These 29 WordPress plugins will make your (company) blog better [Update]
Although WordPress can do a lot out of the box, it only comes to life with its plugins. Here are a few recommendations that are particularly worthwhile for company blogs.
The highlights from A to Y
There are exactly 58,464 WordPress plugins. At least that was the status as of May 7, 2021, 12:23 p.m. on WordPress.org. Every day there are more. Keeping an overview here is an impossibility.
That’s why I would like to recommend a few plugins to you. I also asked friends and acquaintances which extensions they could warmly recommend.
The result is this “best of” list that will help you make your company blog better, more secure, and more powerful.
Note: I have sorted the overview alphabetically.
Accordions by PickPlugins
Is there too much text in a blog post or landing page? No problem! The Accordions extension can be used to create collapsing and expanding content.
All-in-one SEO
It doesn’t work without search engine optimization. Plugins like All in One SEO do not guarantee you top rankings, but they support you very well in your measures.
I personally like Yoast better (at the bottom of this list), but my old journalist colleague Sven Wernicke swears more by All in One SEO.
Antispam Bee
Spam sucks. A “bouncer” that works very well with my sites is Antispam Bee. With over 600,000 installations and an average rating of just under 5 stars, I don’t seem to be the only satisfied user.
Autooptimize
Like WP Optimize (more on that below), Autoptimize also improves the loading speed of your WordPress site. I haven’t tested the plugin myself, but Sandra Staub highly recommended it.
Blog2Social
Many social networks are fast-moving, so you should post your blog posts several times. This is easy and automated with Blog2Social.
listening tip
For more on Blog2Social and the best times to post on social media, watch this episode of the USP Marketing Podcast:
Classic editor
I’m not a fan of the new Gutenberg editor. That’s why I rarely use the new CMS functions, if at all. If you want the good old-fashioned display like I do, you need the Classic Editor.
compliance
With Complianz you create a GDPR-compliant cookie notice. To do this, you first go through a long catalog of questions, and the plugin also recognizes many of the cookies you use by itself.
A must-have to meet the high compliance requirements!
Contact form 7
Many themes lack a way to insert a contact field. With Contact Form 7, this deficiency can easily be remedied. You also have the option of drilling out the plugin with additional functions such as re-captchas.
Editorial Calendar
At the latest when several people are working on your company blog, you need an editorial plan. Among other things, it should show when which post appears.
The Editorial Calendar enriches the posts section with a calendar that shows all the posts that have already been published and those that are still planned. These can be easily moved using drag & drop.
GA Google Analytics
If you use Google Analytics for your company blog, you have to bring both systems together. This is done, among other things, by including a tracking code on the website or blog. So that laypeople can also do this, there is – of course – an easy-to-use plugin: GA Google Analytics.
Info Boxes Shortcode And Widget
You should break up long blog posts visually. This pleases the readers and the Google bots. Fact boxes are a great way to provide short tidbits.
Test. Test. Test.
This is what an info box looks like with the Info Boxes plugin. Many things can be set here, including the background color and the border display. chic, right?
Jetpack by WordPress.com
Jetpack is the Swiss army knife that comes from Automattic (the WordPress maker) themselves. Among other things, you can use it to improve loading speeds, automatically share posts on social networks and generate XML sitemaps. This plugin should not be missing from any WP installation.
Limited Login Attempts Reloaded
WordPress sites are a popular target for hackers. Among other things, because access via brute force attacks is often quite easy.
Limit Login Attempts Reloaded, a plugin tip from Oliver Pfeil, makes it much more difficult for hackers to “break in”.
LuckyWP Table of Contents
A table of contents at the beginning is particularly useful for long texts. LuckyWP Table of Contents creates these automatically based on the H-Tags or subheadings including jump marks.
MaxButtons
Want to add a button to your posts or pages? Should the button have an individual color, round corners and a shadow? Then do that with MaxButtons.
Many thanks to Johannes Mairhofer for this plugin tip!
Page Links To
Sometimes you need redirects. For example, if an old text should be redirected to a new one. Redirects of this type can be easily implemented using the Page-Links-To extension.
Plugin Report
Plugins are a first class thing to pimp the corporate blog. But they can also become a security risk, especially if it’s been a long time since the last developer update.
The plugin report provides a nice overview of how new or outdated your installed plugins are.
Post Views Stats Counter
How many times was a blog post viewed? The views can be found out using analysis tools such as Google Analytics or Matomo (formerly Piwik). Or via the Post View Stats Counter. This small but fine recommendation shows you the number of views of the individual posts directly in the “All posts” overview.
Prosodia VWG OS
Would you like to earn a little pocket money with your blog posts? Then register with VG Wort and receive royalties for your online works.
In order for this to work, you have to integrate special counters into your individual posts. This is very easy to do with the Prosodia VGW OS plugin.
Search meter
What are your readers looking for in the blog’s own search? Search Meter gives it away. The results will help you to better understand the target audience.
Need help with your company blog?
The free white paper “Corporate Blogs: Basics, Strategy & Implementation” explains everything important about corporate blogging for beginners and advanced users.
Site Kit by Google
… is one of my newest favorite plugins. With the official Google extension, you can see the most important data from the various Google services on one dashboard. Among other things from Google Analytics, Search Console, Adsense and Page Speed Insights – if you use the tools.
All KPIs at a glance thanks to Site Kit by Google. Excellent!
TablePress
Want to add beautiful tables to your blog posts? Then use TablePress! Another plugin that I don’t use myself, but was recommended to me – by Achim Weidner of the Medialab Internet Agency Rüsselsheim.
VaultPress
Another official WordPress plugin from Automattic. VaultPress runs security scans and backs up your system daily. Very useful!
Wordfence Security
Secure your WordPress site as well as possible against cyber attacks. Wordfence Security supports you with numerous measures, including a firewall and a malware scanner.
WordPress Popular Posts
If you want to recommend the most read posts to your readers, you should install this plugin. As a widget, WordPress Popular Posts shows the top posts of the last 24 to 48 hours.
WP Optimize
Fast loading times are good for your visitors and good for Google. WP Optimize carries out various measures to improve the page speed of your site. For example, it cleans the databases and compresses the uploaded images.
The results are amazing! Only by using WP Optimize was I able to increase the value of my website StartUpWissen.biz by 23 points in Google PageSpeed Insights.
There are countless plugins to design pop-up windows. To be honest, most tools are too extensive or too complicated for me.
My favorite: the simple WP Popups. Ronny from Blog-als-Nebenjob.de likes the popup builder more.
WPStatistics
Don’t want to use an external analysis tool? Then WP Statistics is recommended. This provides very detailed figures and overviews. A real power tool for your own key figures!
YoastSEO
Yoast is one of the most used SEO plugins. And probably also the most misunderstood extension.
No – anyone who uses Yoast has not automatically optimized their company blog for search engines! It “only” shows how good your efforts are. For real SEO you need more than just a plugin.
Need more WordPress tips?
Then listen to this episode of the USP Marketing Podcast. In the WordPress expert Oliver Pfeil gives a lot of important advice for beginners and advanced users.
PS: Monetize blogs – how does that work?
Do you want to know how to make money from a blog? Find out in this podcast episode:
Image: Pixabay
Jürgen loves digitization, start-ups and marketing. That is why he writes as a freelance specialist author for well-known publications on these topics. And as a marketing strategy consultant, he supports start-ups and medium-sized companies with their marketing strategy.
In this blog he records his thoughts on his favorite topics. That’s why everything here revolves around digitization, marketing, innovations, e-commerce and start-ups.
