When you’re ready to create your author website, WordPress themes offer a lot of flexibility. But the core software can definitely benefit from adding some useful plugins.
And there are plenty to choose from! The WordPress Plugin Directory features almost 40,000 options—and that’s not including the paid-for products available outside the directory. So how do you know which are the best for your website?
Web Design Relief reviewed our favorite free and paid-for WordPress Plugin must-haves to kick your author website function up a notch.
The Top Five Website Plugins For Your WordPress Website
Jetpack
If you want to enhance the security of your WordPress website, improve performance, and increase visitor engagement—you need Jetpack!
Jetpack also helps block spam comments, automatically arranges related posts, and connects with Twitter and Facebook to share your blog articles as soon as you publish them.
In addition, this handy plugin connects directly with WordPress.com to let you view your page-views and unique visitor statistics all in an easy-to-understand graph.
SmartCrawl
Enhance your good SEO with SmartCrawl to pull in more visitors to view your website content.
SmartCrawl is able to boost the visibility of your website by telling the big search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing that your website has new content that needs to be indexed right away.
SmartCrawl also features a quick set-up wizard so you can get started now. Learn more about the free 14-day trial here.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
YARPP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin) is an amazing plugin that can increase traffic throughout your author website. By displaying a list of posts and pages that are related to your blog post, YARPP allows users to navigate to similar articles immediately after they’re finished reading the one they’re currently on.
Floating Social
Media-savvy writers know that sharing content on your social media networks is now a must-do, so Floating Social is a must-have! This plugin makes it easy for your visitors to spread the word about your new book, recent literary journal publication, reading event, and more.
Floating Social displays buttons on your posts and pages that connect to your social media networks—and the buttons float on the side of the page so that a user can simply click and share your content. To keep your social media networks at your visitors’ fingertips, the buttons even travel down the page along with your readers as they scroll through your website. You can also customize the design of your Floating Social buttons so that they match your website’s design style.
Simple Author Box
You’ve written an amazing blog post and just published it with your name, date, and article title at the top. But sometimes, that’s not enough to catch a potential reader’s attention—and that’s where Simple Author Box comes in.
Simple Author Box generates a very good-looking, minimalistic info box that displays a quick bio about you: your name, gravatar, and social media links. Everything from font, to color, to size is customizable, so Simple Author Box can complement any WordPress theme you choose for your website. Learn more about Simple Author Box here.
Important things to remember about WordPress Plugins:
Whenever you’re considering a new plugin for your WordPress author website, remember that they’re made by third-party designers who are not affiliated with WordPress. As a result, the plugins may not work the way you expect. Be sure to do your research by reading reviews and checking forums to make sure the plugin is right for you.
WordPress also updates regularly, so there might be times that the plugins break. At Web Design Relief, we offer a hosting care package that takes care of the updates to your website so you don’t have to worry about broken plugins.
Question: Did your favorite plugins make our list? Tell us in the comments below!
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