Awesome WordPress Plugins
If you use WordPress for a small to medium sized business website then this post is for you. Over the past several months I have discovered some awesome WordPress plugins that can help you with your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), link management and create custom pages with dynamic widget management.
WordPress SEO Plugin
WordPress SEO is a great plugin to help with all the SEO work you need to do on your site. I first heard about this from local SEO guru Phil Buckley (@1918) and have been found it to be one of the best SEO tools I’ve used. Just this week a new release was announced and available that makes this plugin even better. WordPress SEO allows you to change the meta keywords and descriptions and other tags that search engines crawl and index on your site. But where it really adds value is by performing analysis on how well you focused on the keyword you want to be listed under. The latest release is now paired with Linkdex for enhanced analysis that reviews your post and gives you feedback on how to tweet your page for maximum optimization. This allows you to go back and edit the specific areas to focus more on what keyword you are wanting to show up for in search results.
Yoast WordPress SEO Page Analysis Screen with Linkdex
Broken Link Checker Plugin
The second WordPress plugin I’ve found useful is Broken Link Checker. Finding broken links is a never-ending task and this WordPress plugin does all the hard work for you. It detects links that don’t work, missing images and redirects and will alert you via the WordPress dashboard or email. There are several options for page and posts types and you can prevent search engines from following broken links as well. The interface cleanly lists all broken links and allows you to edit, update or remove the link depending on the circumstances. I use this to find any broken internal links that may have happened from archiving or changing URLs as well as any links on other sites that have changed. You can also scan the link source for links that are not really broken like older tweets that have been archived from Twitter and other sites.
Broken Link Checker Plugin Screen
Dynamic Widgets Plugin
Creating a personalized experience is key to website design and conversion optimization. With the Dynamic Widgets WordPress plugin you can do just that. This plugin allows you to choose which pages that specific widgets will appear on the page. The settings are very robust and can be set according to user roles, dates, pages, categories and Buddypress groups to name a few. These options allow you to set default and custom settings for specific widgets. For example if you want to cross sell on a landing or conversion page you can set those widgets to appear on those pages and any child pages. Using this tool requires some level of widget modeling and you may find it necessary to develop a chart that lists what widgets should appear on what pages depending on your specific criteria. It takes some work to get it all setup but in the end it is worth it.
Dynamic Widgets plugin screen
I hope you find these WordPress plugins as valuable as I have. What are some of the WordPress plugins that you have found to be helpful?
