It is undeniable that content marketing can help a small business grow exponentially. Using the right keywords, building your social network, and hosting webinars will help your business head in the right direction. But you definitely need to start off on the right foot first!
Managing all your blogs and social media posts can be taxing, and using the right CMS (Content Management System) can take much of the stress off your mind. And what better CMS than WordPress- it’s free and one of the most straightforward systems to use!
Suppose you plan to make your presence felt online shortly or are already using WordPress to publish your blogs. In that case, you must know the best WordPress hosting companies. However, knowing a handful of plugins that will boost your content marketing efforts is just as necessary!
Here are 5 WordPress plugins related to content marketing that you need to know about.
#1 Edit Flow
Having an organized editorial calendar is essential if you want to see your content marketing strategy succeed, and Edit Flow helps you manage editorial workflow amazingly. Edit Flow is handy for companies with multiple team members working on projects simultaneously.
Pros
- Compatible with WordPress
- Has widgets that are well-known to WordPress users
- Real-time editorial management
- Allows team members to communicate with each other
- Allows editors to associate metadata with posts
- Drag-and-drop calendar to help you see post statuses
Cons
- Limited flexibility
- Intrusive and heavy
- Deactivating the plugin can make many posts disappear
- Allows you to create custom statuses for posts, but deactivating the plugin will cause custom statuses to disappear
- Editorial metadata allows you to complete due dates, but these are active only when you are in the specific blogpost
#2 Editorial Calendar
This is another great plugin to help you stay organized when regularly dealing with a massive workload. Scheduling multiple posts gets easier with Editorial Calendar as this plugin doesn’t require you to use an Excel spreadsheet or go back and forth in the WordPress ‘Posts’ section.
Pros
- Drag-and-drop calendar
- Display content ideas scheduled in advance
- Bird’s eye calendar view to easily see when posts will go live
- Customized post statuses
- Write or edit notes and entire posts in HTML by simply clicking on the calendar
- Allows you to manage posts by multiple authors
Cons
- Better suited for solo bloggers.
- Limited functions
- The plugin supports only posts, not pages.
- Posts that have been published cannot be edited or moved.
- Posts drafted before installing the plugin won’t appear automatically.
#3 CoSchedule
This unique plugin helps you manage all your posts and social media updates using the same calendar. What’s more, CoSchedule offers all the features that Edit Flow and Editorial Calendar offer!
Pros
- Drag-and-drop calendar
- The calendar helps manage posts as well as social media updates.
- Suited for multiple team members with features like a comments box, to-do system, flexible tasks, and team permissions settings
- E-mail and dashboard notifications
- Integrates with Bitly, Google Analytics Tracking, and Google Calendar
- Allows inviting guest bloggers
Cons
Requires social media messages to be copied and pasted manually
Requires users to sign up for paid monthly or yearly plans- can be expensive for solo bloggers
#4 YARPP
YARPP, short for Yet Another Related Post Plugin, is a free WordPress plugin that can help reduce the bounce rate and improve your site’s conversion rate. Using this plugin, you can display thumbnails at the end of all posts that link to other relevant posts, thus helping users find what they’re looking for.
Pros
- Related content displayed in the list or thumbnail format
- The built-in algorithm considers post titles, tags, content, categories, and taxonomies to find associated posts
- Related posts displayed in RSS feeds
Cons
This plugin is resource-intensive, but small blog sites with less content won’t be affected.
#5 Optimizely
This plugin makes improving your website through A/B testing a breeze. Optimizely has an easy-to-use interface that will help you convert website visitors into your customers without having to get into coding!
Pros
- Easy configuration
- Great for those requiring fast development
- Allows selecting experiment types like Multipage, Multivariate, etc.
- Presents complicated data in a way that’s easy to understand
- Transparent results that can be shared across departments
Cons
Issues with advanced code
Experiments may take time to load
Due to slow caching, previews may not be accurate
Conclusion
Your content marketing efforts can help your company grow. But as a small business, you can’t afford to waste your time and resources by taking wrong decisions!
While there are plenty of good WordPress plugins related to content marketing, take your time to understand how they work and what they can do for your business before you commit.