I feel so much better with a full stomach.
Let’s see, we were talking about WordPress plugins and my nap.
Wait!
I guess we weren’t talking about a nap, I was only dreaming.
But we had covered recommended engagement plugins for WordPress as well as true confessions from an Affiliate Marketer.
Did you miss the excitement?
No worries, go here for 10 Best WordPress Plugins for Business.
You’ll find that we speak about many things including but not limited to:
- Content
Empower your content by understanding how and why it works online. Handling content correctly is at the core of success with every affiliate marketing success story. creation
- Content publication
- Content socialization
- Content shareation (Hey, I’m a Blogger – I can make up words if I want to.)
- Content communication
Did you notice a general theme?
Hope so.
If not, you may want to check into professional services that go beyond my scope.
Oh yeah, and we spoke about an awesome secret that I’m going to use instead of the plugin referenced. That’s still coming as part of today’s article on 6 More WordPress Plugin Ideas for Affiliate Marketers dream sites.
This feels so much like a scavenger hunt.
I’m having fun, how about you?
Recommended WordPress Content Marketing Plugins
#1: Yoast SEO
As an Affiliate Marketer building a blog, if you don’t have content in some form then you have nothing.
However, once you have that content you need to find ways to get Google to recognize that it exists. Social media promotions are absolutely one of those ways, but there are more direct methods of appealing to the Google gods.
Yoast brings that power to your table in some very dynamic ways that I recommend considering.
Yes, in today’s world there are arguments about how to SEO pages. It’s not like the good old days when you could appeal directly to the search engines.
Users should come first.
You can do this.
In the process, turning up the heat on SEO strategies is not bad if you do it the correct way.
#2: Google XML Sitemaps
One of the best ways of appealing to Google without sacrificing the viewer experience is by creating a sitemap wherein the spiders.
Yes spiders.
Know how to find all your pages when they come to visit.
These are friendly spiders that you want to appeal to when they arrive. The best way to do that is by creating a sitemap which identifies all the different pages of your Website.
In the ole days, yes, I was there, they did this manually with an HTML file. Fortunately, when you use an XML sitemap plugin like this all the work that was required back then becomes super simple for you today.
#3: ImageInject
This plugin allows you the ability to find images you can use even for commercial type projects without having to worry about copyright infringements.
While it is certainly a helpful tool for those that choose to use it, my secret sauce is so much better in my opinion.
Yes, you heard that right. You have found the secret I was talking about.
It’s using Google images. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this.
WRONG WAY: Search images on Google and take whatever you find. After all, it’s on Google.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the copyright has been foregone.
RIGHT WAY: While in Google images look for the gear icon that is on the right side of the page. Select that icon and choose “advanced search”. Scroll to the bottom of the new page that pops up and toggle to display images that are copyright approved even for commercial usage.
Now you have access to images that can be used for commercial purposes and thus avoid any concern about legal usages of the images that you choose to use.
#4: Google Analytics
So far, we have spoken about what to do to in-order to attract the attention of the search engines.
There is a way to reverse engineer everything and that is with Google analytics.
Recently, someone asked me how they should proceed with their content processes. I asked them what results they were seeing in Google analytics.
Turns out that they had this installed but had decided to uninstall it for whatever reason.
How can I answer a question when I’m forced into blindness as it relates to results?
Let’s say you needed brain surgery and you hire the best of the best professionals to do this for you. Would you prefer them to come to your operation with or without a blindfold on?
When you have these results, you can clearly see what Google is recognizing you with. By knowing this information, you can see potential targets for creating content.
In yesterday’s article, I mentioned that I like using SumoMe for this.
What tool you use really doesn’t matter, if you use some type of tool in-order to uncover the details. Even logging into Google analytics directly is okay, if you do it.
Recommended WordPress Security Plugins
At this point we have spoken about engagement and we have spoken about marketing. There are several other categories that could be discussed but one that should be talked about is:
Security.
In this section I have two recommendations that come to the forefront.
#1: W3 Total Cache
You’re a growing Affiliate Marketer and the whole reason you’re doing that is because you want cash.
Sorry, but this is a different type of cache than that.
Per their website, the purpose of this type of cache is:
Search Engine (SEO) & Performance Optimization (WPO) via caching. Integrated caching: CDN, Minify, Page, Object, Fragment, Database support.
To keep everything working correctly it is good to have a plugin like this installed. This also reminds me of the importance of a database backup plugin though that wasn’t mentioned during the blogs I was reading on this topic.
Which brings me to my final recommendation.
#2: Akismet
Earlier, I ranted briefly about people turning comments off with their blogs. While I did suggest that I couldn’t come up with a reason for people to do this, one does exist.
Spammers use comments to build backlinks in some very bad ways.
If comments are turned off with your blog, then you avoid the spammers.
Unfortunately, I do not see that as the right answer if you are wanting to succeed in the world of blogging. Instead I would recommend a tool that is designed to remove spam comments.
It doesn’t work 100%.
It does work.
You do want real comments on your blog. Without them the search engines don’t see you as a serious player in the world of affiliate marketing. That would be bad.
When you get a comment, you want to read it.
Each time I leave a comment I also ask a question.
Do you know how many approved comments I get without my question ever being answered?
Far too many.
This doesn’t look good for the moderator and it doesn’t leave your viewers (in this case “me”) with a good taste in my mouth.
When blog moderators do answer my question, I have a way of highlighting this within the database I am creating and I clearly see which blogs I want to spend more time on.
Do you want your audience coming back and listening to your every word?
Engaging with them properly within comments is a sure way of making that happen. However, that won’t happen if you have comments turned off. Therefore, I do recommend using this plugin instead.
Closing Thoughts About WordPress Plugins for Affiliate Marketers
As you can probably see, this is not an exhaustive list of plugins.
I have mentioned many good one’s that should be considered for success in affiliate marketing with your WordPress blog.
Which one’s have you used? Why?
Which one’s would you avoid? Why?
And…
Which one’s should be mentioned but haven’t been?
Share your thoughts in the comments below and let’s build this article into a huge affiliate marketing success formula for everyone to be able to use.
Guy Siverson
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