5 – My favourite plugins

Ok so this post will only really be useful if you run WordPress but you don’t run WordPress, why not? Joking, obviously, everyone has their reasons for using a different system but for those of you who do run WordPress listen closely.

Internal Link Juicer

My absolute favourite plugin for internal SEO. We all know that we should link internally but how many of us actually do it? This plugin allows you to set keywords related to the post and whenever those keywords appear across your site the words will then link to the post you set. Now I am not recommending that you do this for every post you ever write as some of them won’t really be relevant. This is a great way of building links to your cornerstone content maybe you have a post about Easter activities you could set the keyword as Easter and then every time you write Easter it will auto link to that post. You can set one keyword or multiple keywords as well as long-tail keywords. The choice is yours.

Track the click

Developed by my boss at 34SP.com Track the click is life-changing as far as being a blogger is concerned. Do you ever get asked how many click-throughs to someone’s site you have received? If they don’t say they need this in advance then it is an absolute nightmare (and to be fair even then it is a pain in the arse). Track the click monitors every single click through your site so you will be able to see exactly how many times people have clicked on any link that you have on your site whenever you want without having to set anything up. This is also really useful for seeing how people move around your site and which content is popular so you can create similar content.

Shortpixel image optimisation

If your site is huge and starting to cost you more money with your host then look at optimising your images (also good for google page speed). Shortpixel is my favourite image optimisation plugin although I did need to pay to bulk optimise at the beginning I have not needed to do so since. If saving space is what you are after then make sure you also delete the backup folder it creates when you optimise.

Site Kit by google

If you use analytics, search console or you are worried about site speed then the Site Kit by google plugin looks after it all. This plugin is packed full of features and gives you all of your google tools in your WordPress dashboard making it easier to see what tweaks and changes you may need to make.

Yoast SEO

It seems fitting to end with the first plugin I install on any new site of mine and that is Yoast SEO. Filling in the Yoast box at the bottom of all of my posts has just become habit and I can definitely see the difference in traffic between posts with Yoast information and posts without. There are other SEO plugins so don’t feel restricted to use Yoast just make sure you are using one of them if you rely on search traffic for your site.

So there you go, 5 plugins I can’t live without. If you want any advice on other plugins for example for contact forms, galleries or more just let me know as I am always happy to recommend different ones.