Your choice of blogging platform can help you get the most out of your writing. WordPress is popular with many writers as it’s so adaptable. If you want to customise the platform, these 15 tools and plugins will help you get the most out of it.
Yoast SEO:
This tool is designed to make it easy to track and monitor your SEO. It sits in your dashboard and helps you see how good your SEO is as you write. It will show you how strong your keywords are, how good your readability is, and more.
Floating Social Bar:
Social share bars are a must, but a lot can slow your site down. This plugin is designed to give you those tools without affecting your blog’s speed. Now your readers can share your blog on any social media site that they choose.
Easy Word Count:
Keeping your blogs short is one of the best ways to keep readers interested. This tool will help you keep them to the correct length.
Academized:
Plagiarism is a real problem online, and sites will be penalised by Google if they’re found to be using another writer’s work. This can happen if you don’t mean it to. Use this site to check your work before posting it.
CoSchedule Headline Analyzer:
A good headline is crucial to getting readers to click through to your blog. This tool will give you data on your headline, and give suggestions on how to improve it.
WPData Tables:
This plugin helps you create responsive tables for your blog. It’s easy to use and helps you create visual interest in your posts.
The Noun Project:
This plugin gives you icons for almost anything you can think of. You can use them as identifiers, or as images in their own right. They can bring a lot of interest to your blog without the effort.
Buy essay:
Proofreading is an essential part of blog writing. This tool helps you find an expert to check your blogs for you before publication.
Playbuzz:
This plugin is designed to help you create interactive elements, such as quizzes and polls. It’s a tool that you can use to increase engagement. You can also use it to gauge what your readers want from you.
Australian Help:
If you need an editor to polish up your blog ready for publication, you’ll find one here easily. They’ll edit it according to your notes, and send it back to you ready to be used.
Cool Timeline:
As the name implies, this tool enables you to create embeddable timelines in your blogs, good if you need more visual interest.
Link Patrol:
Links are important, as they will show readers that you’re a well-researched blog. This checks that all the blogs you’re using are legit.
Big Assignments:
This writing service is capable of putting out different types of writing, including blogs. Give your writer the topic and any info they need, and they’ll get it written. It can save you time when you’re looking to hit deadlines.
Followerwonk:
This tool helps you find new trending topics to include in your blog. This is helpful when you’re out of ideas, or want to use a trend to launch a blog.
YARPP:
This tool will help you retain readers after they finish, by sending them to a related post.
These tools will help you get the most out of your WordPress blog. Give them a try, and you’ll see just how much your readership and engagement can grow.
Brenda Berg is a professional with over 15 years of experience in business management, marketing and entrepreneurship. Consultant and tutor for college students and entrepreneurs at Resumention and UK top writers. She believes that constant learning is the only way to success. Besides, she regularly writes for her blog Letsgoandlearn.
Internet marketing has wrought about a mixed basket of fortunes for businesses in the contemporary world. On the one hand, there are early adopters who are now way ahead of their competition and who are easily integrating innovative techniques to boost their marketing campaigns. However, there are also those businesses that took internet technology as a fad and they are playing catch up today. Whatever your position in the current setup, you can revitalize your marketing efforts by leveraging the power of video.
While video marketing was hitherto a privilege of major brands, it is now possible for all types of businesses to reach a wider audience using online visual content. The secret behind marketing is the nature of humans, especially when it comes to their proclivity to share visuals. Many nondescript brands have rose to prominence through creative video marketing and this is something you can also do for your business.
Harnessing the Power of Video
To appreciate the power of video, consider that adding a video on a landing page increases conversion by 80%. It gets even better; visual content in an email increases click-through rate by about 200-300%, which is every online marketer’s dream. Using video on your pages will also increase engagement by 22% according to the same survey. In addition, 64% of viewers are more likely to buy a product or service after watching an ad.
These numbers make a strong case for integration of video into your marketing campaign. There are so many websites competing in your niche and it is imperative to leverage any technique that boosts your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. By 2017 video content is expected to account for over 74% of all internet traffic. The fact that 93% of all internet experiences start with a search engine means you have to add more visual content on your website if at all you are to boost visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs).
In summary, video marketing boosts visibility online and allows you to reach a wider market. It is the most cost-effective strategy to meet your website’s marketing goals and it is now even easier to make a video using video plugins. Video encourages social shares, increases lead and sales conversion, creates brand awareness, boosts brand trust and helps increase engagement on your website.
Hassle-Free Video Making Process
If you are using a WordPress website, then you are already ahead of the pack. It is easy to customize your website and add and edit your video content. However, you have to come up with the video content first and this can be a hassle for most website owners. Your hands are already full trying to run your core business and starting to create and publish videos will be stressful.
Luckily, you can now make video online without much strain and add it on your WP website or blog. One good thing about WP content management system (CMS) is the availability of video plugins that make it possible to create a professional video to promote your business.
An online video maker comes with various advantages as seen below:
1. Availability of high-quality software – Video making software is expensive and for this reason, most small businesses end up making poor quality productions. However, you can take advantage of high-quality movie software that gives the best visual quality for your videos. This will add an edge to your website and it increases the likelihood of your video going viral.
2. No technical skills needed –The beauty of online video software is the fact that you don’t require any specialized skills in videography or computers to get the job done. You can now create an amazing animation to market your business without investing in an in-house design team. Once you select the template you love from the platform, you just have to add your video, photos, text and audio to get the production you want.
3. Affordability – If you are worried about the cost of a professional video, it is time to look at the best WP video plugin to make a scintillating production at the best prices. You don’t have to break the bank in order to market your business. With a good online video maker, you are assured of the best ROI.
4. Quick video production – The best thing about using a video plugin is the fact that everything is done online and you don’t need to wait for anyone in order to complete the process. Within a few minutes, you will have done everything and visitors to your website will start watching what you have posted.
5. Versatile range of videos – Whether you want an animation, explainer video, mobile app marketing videos, logo animation, event videos, promotional video or any other type of production, it has never been easier to get it done. This versatility is what has made online video making software so popular.
WP video plugins come in different forms and their functions are diverse. They allow you to embed your videos into your WPblog or website, create a professional video gallery, remove YouTube brand from your videos and replace them with your own logo, enable social sharing, customize your video in terms of appearance, size, video feed type, width, ratio and much more.
Conclusion
There is no denying the importance of video in modern business and for this reason, you must include it at the core of your SEO St Pete efforts. Video content is easy and affordable to produce and also highly customizable, making it the ultimate SEO technique. Better still, there are many online tools that you can use to optimize your video marketing campaign.
If your business is struggling to make a mark in the internet marketplace, it is time to leverage this versatile marketing tool. With professional video content, you will be able to reach a bigger audience and enjoy the best ROI in your RiseOak SEO Company efforts. This is without doubt the ultimate online marketing tool now and in future.
Author Bio
Charlene Ryan is a freelance online marketing consultant based in Miami. She also blogs on topical issues in the industry and mentors upcoming marketers with webinars such as how to make video; the mother of two is also a PADI-certified diver.
Selecting WordPress Plugins – how to make the tough job easy
Plugins make WordPress even more powerful than what we perceive. Correctly speaking, one of the greatest strengths of WordPress is the plugins. The enormous versatility of the WordPress platform emanates from the plugins. WordPress plugins are not decorative items that you can use as showpieces. If you have some essential function to perform or want to solve some particular problem, then you must use plugins. Plugins empower users that in turn help to assert their faith in the powers of WordPress. The key to efficient use of plugins is selecting the right ones and using it only when it is vital. Moreover, procuring plugins from authentic sources is equally important to ensure proper functioning and service support required to maintain its effectiveness.
Should you use plugins?
The Calgary SEO expert will tell you why it makes perfect sense to use plugins. One way of strengthening your SEO initiatives is to use plugins so that you can perform much more things on the WordPress platform that would not be possible otherwise. From speeding up your blog to securing it and from managing 404 errors and redirects to optimizing blogs for search engines, you can find a plugin for almost everything. Building high converting landing pages, growing e-mail list, blocking spam comments and encouraging social sharing is all possible by using WordPress plugins.
Selecting plugins
With thousands of plugins floating all around and each offering some unique functionality, the task of choosing the right plugins is far from easy. There are high chances that you might find it quite difficult to distinguish between similar plugins and end up confused.
First, determine the area where you would require a plugin to perform some special function that the WordPress platform does not support by default. You might need to back up your content easily and require a plugin. Similarly, you can think of plugins for enhancing security, improving user experience or even improving conversions.
Secondly, there is no strict rule of using any particular plugin for specific functions because the plugin that works well for one might not help another person. Some other plugin might be working well for him. In this article, you will find plugins that are similar to one another but not the same. You can use these interchangeably for performing certain functions. This should help you make the right selection.
Faster page loading
People expect that blogs would load quickly and if the speed is sluggish, then you are losing on two counts – search ranking and conversion. For search rankings, Google factors page loading speed into its algorithm and slow pages can push down rankings in search results. The need for speedier pages has become even more important now that more and more people are using mobile devices and want pages to open instantly as they tap the screen on their phones. Secondly, slow pages mean lower conversions and according to studies carried out, delay of just one second translates into a 7% reduction in conversion.
The following plugins give good results in enhancing page speed.
- WP Super Cache – You can download the free plugin that has a broad range of features, but it will be wrong to construe it as a simple caching plugin. This easy to use plugin generates HTML files that are static and present it to viewers. This saves the time it would take to load dynamic pages.
- W3 Total Cache – This can be the go-to plugin for those seeking improvement in page loading time. It is compatible with many different hosting environments and is fully configured to provide the kind of functionality you expect from it.
You may have to try out both to figure out which one suit you best. Since both are free, trying out should not be a problem.
Managing redirects and 404 error monitoring
There will be occasions when you change the URL of content like posts and blogs. Viewers and search engines must get the cue from proper redirects that guide them to the new URL. If it is a permanent change, you can use a 301 redirect or a temporary redirect for changes that are temporary with the option of reverting to the original URL. By monitoring 404 errors, you can add redirects proactively for consistent user experience. The Redirection plugin can do it all for you.
Redirection –This is yet another free WordPress plugin. Managing 301 redirects and monitoring 404 errors for adding redirects, you can do it all very comprehensively by using this plugin. The plugin comes with an error logging feature, and if you feel like exporting your redirects, you can do it. Just ensure that you disable the log-tracking feature in settings to reduce the load on the server when using the plugin.
Optimizing blogs for SEO
How useful plugins can be is well realized when you use WordPress for optimization. Since the default setting of WordPress does not support all optimization measures, the use of plugins become essential. The plugins allow tweaking various technicalities so that you can add Meta data, set canonical links even mark ‘noindex’ pages that you want to keep out of the scope of Google’s indexation. There are many more things that you can do to augment the optimization process. Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack are the two most popular plugins for SEO.
Yoast SEO – This highly popular plugin comes with a spectacular range of features. It can generate a score on the pages or posts, and it can add XML sitemaps and Open Graph data. This plugin is free, and the premium version is also available.
All in One SEO – With one million active installs, the popularity of this plugin needs no more mention. Although free, the level of support service of this plugin is highly impressive. You can even buy the premium version.
The better you can ascertain your need and align it with what plugins can do for you, easier it will be for selecting the most appropriate plugin.
What is Rich Snippets? How it increase CTR of your website?
In 2009 Google welcomes new feature called Rich snippets for improving the display of search results. Now a day’s high ranking is not enough but adding rich snippets to your page definitely increase your click through rate (CTR) of website.
The main goal being to help webmasters present their content better, and giving users as much information as possible before they made the choice to click through to a website.
Rich snippet includes information like:
- Average Review, Number of Stars, Price Range
- Images and Video
- Lyrics and link to play a Song
- Phone Numbers, Address and Photo
- Product Information
- Event Location, Time and Date
- Author Photo, Name and Link to more articles
- Breadcrumbs
Rich snippet provides some extra information about the page making the user aware of the content type find out if that piece of content has the importance to their search query or not.
I’ll show you the 7 Best WordPress Rich Snippets plugins.
Schemaninja is the new addition to WordPress repository as one of the best schema plugins, especially for review purpose. You can not only make your reviews look better in search engines but also get more affiliate sales using the recommendation feature. After installing the plugin, you need to activate it with the free API and you’re done.
You can treat the plugin as your money generator plugin from niche based or review based websites.
All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets
If you are looking for a reliable, free and fully friendly plugin to implement rich snippets functionality in every post than this might be your first choice. More than 40k downloads and 4.4 star rating makes it like Swiss knife of plugins.
You can configure each post while editing to add more information. After installing the plugins, you can customize it as per your work.
This plugin is free but delivers premium type features and support. More than 10k active downloads tells its success story. This plugin is already made compatible with the latest version of WordPress. I personally recommended it because I already use this plugin in MeetRV and get amazing results.
Rich Reviews gives you the control to use and customize three types of reviews: per-page/per-post, category, or worldwide reviews – whether you desire users to review products, categories, or your entire website. Provides endless color options for star and numerical rating systems.
Schema App Structured Data becomes your best weapon for implement rich snippets. Its fully compatible with latest wordpress version. Plugins automatically set up schema.org markup on WordPress site on your all pages, posts, author pages and more.
This plugin connect with Scheme Editor tool which easily add content/details and then generates the code and adds it to your WordPress website automatically. You can revise your markup anytime without having to do re-work.
Its premium version provides more features like Validation, Crawler & Reporting.
It’s a premium WordPress plugin which comes for $19.95 for one website and it looks and sounds quite exciting. If you go for paid plugins than you must try this one. Also a lite version available for free with some basic features.
Offers complete Schema, Structured Data and Rich Snippet markup, resolve all errors of schema markup in your theme template. Pro version ncludes contributor markup for Co-Authors Plus authors and guest authors.
Also works in combination with the WordPress Social Sharing Optimization (WPSSO) plugin to include complete Schema JSON-LD / Rich Snippet markup (images, videos, author, co-authors, publisher, place, product, etc.) for Google Search, Pinterest and others. WooCommerce supportis there— adds all product variations to your schema product markup!
It’s a highly robust and comprehensive plugin that will help you to add snippets in your posts and pages that improves CTR. This plugins allows to create snippets very easily. If you are beginner than this plugin helps you a lot.
Plugins use JSON-LD (Java Script based) format because Google fastly catch up JSON-LD data that is dynamically injected from Javascript code and embedded widgets. This plugin provides all type of snippet features that most business website need.
Highly expert support team and regular updates make this plugin more powerful and reliable than other.
Another premium plugin in just $49 which sounds great. WP Rich Snippets is best plugin for websites with a huge variety of options to build different types of rich snippets. Try different ways to rate and review content smartly. With WP Rich Snippets, you can create own attractively-styled reviews on website using your own custom criteria, as well as managing user-submitted reviews.
You can see how rich snippets looks in google via dashboard. This plugins gives you complete control over what schema data is added to each page and post. Add snippets in posts, like star ratings, prices, addresses, hours open, votes, and percentages. Customize option for color and font change.
Enables you to create multimedia reviews with images, videos, slideshows and clickable call-to-action buttons that stand out and grab more attention.
Rich Snippets WordPress Plugin
With thousands of active install, this one is the best paid plugin you can use for this specific requirements in just $12. I’ve personally tested all snippets with the Rich Snippet Testing Tool. This plugin ships with pre-installed shortcodes but you also have the option to manually add your own in every post and pages.
By watching youtube video created by expert developers, you can easily add snippets in just 10 minutes. Regular future updates that can guarantee you that your plugin will not be out of date. You can combine more snippets into your plugin than the ones that come with the plugin.
Wrapping Up :
We covered 7 best rich snippet plugins to add all type of snippets to your page. Still some doubts than install all this plugins one by one on your test blog, and you won’t be disappointed.
If you want to go for free option than All in One Schema option and for paid plugins Rich Snippets WordPress Plugin is best among all.
We hope this post helped you find the great rich snippet WordPress plugin. You may also want to see our post on best SEO tools for content marketing.
Author Bio : Ravi Bhatt is a crazy freelance writer – founder of
Today we are discussing the thumbnail feature for WordPress. WordPress has a number of amazing hidden tools and plugins that can make a world of difference for your site. Thumbnails is one of those interesting tools that perhaps is overlooked more than most.
Basically a thumbnail post is similar to an image being added to your post. The thumbnail option is called Featured Image through WordPress but has the same meaning. Basically you are creating an image for each individual post by adding a thumbnail or featured image to that post.
First off you want to find the Featured image option on the bottom of your screen’s post it should be located on the right hand of the screen once you scroll down a bit. After clicking on this option you simply click on Set Featured Image. This will then open the media uploader in which you can add an image from your library or from your computer and then set to save the featured image to your post.
Why use a Thumbnail with your post? This option is giving an individual image to include in your post instead of having just a photo gallery page where the images are accessible but not set for each individual post. Depending on your set theme the thumbnails may appear as a small image in your post at the bottom or they may have a bit larger layout to include with your post. Each individual theme will have a different appearance of their featured images.
Having a featured image with your page may be the color or nice feature your page is needing. This also gives you an opportunity to showcase your work and add on the image that goes with what you are wanting to represent for your site.
There is also a way to determine your thumbnail size depending on your theme it may not be large enough for what you are needing for your page. You can change your thumbnail size by going to Settings> Media> and then Set Thumbnail Size. From here you can determine the size for all your thumbnails for your site instead of sticking with the default size.
Creating a thumbnail can create a visual association for each one of your post or pages. Be aware that thumbnail support must be enabled within your theme, and if it isn’t you can also add it with different plug in options online. There are many plugins to choose from when adding a thumbnail option it depends on what interface you prefer with your page. This is a useful visual effect to add to each one for your post and can help identify with your pages individually. Depending on the simplicity you are looking for in creating thumbnails for your page you can just as easy use the default settings and add a simple thumbnail to each post as an extra visual association. Either way this is another useful tool to use through WordPress to be taken advantage of.
Plugins help you maximize the potential of your website and thus attracting more visitors. For this reason, developers have been pushing the envelope to come up with the best WordPress plugins that help you perform different tasks on your site.
To get the most out of these plugins, taking the time to find out which plugins work best for you is requisite. This is important because you don’t want to overload your site with many of them as they will grind it to a halt. (more…)
When you set up a new WordPress website, the second thing you do after installing a theme is search for useful plugins. We offer you 10 top plugins you must have on you new website.
1. All in One SEO Pack.
WordPress is a well search engine optimized platform. To boost your SEO you may need All in One SEO Pack, which helps with fine tuning of page navigational links, optimizes your titles for Google, generates meta tags automatically, and much more.
2. Yoast SEO.
This is another SEO plugin that is highly helpful when you optimize your posts for search engines. Using the snippet preview you can see a rendering of what your post or page will look like in the search results, whether your title is too long or too short and your meta description makes sense in the context of a search result. This is only a small part of what Yoast SEO can help you optimize.
3. Redirection.
Redirection plugin allows to manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors. This is one of the best tools to set up redirections in your WordPress website. Read more on redirection in our previous articles: 3 Main Reasons Why You May Need Redirects in WordPress Website and How to Set Up Redirects in Your WordPress Website.
4. BackWPup Free.
The backup plugin BackWPup Free can be used to save your complete installation including /wp-content/ and push them to an external Backup Service, like Dropbox, S3, FTP and many more. Remember: The most expensive backup is the one you never did!
5. W3 Total Cache.
W3 Total Cache is designed to improve user experience and page speed. It improves the user experience of your site by increasing server performance, reducing the download times and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration. It is recommended by numerous hosting providers.
6. OptinMonster.
OptinMonster is a lead generation plugin. It helps you grow you your email list and get more subscribers. OptinMonster allows you to build high converting opt-in forms in minutes. You can choose from 8 different type of opt-ins including: popups, floating bars, slide-ins, sidebar forms, after-post forms, in-line forms, mobile-only popups, and Canvas.
7. Live Chat Software by HelpOnClick.
Live Chat Software by HelpOnClick allows you to talk to your website visitors in real time. Human engagement through a live chat can have a positive effect on your website conversions and sales. The plugin allows real-time traffic monitoring, it has multiple engagement options, virtual agent and advanced reporting.
8. Contact form 7.
Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting and CAPTCHA.
9. Share Buttons by AddToAny.
The WordPress sharing plugin to help people share, save, and email your posts and pages using any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, Reddit, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and well over 100 more sharing and social bookmarking sites.
10. NextGEN Gallery.
NextGEN Gallery is the most popular WordPress gallery plugin. It provides a powerful engine for uploading and managing galleries of images and two front-end display styles (slideshows and thumbnail galleries), both of which come with a wide array of options for controlling size, style, timing, transitions, controls, lightbox effects, and more.
WordPress is a great platform, because there are already thousands plugins for everything that you may need on your website. But if you are starting a new website, the above top WordPress plugins are the basis for you.
When you start your blog, you may think of a visual theme for it. Visual themes are very appealing because they have lots of beautiful, emotional pictures that create the mood of your blog. But where to get brilliant photos if you are not a good photographer? In this article we will tell you about WordPress plugins that allow you to get free photos for your WordPress blog and social media.
#Foter.com – for seamless use within the WordPress platform
Foter offers over 200 million free stock photos for blogs, forums and social media. It lets you add photos directly to your blog, and has a cool WordPress plugin that allows adding photos from your WordPress dashboard.
#Compfight – WordPress plugin for photos from Flickr
Compfight is another great website for bloggers. It also has a plugin for WordPress websites that allows you to add photos to your blog with one click. Compfight searches photos mostly from Flickr, and it can also offer photos from Shutterstock.
#PhotoDropper
PhotoDropper has over 243,800,000+ free images (via Creative Commons license) and 10,000,000+ premium images, which can be added to your blog within four clicks. It searches photos on various stock websites, and even handles the attribution.
#Pixabay images
Pixabay images is a WordPress plugin that pics public domain photos from Pixabay. The photos are free to use, and paying attribution or linking back is not required. The plugin allows to upload a 640 px wide or high version of the image directly to your WordPress media library.
#Dreamstime Stock Photos
Dreamstime WordPress plugin offers large selection of free and professional stock photos online without leaving WordPress. One great thing about Dreamstime plugin, if you are already a Dreamstime client, the plugin will connect with your account, and you will be able to use previously purchased images.
Solostream offers several visual themes for WordPress websites, such as WP-Visual, WP-Boundless, WP-Chatter, and others. We hope that you will find the one that suits you best, and fill it with beautiful images.