Blogs have become an extremely important medium for communication in the digital age! Individuals, businesses, and organizations rely on their blogs to make a living, start conversations, promote projects, share updates, and more.
If you write a blog for either personal or business purposes, chances are it’s hosted on WordPress! As one of the top website building and hosting platforms in the world, WordPress is a leader in offering fully customizable, scalable, user-friendly digital tools. The reason why WordPress can offer such an incredibly customizable experience? Plugins.
Developers in the WordPress community create custom plugins to address practically any digital need you might have. From free business tools to high-tech security features, WordPress plugins are an invaluable resource for anyone with a website. As the writer or manager of a blog, you’re likely already familiar with the kinds of extra tools you might need.
We’ve highlighted 6 of our top picks for the best WordPress plugins for blogs, each addressing a different purpose:
- Swoop — Best WordPress Plugin for Authentication and Login
- Membership & Content Restriction — Best Plugin for Paid Members
- Email Subscribers & Newsletters — Best Plugin for Email Marketing
- Social Pug — Best WordPress Plugin for Social Media Sharing
- Advanced Forms — Best WordPress Plugin for Lead Capture
- MonsterInsights — Best WordPress Plugin for Google Analytics
If you’ve ever wanted to boost reader engagement with your posts, refine your email and social media marketing to reach larger audiences, or simply learn more from your own data, take the time to read through each of these entries!
With WordPress plugins, it’s easy to build your own custom suite of tools, so why not choose the best? Let’s get started!
1. Swoop — Best WordPress Plugin for Authentication and Login
If your blog allows readers to leave comments and interact with your content, you’ve likely got a login system in place already. What you might not realize, though, is that out-of-the-box, traditional login systems are increasingly deterring readers from engaging with web content.
The digital world has entered the age of UX, or user experience. If your website is clunky, poorly designed, complicated, or otherwise difficult to use, you’re losing your audience! That’s because web users increasingly want to engage with digital content (leave comments, share it on social media, etc.) but are less willing than ever to create yet another account just to do so.
You’ve put hard work into making sure your blog looks amazing, loads quickly, and features interesting content that your audience wants to read. But how can you replace the old-fashioned username/password barrier that holds your new visitors back from quickly engaging with your work?
That’s where Swoop comes in!
As a groundbreaking alternative to traditional login systems, Swoop can boost both the security and the user experience of your blog, increasing reader engagement in the process.
Top Features of this WordPress Blog Plugin
Through a combination of new security techniques and reliable methods from the early days of the internet, Swoop can radically change how your readers engage with your blog.
Here’s how Swoop works: a user who wants to engage with your content simply clicks the big Swoop button on your login page. Swoop then generates an email containing a special key code that the user then sends back to Swoop. The email is pinged through several layers of security algorithms to validate the email and IP addresses, then the user is granted access. It only takes 2 clicks and less than a minute!
Compare that to struggling to remember yet another password and username just to leave a comment or share your post! Go passwordless instead.
Here are a few of Swoop’s top features:
- Boosts reader and visitor engagement by eliminating outdated username/password systems
- Includes layers of advanced anti-spam encryption algorithms, protecting both your users and your blog
- Reduced need to provide social media login tools that many users now distrust
- Offers a fast, safe, 2-click login experience to get your readers commenting and your content trending!
Incorporating Swoop into your login processes is a smart investment in the positive user experience of your blog. Plus, making it easier for all your interested readers to get involved will boost engagement. Remove the unnecessary barriers standing between your hard work and significant audience growth!
Say Goodbye to Passwords
and
Hello to Secure Logins.
Go passwordless and delight your users with secure and seamless one-click login.
2. Membership & Content Restriction — Best Plugin for Paid Members
Or maybe you’d rather restrict access to parts of your blog in order to monetize your best content!
Creating simple paid membership systems is an extremely common strategy for all types of personal and professional blogs today. Membership & Content Restriction is one of the most effective and easy-to-use WordPress plugins available to help you set up and manage paid restrictions on your blog.
Whether you offer products, special content, or other types of subscription services to your readers, you could benefit from creating a paid membership system. With this easy WordPress plugin, you get a lightweight solution that won’t eat up all your time with management issues and troubleshooting.
Top Features of this WordPress Blog Plugin
The Membership & Content Restriction plugin is built to work entirely via shortcodes, those little snippets of code you use in WordPress to add extra design or functional elements to your posts and pages.
This makes the plugin one of the easiest to learn to use, important when you’re also learning how to structure and manage a membership program at the same time!
Here are some of the Membership & Content Restriction plugin’s top features:
- Easy-to-use shortcodes for registration forms, logins, content restrictions, subscription menus, and more
- Customizable tiered subscription plans
- Membership payment processing integrations with leading services
- Integration with top eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce
- Multiple add-on options to create a custom solution for your membership
Membership & Content Restriction offers a free basic plugin and a paid Pro version for blogs that need a more heavy-duty solution for a high volume membership program.
3. Email Subscribers & Newsletters — Best Plugin for Email Marketing
The perfect solution for all your email newsletter needs, this tool takes the guesswork out of managing your email marketing and tracking its performance.
The Email Subscribers & Newsletters plugin makes a great resource for all types of blogs. Any website with an audience and a product or service to offer that audience can benefit from email marketing. Plus, many readers simply like to be kept up-to-date with a newsletter!
Perfect for bloggers, website owners, marketers, and developers, this tool covers it all. Ensuring that your readers and visitors are encouraged to repeatedly engage with your content is the key to growing your reach in the long-run. With some effective and easy to use email marketing tools, it’s easier than ever to capture the attention of a wider audience.
Top Features of this WordPress Blog Plugin
Built around the main goal of simplifying every aspect of conducting an email newsletter campaign, the Email Subscribers & Newsletters plugin contains every tool you might need. Comprehensive features in a user-friendly interface make it a top pick that won’t require you to seek out additional features or tools in the near future.
Here are a few of the plugin’s top features:
- Easily insertable custom subscription opt-in box for your website
- Send automated updates upon publication of new content
- Create, schedule, send, and manage your newsletters all in one place
- Tracking features that make it easier than ever to refine your marketing techniques in real time
Start collecting more leads and growing your audience! You don’t need to be an expert marketer to attract more engaged readers to your blog; you simply need the right tools.
4. Social Pug — Best WordPress Plugin for Social Media Sharing
You already know that encouraging social media engagement is the key to attracting broader audiences for your blog’s content.
That’s why it’s so important to offer visitors to your WordPress blog an easy way to share your post on their social media pages! With Social Pug, offering those tools is as easy as installing a single plugin.
It can be tricky for bloggers to organically increase their presence and reach on social media. Everyone dreams of writing or producing that next big piece of viral content! You probably ask your readers to share your posts, but actually giving them a quick, easy way to do so is essential to tapping into the power of social networks to grow your audience.
Top Features of this WordPress Blog Plugin
As a customizable solution for your blog’s social media sharing functions, Social Pug makes it easy for you to offer your readers and visitors more options than ever. Here are some examples of the kinds of custom buttons you can use for your blog with Social Pug:
Here are a few of the Social Pug plugin’s top features:
- Support for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest sharing
- Share count to help you track social media engagement with your content
- Customizable buttons and locations on your pages
- Floating sidebars that follow the scrolling page
Plus, Social Pug offers some paid premium features, too! These include support for LinkedIn and Reddit, mobile-optimized footers, and button shortcodes.
Say Goodbye to Passwords
and
Hello to Secure Logins.
Go passwordless and delight your users with secure and seamless one-click login.
5. Advanced Forms — Best WordPress Plugin for Lead Capture
If you manage a blog for a business purposes, whether it be for your employer, your own business, or an entrepreneurial side project, lead capture should be a priority.
When a web visitor expresses interest in your products, services, or content, you need to capture their contact information quickly! With the Advanced Forms plugin for WordPress sites, you can quickly create customized lead capture forms for your blog.
This plugin is designed primarily for developers to customize to suit their company’s exact needs, but it’s also a lightweight solution that easily integrates with plenty of other WordPress themes and plugins. That means that whether you’re an individual blogger or part of an online business, you can create a simple customized form in no time.
Top Features of this WordPress Blog Plugin
With a simple interface and plenty of custom options, Advanced Forms is a top choice for your blog’s lead capture needs. Its flexible tools mean that you can create forms as simple or in-depth as you need them to be.
Check out a few of the plugin’s top features:
- Advanced custom fields with additional options and functions
- Email options triggered by form submissions
- Maximum entries, login restrictions, and lead capture scheduling settings
- Programmable hooks for submission processing or automatic reporting
With easy-to-learn tools and more flexible back-end programming options for web developers, Advanced Forms can be a perfect tool to help you more strategically capture leads. Grow your online business by making your WordPress blog work for you!
6. MonsterInsights — Best WordPress Plugin for Google Analytics
You probably already know that tracking some key analytics is important for improving your website, identifying your core audience, and pinpointing problem areas in your blog. What you might not realize, especially if you manage your own personal blog, is that you don’t need extensive coding or development knowledge to get started with Google Analytics!
The MonsterInsights plugin for WordPress is one the most powerful and popular analytics tools available. By making it easier to connect your blog with Google Analytics and giving you intuitive interfaces to examine the data your web traffic generates, this plugin puts heavy-duty analytics within your reach without forcing you to learn complex data concepts or complete complicated integrations.
As the lighter version of a more heavy-duty analytics platform for WordPress, MonsterInsights gives you access to a comprehensive but beginner-oriented set of useful data tools for your blog.
Top Features of this WordPress Blog Plugin
Inserting special tracking code from Google Analytics into your blog’s pages can be difficult without some background knowledge that not all bloggers have. The MonsterInsights plugin makes this essential first step easier than ever! After that, your WordPress site will start generating data that MonsterInsights tracks and organizes automatically.
Here are some of MonsterInsight’s top features:
- Real-time Google analytics stats reported on an intuitive dashboard
- Integrations with top eCommerce plugins, like WooCommerce
- Ads tracking to manage and analyze your Google Adsense ads
- Custom link, events, dimensions, author, traffic, and referral tracking
- Free Google Analytics tutorials
For access to all of MonsterInsight’s most comprehensive tracking features, you’ll need to purchase the pro version of the plugin. If you rely on your blog to attract wide audiences and capture leads for your business, MonsterInsights Pro might be a smart investment!
Your blog is an important tool for your personal projects or business, so it deserves the best tools and additional features! Make the most of your WordPress blog by identifying what additional safety, content, analytics, or marketing tools might be most useful, then explore all the plugin options available.
As the largest website-building platform in the world, WordPress remains a leader because it’s so easy to customize the experience. Keep exploring for even more ideas about how WordPress plugins can completely change the way you and your audience use your website! Check out these additional resources:
- Must-Have Login Plugins for WordPress. The login experience completely sets the tone for how users experience your site. Make sure it’s not a liability by making the process faster and safer.
- Top Nonprofit Website Builders for Nonprofits by DNL OmniMedia. If you work for or direct an organization, your website should be optimized to meet the special needs of nonprofits!
- Why Your Website Should Utilize Passwordless Authentication. More and more websites are beginning to offer passwordless login options. Don’t let your blog get left behind!
