Earlier this year, I provided you a list of the best SEO plugins for 2011. That, was “take one”. Nearly six months later, I figured, it is worth looking at some other plugins that have been rising in popularity, in addition to what was already mentioned on “take one”. Provided by the awesome WordPress community of developers, these plugins are developed with the objective of helping us manage our online ventures much easier, so please take a moment to rate them and/or visit their websites to show our appreciation for a job well done.
Some of the WordPress plugins listed below may not necessarily be new, but all have been proven worth checking out, considering that they have all surpassed the 5K plus milestone of downloads (exception to conditional widgets) or have been recently updated, in addition to those that I have not included in my “take one” list. As usual, these WordPress and SEO plugins are free to use and all available at the WordPress plugin repository. I hope you find something that can be useful to you.
The Best WordPress Plugins for 2011, Take Two
Conditional Widgets: One of my new favorites. This plugin adds a form to each widget on the Widgets panel which allows users to choose which pages and/or categories the widget is displayed. You can now have the ability to control how your widgets can be viewed on certain pages or categories of your website. As an example, lets say that I have a widget which shows an ad that I only would like it to appear in the homepage. I don’t want that ad to show on any other pages on my sidebar. This plugin makes that happen, among other things.
1-click Retweet/Share/Like: Adds Facebook Like, Facebook Share, Twitter, the latest Google +1, LinkedIn Share, Facebook Recommendations and more. In addition, this plugin has an automatic publishing feature that will post your content to 30+ Social Networks, allowing you to expand your blog reach and save time by letting the plugin publish your blog posts – automatically (optional). This feature is available once you connect your networks via LinksAlpha.
CommentLuv 2.9: CommentLuv is definitely not a new kid on the block, but version 2.9 is. Andy, the proud owner of CommentLuv, has introduced so many new features, that I dare not saying it is an upgrade. I really won’t bore you with why you should have this plugin installed, but instead would direct you over to Kristi’s ultimate guide to using CommentLuv 2.9. It’s all there :).
Note: The link above is for CommentLuv 2.8 as 2.9 is not yet available at the WordPress repository at the time of this writing. It will be there soon for sure.
Manage WP Worker: I am including this plugin here because, if you are thinking of using the top notch ManageWp free service provided by Prelovac Media, Manage Wp Worker is the key for the service to work. ManageWP, the service, contrary to what many people may have perceived, is not a plugin, but rather a service that allows you to manage multiple WordPress sites in one dashboard. Here’s the ManageWP review that I have written recently. Really, if you have multiple WordPress sites to manage, this can be a breath of fresh air :).
CloudFlare (CF): This might not be 100% relevant to this post, but I will share it with you anyway :). Same as Manage WP Worker, this plugin only works if you decide to use CF’s free CDN service. You heard that right, free CDN. I have been using CF service for over a month now and I have to admit that I am very satisfied. CF improves your websites performance by as much as 50% (speed) and increases your security. This could be used in tandem with ManageWP. If you are interested to find out why I am using this service, please read Boost Your Home Based Business With CloudFlare.
The Best SEO Plugins for 2011, Take Two
SEO Auto Links And Related Posts: SLRP (for short), is an excellent alternative to other similar SEO plugins as it combines both interlinking of your content and displays your related post at the same time. There is the option to turn one or the other feature off, in case you are already using a deep linking plugin. What I like best about this SEO plugin is that there are options normally found only on premium plugins. Examples are automatically creating keywords as affiliate links, displaying thumbnails on related posts, etc. The auto links feature will automatically convert post title, meta keywords, and post tags found inside the blog posts into an internal link, if you want.
SEO SearchTerms Tagging 2: Multiply blog traffic by strengthening on page SEO, increasing the number of indexed pages, auto convert search terms into post tags, and more. Some features include:
- Increase your site’s SERP by strengthening on page SEO of your blog.
- Increase the number of pages indexed by adding a special link to search results.
- Make sure all posts have been indexed by promoting the one that does not get traffic yet (use with care, do not overdo it).
- Get detailed information about what are the best keywords for your web site and blog post by tracking your most popular search terms.
A very powerful plugin that even I limit its use depending on what website I am using it. Here for example, I only use it to track search terms to later optimize my content for specific keywords that are driving traffic to my blog. On another website, I also use the feature of showing “incoming searches” to display on my sidebar. Users can then see similar searches they have made and most likely click on it. Read the developers information carefully.
RSS Footer: This plugin allows you to add a line of content to the beginning or the end of all the articles in your feed. Use this to create links with anchor text to point anywhere you want and it will appear on your feed. Submit your feed to quality RSS aggregators and voilá, instant backlinks. Although this might not be a lot, a backlink is a backlink, plus you get to obtain some additional traffic from sites such as FeedAge RSS directory ;-). See example of my feed below.
SEO Rank Reporter: This is a nifty simple plugin where based on keywords you choose, will track your Google rankings every 3 days and report the data in an easy-to-read graph. You will also be able to visualize your traffic flow in response to ranking changes and receive emails notifying you of major rank changes. All within your WordPress dashboard.
Better WordPress Google XML Sitemaps: An alternative to Google XML sitemaps? Perhaps. This is the first WordPress sitemap plugin that has support for both sitemapindex and Multi-site websites! Not that you might need it but, you no longer have to worry about the 50,000 URL limit or the time it takes for a sitemap to be generated. This plugin is fast, consumes much fewer resources than its peers.
That’s it! Just to let you know, all SEO Plugins listed on the “take one”, are still valid and totally recommended. There are plugins over there which you might not know of, so I suggest you take a look at it, in case you are missing something out.
As with anything “recent”, some of these plugins may have some bugs and may not work well with your WordPress site. I suggest that you backup your files first before attempting to install any of them. Actually, backing up your files is really something you should be doing on a regular basis, be it, installing any new plugins, performing any upgrades on WordPress, or just a preventive measure in case something less desirable happens. Play it safe.
A final word. Michele of NewBizBlogger and I are working on an eBook that will soon be available for download on WordPress Junkies. This free eBook will feature a lot of recommended WordPress plugins that will help you improve your blogging productivity, SEO, online business, among other things. Stay tuned :).
Anyway, have you heard or used any of these WordPress plugins before? How was you experience? Do you know of any other WordPress plugins that you think should have been included in this list?
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SEO Ranking Factors & Correlation, Growing Your Youtube Channel, Bad SEO Tactics To Avoid In 2018, Speedlink 02:2018
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Santhosh
Thanks DiTesco for sharing all important SEO Plugins
Hey DiTesco, Great information on something I have always been leery of with WordPress. Don’t get me wrong I like WordPress although I really don’t think that it’s as easy as everyone reports it to be. What I am saying is I had been told when you see that they have new plugins that one should wait at least for a couple of weeks if not month… let someone else get the bugs out of the plugins before the general public uses them. I wonder what your thoughts are on this subject? Thanks again! jj
Hi JJ.Whoever told you that you should wait for some time before installing a plugin, is a wise person 🙂 That is absolutely true and it is highly recommended. This is particularly true when there is no one that can say anything about it and if there are no ratings given for the plugins. Hard to evaluate like that unless you are a tech savvy person. These plugins however have downloaded at the very least, 5000 times so I guess it has enough test done. What I do suggest is to backup your files always. If you don’t know how to, you should start right there and learn. It is important. Ask you web host if they do a backup for you. That should give you a piece of mind.
Gera@Sweets Foods Blog
Hi Francisco,
As a brand new WP user, I’m avid to new frontiers on the WP arena 🙂
Great mentions here, lot of them are new – the conditional one looks very interesting.
Waiting your new eBook!
Cheers,
Gera
Hi Gera. I am surprised that you have just started our ventures with WP 🙂 The plugins listed here are indeed very helpful and the Conditional widget is really a good one, sharp eye 😉 Just read the developers info carefully first before installing it as there known issues with theme compatibility. I have installed it on WordPress Junkies blog and it is working like a charm 🙂
I need to spend more time with wordpress then I do. Too many things to get done and not enough time for it all. I am working on some wordpress projects in my spare time and always pay attention when someone mentions plugin recommendations. There are just so many. The cloudflare service I have been thinking about for a while now. I still need to contact them with a few questions. It sounds appealing, but some of the info on their web site is confusing and a little overwhelming.
Hi Ray. I hear you about having so many plugins available for WordPress. This is the reason why I think that WordPress is the platform of choice 🙂 Also, you have given me one of the reasons why I make this lists of plugins, makes your life (hopefully) easier than having to go through all those plugins.
As far as CloudFlare is concern, what are your questions? I might be able to narrow them down for you. Just shoot them here 🙂
I read another post here where you had talked about cloudflare and mentioned that you were unable to track/block by ip or something because it was reflecting cloudflare ips. I have some sites that are not wordpress that this might be a problem.
For wordpress sites I use super cache and it has cdn option, but I have no idea if I need to set and configure it yet and if so no idea how to do that.
I am concerned whether it will affect ranking and traffic.
I also wonder how sensitive cloudflare is at blocking. Does it sometimes block too much or legitimate traffic. I have read mostly positive things about the service, but there are a few reviews that are the opposite.
I was thinking maybe try it with a domain that I don’t do much with. See how things go and if I like it, switch or add my other domains.
Do you know if you can only have 1 domain name with the free service or if you can add more than 1 domain for free?
Hi Ray. All your concerns are legitimate and maybe I can answer a few. As far as traffic and rankings are concerned, I think that my traffic increased somewhat because my site is now loading way faster than before. Ranking wise, I did not note any difference as I monitor my keywords regularly 🙂 Blocking traffic can be set to low, medium or aggressive. As far as I can tell from my stats, it blocks bots, automated software or known threats and when that happens, a user is redirected to a warning page where they can fill in a captcha to confirm they are “humans”. Not bad actually.
To be honest I have not tried cloudflare on a non WordPress site so I don’t know the answer to that. I also use SuperCache too and I did not do anything but just enable it and test the cache.
I am using the free service and have 9 websites in it. If it is limited to a certain amount of domains, I really can’t tell, but as I said, I have 9 domains under the same account and all are being served without problem.
Lastly, testing it with a domain you don’t use much is a wise idea. Give it a go and see how works 😉 Hope this helps
Thanks for the reply. If you have 9 domains using cloudflare I should be good. I don’t have that many at the moment, but good to know I can add more if necessary or when the time comes. Mostly I would like to block or eliminate some of the bot and other unusual traffic without blocking the good ones of course, and if it speeds things up at the same time great. I’ll probably try it like I mentioned with the domain I don’t do much with. It’s just a matter of taking the time to just do it. Thanks again for the input.
Suresh Khanal@bivori
Another great list of wonderful wordpress plugin. I recently enabled CloudFlare. Its easier for HostGator as I can just click the cloud button to enable it after I enter email address. Similarly I have an option to fill up the CloudFlare CDN in W3Total Cache plugin. Now I’m confused if its better to enable it normal (add website in CloudFlare and update name servers) or its better to enable through W3TC or HostGator cPanel.
Hi Suresh. This is a very technical question that you posed for me to answer. I know that there is a partnership between CF and Hostgator and initially it should work just the same. I don’t use WT3C so I can’t say if it is better to use this option. Two many “stuff” around CloudFlare makes me nervous. I just set my DNS settings directly on CloudFlare and if something happens, I just point my servers back to BlueHost and I am good to go. Hope this helps.. Ultimately, send Damon (CloudFlare support) an email and ask him what his views are. The man is very supportive and quick. He should be able to give you more info from a technical standpoint.
Are you happy with your sites performance now that you are on CF? Did you notice any improvement?
Mutu Swami
@DiTesco: Where we get proper answer for Suresh question.Its a major issue and we want answer of this from great resource like your blog.Please keep research in this topic and post it on your Blog.
Thanks Regards,
Mutu Swami
Suresh Khanal
I set it up for one of my site and I’m glad to get all those stats. I hope the service is good enough.
I hesitated to update the name servers because it will again take from 2 hours to 48 hours for it to populate. So the site will behave unpredictable on that duration. If it can be done through W3TC or hostgator without changing name servers, it would far easier to enable and disable the service.
You are right Francisco, I should shoot an email to Damon.
David
I haven’t used any of those plugins you’ve mentioned except for KeywordLuv and I can’t wait to see the SEO rank reporter in my dashboard. This is the best WordPress pluings post i’ve seen until now so thanks for sharing
Thanks David for the compliment. I hope you find Rank reporter useful and help you improve your rankings 🙂
brian speer
I have not seen any of these. And I thought I was pretty up to date. Looks like I haev some research to so.
Glad you found about them here first. That’s good! LOL, at least for me. Hope you like them
DiTesco, This is a great introduction to these plugins. How nice of you to take us to plugin school 🙂
I never hear of any of these (except CloudFlare) and I can’t wait to try them out. Thanks!
Hi Ileane. Plugin school, I like the sound of that 🙂 BTW, did you ever, or are you using CloudFlare?
DiTesco,
I never got around to making a decision about CloudFlare. The slow loading time of my blog is still an issue for me and for now I have decided to deal with it. I can only hope that my readers will have patience with me until I get it fixed.
Btw – I sent you a quick vid about what’s happening with CL and I sent it to Andy too.
Hi Ileane. What’s missing for you to jump in the CF band wagon, lol.
Saw the vid and I am really boggled because it appears that “on one” else is having this problem. Hope Andy can solve the puzzle. BTW, does this happen to you “only” here in my blog? Wonder if there is some additional configuration I have to do?
Btw – the CL didn’t show my last post. Do I need to register?
That’s odd Ileane. I have CL set up open for everybody. I don’t like the idea of someone having to register first to get all the latest post they have. It seems to be working OK. Wanna try again?
Eugene
Hey Francisco,
This is a great list here. I use some of these, but some seem like they could definitely add a lot of value. I’ll be sure to check them out.
Great post!
Hi Eugene. Thanks for stopping by. Yeah, there are some real cool plugins here that I have been using lately. “Conditional” is currently the top plugin I am playing with. Like it a lot 🙂
Eugene
Yeah, the 1-click looks promising too.
And the SEO search terms tagging is something I was about to look into anyway for one of the niche sites I’m building…so perfect timing 🙂
Extreme John
DiTesco, you have a great list of WP and SEO plugins here. Thanks for providing such informative and helpful descriptions of plugins and services. The new version CommentLuv 2.9 does deserves two thumbs up for its cool features. Kristi Hines had me a really nice exposure on it at Kikolani.
About backing up the files before installing this plugins, I totally agree. I usually back up files for protection too in case hackers crawl in my site and destroy it.
Thank you so much for a bunch of valuable information here. And I’m pretty excited about your eBook. I’ll definitely stay in tune. 🙂
Hi John. Yeah, I saw Kristi’s post too and you must have gotten some pretty good exposure for that one. As for backing up your files regularly, a business man like you does know what it takes in case you “accidentally” get visited by those malicious crawlers 🙂
eBook on the way, still working on it. As soon as it goes live, I’ll let you know. thanks for stopping by mate and have a great weekend
Maude Fernandez
Conditional Widgets is good, but I like Widget Logic more due to its flexibility. I will have to try CloudFare. Sounds good to me. Nice share.
Hi Maude. Never heard of Widget logic before and I will certainly give it a go. Love experimenting plugins that are recommended by users. CloudFlare is a great service and I have been using it without any problems (for now). Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Wooot! Found some gold mines in here! Did not know I am missing so much things for my wordpress blog. Love the plugins you shared in here DiTesco specially the 1 click retweet/share/like and conditional widgets.
Thanks so much!
Glad you found those two plugins interesting. Give them a try and let me know how it goes for you. Your feedback will be appreciated. Thanks for stopping by
Hi DiTesco!
I tested out this morning the 1 click retweet/share/like plugin and it works and it looks really good for my blog. However, is there any way I can remove the red-green arrow that shows before the tweet and facebook icons ? You are using this plugin right? And seems like you are successful removing that icon. Any tip Sir?
Thanks a lot.
Sandeep@Curious Little Person
Thanks for sharing these wonderful plugins – never really knew about these.
I will need to check out commentluv 2.9 as well
Great Post!
COnditional widgets looks very interesting!
Great list of plugins and good update man.
I have to say though that I am not too happy with the new commentluv, or at least the version I have seen that no longer allows me to choose from my last ten posts without registering on that particular site. That’s just BS!
Is this what the new version does or are you running it now and I just saw one that had been configured?
Hi Alex. Yeah, conditional widgets is indeed very interesting and I have been already testing it for over two weeks now and so far so good. We’ll see.
As far CommentLuv is concerned, I understand what you mean. I am using the new version now and just left it open, meaning, I do not require anyone to register to be able to get their last 10 posts. I think it is a tick off and I have not yet really found any benefit in asking my commenters to register. It is optional and you can choose to turn it off!
Haru
I have been searching for a long time plugin like SEO SearchTerms Tagging 2 ..i found it in a blog and its cool..but then, i dont know what is the plugin so i could not find it..
thanks for the sharing dude
Helen
Very good this post. I’m really getting into wordpress and I didn’t know about a few of these, so I’ll definitely be checking them out!
Zarah Alvie
These all are most important plugin. DiTesco know whats the need for real blogger blogs.Thats why he search and put all the helpful wordpress plugin in his post.
Thanks DiTesco,
Regards Zarah Alvie
Ahsan
Huge plugin collection. I use most of them. I’ll check RSS Footer plugin now. Among all these plugins, commentLuv is my favorite. Thanks for share
Zarah Alvie
Ahsan I also use commentLuv plugin.But i found many spammer comments on my blog after activating it.
Hey Tesco, I am having some difficulty with themes I am running a blog on self hosted blog and have installed wordpress on it I am using a free theme which doesn’t seems to be in my control. I have tried several themes but all have some bugs or does not provide much functionality. I wish that if you can write a post on best WP themes like you wrote this 🙂
H Stepehen. Thank you for your comment. I did think once writing about the best WP themes but figured that it was not really that relevant to my topic as it is more on the technical side of things. I do however run two sites where you can find great and free WP themes if you are interested.
http://www.wordpressthemeframework.com/
http://www.wordpressjunkies.net
Hope you find what you are looking for..
Thanks for helping Tesco 🙂 Love ya
Hi,
This is an amazing post, thank you. I actually had no idea there are so many great SEO free plug ins. I have just purchased SEOpressor also and am supremely pleased! Conditional widgets looks cool and the rank reporter.
Thanks so much 🙂
Laura
Lynn Brown
This is an awesome list of plug-ins DiTesco! Really appreciate you taking the time to share the info about these plug-ins you like and why. I do use a couple of them on your list. Plan on checking out some of the other ones.
Jim
Hey DiTesco,
I’ve always thought that Cloudflare is a premium service! Never knew that it is free and it can boost so much of your website speed. Always thought that CDN is never free. Got to install that right now. Good list of plugins here btw.
Kopi Luwak Coffee
Hi Di Tesco, many people say that Yoast SEo is very good.
but till now i use Greg’s Hi Performance. What’s you opinion? which is the best one??
Andrew
Probably really useful information here – but if PLEASE get rid of those unbelievably annoying rollup ads over the images – after the third one appeared I just scrolled straight to the bottom to comment and then closed the page
Hi Andrew. Thanks for letting me now that those image ads were annoying. You are the first to give a feedback… So what do you think now 🙂
Kevin
Hi, Kevin Stacey here..
First off, this post is extremely thorough! I don’t see too many bloggers going into detail like you have…that’s the mark of a blogger who knows their SEO plugin. For optimization, free plugins like All in One SEO Pack are really great as it lays down the basic SEO foundation for a WordPress site, but every blog is different and nothing works best for everyone.
I always suggest looking at a side-by-side comparison of the best seo plugins for WordPress in order to make an informed decision of what the best plugin is for that blogger and their website’s specific needs.
Here’s my most recent write-up on the subject:
SEO Pressor vs Easy WP SEO vs Scribe SEO
http://www.bestseopluginforwordpress.com/wordpress-seo/the-best-seo-plugin-for-wordpress/
Check it out and let me know what you think.
Great article btw…I’ll be referencing this post on my main blog.
Hi DiTesco,
First of all thank you so much for this article. I never heard about this plugin except CommentLuv. :).
Thanks.