As a busy business owner or blogger, you know it’s important to optimize your time spent.
One way to to do so? By making the most out of the tools you currently use.
If WordPress is your Content Management System (CMS), there are a ton of ways you can use the tool to level up your marketing and achieve greater success.
With WordPress plugins, you can do things like supercharge your list building efforts, make your website more searchable, provide better experiences for your readers and more. And when you do, growing your list and turning passive website visitors into loyal customers will be a lot easier.
Fortunately, WordPress comes equipped with a myriad of plugins to choose from. Whether you want to optimize for SEO, add a sign up form or secure your site, I’ve put together a list of 17 different WordPress plugins that provide added functionality to help boost your email marketing efforts.
Increase traffic: SEO optimization plugins
Yoast SEO
You’ve spent the time to create killer content on your website, so how do you make sure that people can see it?
A subscriber’s journey starts long before they sign up to your list. With Yoast, you can optimize a number of different aspects of your site such as search engine preview text, meta tags, and hyperlinks:
You can also ensure that your page is the best it can be in terms of searchability. This isn’t just a way for you to boost the visibility of your awesome content―you can also use Yoast to get more exposure to your landing pages.
Google XML Sitemaps
It’s important to focus on the design of your site and the awesome content being created. But that doesn’t mean you can skip the nuts and bolts of building a website.
Using Google XML Sitemaps, you can generate a sitemap for search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo to find your site. (Think of it as giving these sites a map to help explore your content faster!) Updating the sitemap regularly makes it easier for potentials leads to find you!
With this plugin, you’ll have better indexing through plugins, which means your site is fully catalogued and easily searchable for any search engine. Oh, and the plugin also helps to notify search engines when new content is posted. We love it!
Smush Image Compression and Optimization
Smush optimizes your images for better page load times, which may not seem like a big deal, but site speed is super important for SEO and general usability.
This plugin is especially important for those of you who have a business that is visual heavy, i.e. photographers or food bloggers.
You want all of your pictures to load quickly and easily on your website. Not only will that faster load time help with the Google reputation of your site, but your readers will definitely thank you for making browsing easy.
Grow your list: Sign up form plugins
Sumo
Sumo is as close to one-stop shopping as you can get in a WordPress plugin. With it, you can add a number of different tools to your WordPress toolkit. Grow your list with Welcome Mats, gather important analytics on your readers and share socially all within Sumo directly.
The best part? It integrates directly with your AWeber account.
Welcome mats are just one of Sumo’s powerful lead generation tools.
While they’re both big and visible, they aren’t too intrusive―so a potential subscriber who wants to get on with reading your site can do so. In the example below, ClickMinded promotes their 2017 SEO checklist clearly without being invasive:
You can also use the Smart Bar for a sleeker, more minimalist form.
This form is the first thing that readers see when landing on your site, which is perfect for promoting a piece of lead generation content.
With Sumo’s many sharing options, you’ll be able to boost traffic to your website and give your readers a way to promote your content.
HelloBar
There’s isn’t really a better way to greet your readers than using HelloBar. This awesome horizontal form builder gives your potential subscribers an easy and clean signup experience―and it sticks right at the top of your page. HelloBar scrolls with your readers, or goes away, no questions asked.
Another plus is that they’re mobile responsive. With a direct integration with AWeber, you’ll have no problem adding subscribers directly to the list of your choice.
Pro Tip: When you’re building your mailing list, it’s important to vary the kind of forms that you use. One design might work on one page but not another, so test, test, test!
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 lets you create multiple contact forms on your site. It’s streamlined design and easy-to-integrate functionality makes it one of the most popular contact forms available.
You’ll be able to create simple and easy to use contact forms to keep in touch with your readers and answer any questions.
AWeber Webform Widget
The AWeber Webform Widget helps you quickly add forms to pages―just place the widget into any available area and your form is populated automatically!
Whether you’re getting started, or just looking for a quick way to add a form to your site, this plugin is for you. With this plugin, you don’t have to fiddle with any design settings, which makes building your list super easy.
Deliver great content: Content optimization plugins
PDF Embedder
A great way to add an incentive to your sign up forms is to offer a content upgrade or lead magnet. With PDF Embedder, you’ll have no problem hosting that document on your website.
Rather than adding your lead magnet as a download or attaching it to an email message, you can embed the document directly―that way leads and subscribers will stay on your website and have more of an opportunity to engage with the content.
Want more tips on optimizing your email content? Download our free What To Write in Your Emails Guide, complete with 30+ email templates!
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
How do you make it easier for people to find exactly what they’re looking for?
By sharing related content! And YARPP helps you define and optimize that content.
Establishing yourself as a subject matter expert helps to solidify the relation you have with your readers―when they’re able to come to your site for all their content needs, you can start prompting sign ups to take that relationship to the next level. Cross promotion from within your site also helps increase visibility for all of your content. More eyes on a post leads to higher conversion.
Pro tip: It’s a good idea to tailor your forms to specific lead magnets.
Revive Old Post
Automatically share posts to social media with Revive Old Post―it lets you set the interval and number to share based on what is performing the best.
Used in conjunction with YARPP and AddThis, Revive Old Post can help increase the social reach of your content. Test out the time when your readers are most engaged, and see what kind of content plays the best on each platform.
Insert Headers and Footers
Adding code to your site isn’t always the most intuitive process and this plugins gives you a quick and easy way to do it! It’s easy to embed a Facebook tracking pixel, Google Analytics script, or custom code that you create.
As an email marketer you have a staggering amount of assets to maintain. Insert Headers and Footers makes the process as streamlined and easy as possible.
When you’re able to track the visitors to your site and see how your Facebook Ads convert, it will be easier to retarget with winback content.
Connect and grow revenue: Social/E-commerce plugins
WooCommerce
You have a business to run, we know that. With a plugin like WooCommerce you can process payments directly through your WordPress site.
Your readers and subscribers are all potential future buyers. It’s important to give them a simple way to buy your products. You can manage shipping, stock levels and prices in a snap. Here’s an example of the Storefront theme:
You might be asking yourself, “Well, what should I sell?”
If you don’t have a product, paid content (like ebooks) are a great way to offer up additional content to your customers―and it’s easy with a direct AWeber integration. There’s definitely a reason it’s one of the most popular ecommerce plugins.
BuddyPress
Social media is a great tool for building an engaged audience and community that can promote your content.
Growing your audience and serving them targeted content helps you to connect more effectively. That’s not only great for testing new content, but it makes your readers more loyal too. By creating a sense of belonging and exclusivity, you’re building a core group of customers as influencers who’ll speak about your brand on your behalf.
Pro Tip: Try offering up premium content to those individuals who chose to sign up with BuddyPress!
AddThis
AddThis is used to generate social sharing buttons in your posts so your readers can easily promote your content to their networks. AddThis inserts their tool next to each blog post, as seen below:
Incorporating AddThis lets you increase reach and broaden audience engagement on social media. Sharing is caring, so give your readers an easy way to share!
Leadin (HubSpot Marketing Free)
Personalization and targeted content are important. With Leadin, you can track your leads and create more content that your audience will be interested in. This plugin allows you to set up analytics that capture information about your audience and what they are doing when they come to your site―you can track the content they read to find out and what works best.
We know that segmentation works, so when you can group leads based on their interests, you can easily provide the kind of content that converts. You can tailor your marketing campaigns to the specific needs of your readers and offer the kind of content that they’ll engage with most!
Protect your visitors: Site security plugins
Akismet
This one’s another nuts and bolts plugin. Akismet is an open source software that adds a layer of security to your blog to diminish the potential for spam submissions to your landing page and newsletter forms.
This plugin helps combat spam and keep your comments and contact form submissions safe, clean and professional.
Wordfence Security
Wordfence Security is an all-in-one security platform for your WordPress site. Your domain reputation matters. If you’re using a From Address, a secure and protected site will help keep your reputation in check. As you grow and become more popular, it will be import to keep the spammers at bay.
Not only does it help with reputation, but it makes your readers feel safer too.
What’s next
You don’t need to use every one of these plugins to be successful, but there’s certainly enough for you to get started.
Once you start taking advantage of different plugins, you’ll notice which ones work best for your email marketing strategy.
Are there any plugins that we’ve missed? Which ones are your favorites? Let us know in the comments!
Use these new tools combined with your email marketing strategy for greater success. Not sure what to write in your emails though? Sign up for our FREE email copywriting course and get access to 30+ fill-in-the-blank templates to help you get started!
