s search engine optimization (SEO), form builders or post schedulers. Every year, hundreds of new plugins are released. Some are more useful than the others. To help you get familiar with the latest and most innovative WordPress plugins, we’ve listed five of the most interesting plugins we’ve found:
1. Social Warfare
For improved social media engagement
Developed by Warfare Plugins, Social Warfare is a WordPress plugin that allows you to generate more social media shares of your posts and drive more traffic by optimizing the way you post your social messages.
Social Warfare is offered with either free but limited features or paid with full features and support. You can choose where to install your social sharing buttons (on top or under an article, or both, etc.), enable floating share buttons that follow readers as they peruse through your blog and show how many times a post has been shared or tweeted for social proof. They also have a widget that shows the most popular posts and enables readers to quickly tweet quotes with a click of a button.
2. Media Cleaner
Declutter your library fast
Another useful plugin released recently is Media Cleaner developed by Jordy Meow. It basically detects which media files aren’t used in your WordPress site making it easier for you to delete unnecessary files.
Those who write blogs regularly know how quickly your uploads and media library folders become easily cluttered with images and other media files. This happens later down the line after blogs or pages have been revised and some media files are omitted from published pages. With the Media Cleaner plugin, you can save space and make sure your media repository is uncluttered.
3. MailChimp for WooCommerce
E-Commerce and Marketing Automation combined
For online store owners that use WooCommerce with their WordPress, you can now combine WooCommerce’s extensive e-commerce capabilities with the marketing automation prowess of MailChimp. Best part – it’s free!
The MailChimp for WooCommerce plugin was developed by MailChimp itself and allows you to sync customer and purchase data from WooCommerce to your MailChimp platform. This allows you to make targeted email campaigns based on their buying behaviour.
Through the plugin, you can sync the contact list and purchase data, create abandoned cart automation workflows, send product recommendations, segment them based on their purchase history and measure ROI.
4. Easy AdSense Ads Manager for WordPress
Advanced ad placement and management
There’s a new ad inserter plugin in WordPress, the Easy AdSense Ads Manager. It allows for you to easily manage the ads you wish to display. It integrates right into your WordPress customizer and you can see the ads you inserted through an instant preview.
It supports ads from AdSense, Amazon Affiliate Ads, Chitika, BuySell Ads, Bidvertiser, Clicksor and more. The plugin will allow you to insert several ads within a page and use these set ad sections to insert HTML code or opt-in forms from platforms such as MailChimp or AWeber. It’s pretty versatile as it allows you to display ads in various parts of your website even within posts in between paragraphs. They’re also responsive and adapt depending on the device they’re being viewed in.
5. Paperlit
Venture into digital publishing
Ever thought about repurposing your blogs into another content format and maybe drive more revenue through them… say, a digital magazine, for example? If so, then Paperlit might just be what you’re looking for. The Paperlit plugin is a new WordPress plugin developed out of the digital publishing platform Paperlit which specializes in creating digital magazines.
Through Paperlit, you can use WordPress as your Content Management System (CMS) and create your own digital magazine out of your blogs. Digital magazines are known for their superior design and are an ideal way to recycle content. You can even monetize your blogs further since you can develop a subscription program for your digital magazine or place ads there as well.
Conclusion
Getting the right WordPress plugin is not just about blogging better. Sometimes, it can be a way for you to further drive value from your content or even help you change your business model. Plugins such as Paperlit can open up new opportunities to generate revenue that isn’t available if you’re just sticking purely to your blog.
