Latest posts by Jawad Khan (see all)
- 5 Most Useful WordPress Plugins for Bloggers and Freelancers - January 23, 2014
- 5 Steps to Get the Maximum Benefit From Guest Blogging - January 17, 2014
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One of the primary reasons why WordPress is such a popular CMS is its flexibility and simplicity. It offers a huge variety of options, even for users with very basic computer knowledge.
WordPress plugins cover almost every need of a webmaster from security and performance to user engagement and sales. This is the reason why the majority of bloggers and freelancers prefer WordPress for their websites.
Here’s a list of 5 very useful WordPress plugins for bloggers and freelancers to add more flavor to your website.
1. Selz E-commerce Plugin
Finding a secure and reliable payment management and selling service is a major challenge for most freelancers who sell products/services through their websites. Selz is just the ideal solution for this problem.
With Selz, you can sell your services and digital/conventional products with a simple WordPress plugin. It’s a free plugin that can be integrated in your website seamlessly without any need for technical knowledge and expertise.
A major advantage of using Selz is its user friendly functions and interface. It is simple and easy to implement for site owners, as well as being quick and easy for customers to purchase without having to leave the site. Selz handles the secure processing of credit card transactions and the automated delivery of digital files when purchased.
It also saves the email addresses of every buyer, and can be integrated with major email services like Mailchimp, AWeber etc.
In short, Selz is an ideal WordPress plugin for anyone who wants to start selling within a few minutes on his website.
2. Better Internal Link Search
Although there are very few loopholes in WordPress as a content management system, but there’s still some room for improvement. One of the weaker areas of WordPress is its default search mechanism.
You don’t always get the most relevant results with the internal search engine of WordPress. This can lead to dissatisfied website visitors and increased bounce rates.
Fortunately, you can use Better Internal Link Search, an awesome WordPress plugin, to solve this problem. Better Internal Link Search gives you the control of developing your own search engine algorithm for WordPress.
But don’t worry, it’s nothing technical.
You can simply decide what areas of a post WordPress should search when a user enters a search query. The default WordPress search engine searches everything including post/page title and the complete content.
You can limit this to only post/page titles, tags, categories and any other areas you feel necessary.
On the face of it, these are simple options, but since they’re not a part of the original WordPress search algorithm, that’s why they’re extremely handy in improving your internal website search results
3. Hello
Bar
Building a sizable mailing list is one of the top priorities for any blogger. And there’s no better way to do that than using the Hello Bar.
Developed by the CrazyEgg team, the Hello Bar can be used for a number of objectives. It does an amazing job in building your email list by immediately catching the visitor’s attention. You can integrate it with any of the leading email services including Mailchimp and AWeber.
It simply appears on top of the screen every time a visitor comes to your website. You can also customize the bar according to the theme of your site.
Apart from list building, you can use Hello Bar for driving traffic to your most important pages or highlighting any particular product or segment on your website.
4. Comment Reply Notification
Although it’s a very simple and old plugin, but it’s still so effective that I would recommend it to every blogger. Comment Reply Notification plugin significantly improves user engagement on your blog.
A lot of the times when a visitor leaves a comment on your blog, he never returns to read your reply, because he never knows if you replied or not.
Comment Reply Notification, as the name suggests, send an email of your reply to the original commenter. In majority of the cases, this leads to another comment by the user in response to your email.
This simple plugin is very handy in kicking off conversations with your visitors and making them spend more time on your blog.
It also helps you identify the real problems and needs of your visitors that you can address in future blog posts.
[editors note : Commentluv Premium has an advanced version of Comment Reply notification that can do even more!]
5. WordPress 2 Step Verification
Website security has always been a major concern for most WordPress users. But the threat has increased significantly over the last few years.
Apart from other security measures, the WordPress 2 Step Verification plugin would be an ideal addition to your website defense system.
This plugin adds an additional verification layer on your WordPress login page. Once you enter your username and password, the plugin would then ask you to enter a unique one time generated security code that will be sent to your mobile phone as an SMS.
You can also generate the security code using the WordPress code generation app on your mobile phone.
So even if a hacker manages to enter your correct username and password, he would still need the unique security code to enter your website (which, of course, will only be sent to you).
Conclusion
WordPress is an ideal platform for bloggers and freelancers to set up their websites and online shops. Using the right plugins would improve the overall user experience and functionality of your website even more.
If you think there are other plugins that I should’ve added in this list, do let me know in the comments section.
