20 WordPress Plugins to Increase Blog Traffic
Getting traffic to your blog is perhaps the most important aspect for any blogger so with this in mind I went searching for WordPress plugins that will help to do just that.
This plugin allows visitors to recommend your blog post or page to a friend via email.
Your visitors simply check a box under the comments field which allows them to receive an email notification whenever further comments have been added to the post.
Displays a list of random posts from your blog at the end of a blog post encouraging readers to stay on your site.
Displays a list of related posts from your blog at the end of each post. This encourages readers to stay on your site.
5. Recent Posts
Displays the most recent posts from your blog.
6. Digg Plugin
Allows you to add a Digg style icon button to each blog post encouraging readers to Digg your post.
Allows your visitors to add your blog post to social bookmarking and networking sites. You can see how this works by clicking the Share This link at the bottom of this post…and while you’re there why not submit this post to one of your favorite sites…hint, hint!!
Works in a similar way to the ‘Share This’ plugin by allowing visitors to submit your posts to their favorite bookmarking sites.
Optimizes your blog for the search engines making your blog posts and pages easier to find and rank.
Your visitors can enter their mobile number in a sidebar widget and be sent updates via SMS when your blog has been updated.
11. Increase Sociability Plugin
This plugin recognizes when a visitor has arrived via Stumbleupon or Digg and provides them with a nice reminder to encourage them to vote for your post.
12. Subscribe Remind
Places some text at the end of each blog post reminding visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed.
13. What Would Seth Godin Do Plugin
Works in a similar way to the ‘Subscribe Remind’ plugin but has some added functionality in that it uses cookies to distinguish between first time visitors and regular visitors. You can create messages to add to the top or bottom of blog posts and first time visitors can see one message whereas regular visitors can see something entirely different.
This is a great plugin for encouraging repeat visitors. Readers that leave the most comments get their link displayed in the sidebar of your blog. As the nofollow tag is removed the reader gets full credit for their link.
15. Comment Relish
This plugin sends out an automatic email to any new readers to your blog thanking them for leaving a comment. This is a great way to get return visitors. You can customize the email any way you like.
16. Dofollow Plugin
Creating a dofollow blog can often bring in traffic. This plugin strips the nofollow tag from blog comments.
17. Lucia’s Linky Love Dofollow Plugin
Another dofollow plugin but this one is slightly different in that it allows you to remove the nofollow tag after a certain number of comments have been left by a reader. You can set this to anywhere between 3 and 10 posts.
This will generate a sitemap for your blog which will help Google find and index your blog.
19. Add to Any Subscribe Button Plugin
Allows your readers to subscribe to just about any type of RSS feed.
Allows you to tag your posts which are picked up by blog search engines thereby helping to increase traffic.
And a couple more as suggested by Susan:
21. CommentLuv
This plugin finds the last post by the person who left the comment and displays a link to that post under their comment. Usually used in conjunction with a dofollow type plugin. UPDATE 27 October 2009 – We’ve just added the Comment Luv plugin to our blog.
22. KeywordLuv
When someone leaves a comment on your blog they can also get the benefit of a keyword link in the title. The site uses examples which explains it better than I ever could.
So now you can see why we think WordPress is the best platform for bloggers. There are just many great plugins that allow you get maximum use from your blog.
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Wanda & Paula - 2 friends who successfully operate a number of online internet businesses. In fact we have over 20 blogs and websites making money. We have learnt a lot over the years particularly in the area of natural search, SEO
and traffic generation. If you want to make a living online then we are here to
help. 
A good list of plugins. I was surprised to not see KeywordLuv or CommentLuv listed.
Thanks Susan…I have now added those to the list above.
A nice collection of plugins; some of them are what I can’t run a blog without..
Yan
I agree. Some of these plugins are definite must haves.
Excellent collection of great plugins. I was looking for a list like this. Can you pls eliminate some of the duplicates and instead provide with other useful plugins?
Hi. Thanks for the great info, now I can start using those plugins in my blog.
Excellent collection of great plugins . thanx for that..
That’s a great list. Thanks for sharing.
Great article. I found you on google.
Btw, i think it will be better if you eliminate duplicate function of the plugins.
I can see your getting the odd spam comment because your using keywordluv. I feel your pain mate…using Bad Behavior and Akismet at least kills off the obvious spammers :p
some of these plugins are really great.. like all in one seo, share this etc
Thanks for posting these, as a newbie I’m constantly on the lookout for great ideas. Can you recommend any Widgets or ez to load Opt In boxes for WP.ORG? How about a music playlist of sorts[is that even possible]? Thank you again for your help.
You don’t need a fancy widget or plug-in to add a basic opt-in form to your site. I assume you have an auto-responder service like aWeber?? If so, you simply grab the web form code from them and place it into a text widget on your blog. This should then display the name and email fields on your blog.
For a pop-up opt-in form you can try WP Pop-UP Scheduler – just type that into Google and you should find it.
Not too sure about the playlist but I just typed “music playlist wordpress plugin” into Google and a few came up so looks like there are options available.
If you aren’t using a responder and you want a simple contact form, look for the Fast and Secure Contact Form plugin by Mike Challis. Very simple to use but limited customisation options.
For more sophisticated forms design there is cforms at the deliciousdays site but this takes a lot more technical skill to get up and running.
And with both of these tools you have to manually manage your list.
These tools are fine for someone in the learning/experimental stage but as time goes on and you want to build and manage a list a responder like aweber is a must, especially if you want to follow industry standards for privacy and anti-spamming.
Thanks to Paula and Wanda for a good list.
Ginger Mudd
Technology Consultant´s last blog ..WordPress Backup How To Do It Correctly
Hi Paula & Wanda,
First time here – and like it ! Lots of useful info & tips. Thanks.
And this post is really useful for me as it has made me aware of the “Do Follow” plug-in which I’ll try out in the next few minutes !
Finally a question …. I’m currently using Disqus for my comments – do you think it would be good to change to commentluv?? And, if so, would I be able to keep current comments … or would they just get deleted ?
Ok , all for now – best wishes to sunny Oz from Hamburg !
Cheers
Will
Will´s last blog ..whatahomestay.com
Thanks for visiting Will and glad you like the blog.
I can’t really answer your questions on Disqus as I haven’t tried it out yet. I notice a lot of people are using it now. The only reason I’m not using it as I feel it is an extra step for my readers to take when they leave a comment. I also notice that when I leave a comment on a blog using Disqus that sometimes I get an error message and I have to try again. That kind of discourages me from installing it on this site.
I like Comment Luv. It’s simple and it’s a way of rewarding people who leave a comment.
This list is even more helpful than I was hoping for. Thank you very much!
Great post. Would you mind if I wrote a little article on my increase website traffic blog about this?
My blog is still very new so I am always looking to get more quality content on it.
My readers I am sure would benefit greatly from this information. I will of course link back to this blog
as being the original blog where I got information from.
Trevor – Increase WebSite Traffic´s last blog ..How To Increase Website Traffic With Newsletters
You’re quite welcome to write up an article….as long as you don’t duplicate the content of course. That wouldn’t do any of us any good.
You’ve got some good information on your blog by the way.
Thank you so much! That list is awesome!
christian´s last blog ..List Of Free Desktop Blogging Softwares
Your pop-up: “….If you like what we have to say we would really appreciate you leaving a comment before you leave today.”
Correction:
“….If you like what we have to say, we would really appreciate YOUR leaving a comment before you leave today.”
Very nice list of plugins for wordpress. Bookmarked.
Abhilash Pillai´s last blog ..This site calculates your luck – Showluck.com
Hi,
Great post. When I first came to your site, their was a pop up saying please leave a comment. Is this a plugin? How would I do something like that.
Thanks
That’s just a WordPress plugin and it’s free. You can download it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-popup-scheduler/
Very interesting blog post for wordpress bloggers!
Thanks for sharing..
I must migrate now from blogger to wordpress.
This is nice set of wordpress plugin which we require to retain the visitors. Thanks a lot for compilation of such great plugins.
Thanks for the 20, er um 22 WordPress Plugins Post.
I’m using a few of those plugins, but I think I’ll go check out a few others. I agree about Disqus. It seems to error more often than not. In fact when I see that being used, I’ll type and copy my comment before submitting. That way I don’t have to retype the comment.
I use and like the DoFollow, Comment and Keyword Luv plugins. Never seem to have any issues on my site or others that use it.
Thanks for the list. Off to go check out a couple.
CJ @ Online Technical Writing´s last blog ..A Blog is NOT A Website
LOL – I am the same. I always copy my comment before I submit just in case it disappears.
Very nice list of plugins for wordpress. Bookmarked.
Thanks for the post. Can’t wait to try…
I am using all the plugins you have mentioned but I am looking for some new plugins like ato submission to search engines.
abhishek´s last blog ..Google Facts and Figures via Royal Pingdom
Thanks for the information. Keep up the good work.
Jay´s last blog ..How to Tackle Botnet Attacks (Part Two)
Good collection, I would like to add RSS Footer, it can be very useful sometimes.
hey, thats a fairly comprehensive list! I personally use keywordluv, all in one seo and similar posts plugins – these seem to work well for me.
Baz @ Clickbank Cash Supreme´s last blog ..About Me
nice info, but i notice none of these comments are “do follow”..?
Blogtools´s last blog ..What Are The Most Effective Ways To Get Backlinks To My Site?
I was using a dofollow plugin for a while but I found it encouraged spammers.
this is a great resource, i have a few of them already on my weblog but im definately going to install the similar posts and subscribe remind plugins tonight before bed, i think blogging is like anything in life, if you put in the time and effort, then these rarely go wasted, i just came across your blog through google, keep up the good work
very comprehensive list. Still useful today.
Jay´s last blog ..3 Sites That Guarantee Instant Traffic for New Blogs
Thanks for the list of possibles. It’s always a good idea to find out what’s happening now and what works best. I appreciate you sharing.
Take Care, Met
thats great collection of plugins… i like your huge information related to plugins
Farman ´s last blog ..Pakistani Summer Fashion Clothes, Lawn
Brilliant ideas!
Bianca´s last blog ..Perfect party bags
Thanks for the list, Paula. The first plug-ins to get installed on all of my blogs are All-In-One SEO Pack, CommentLuv & KeyWordLuv and an AddThis plug-in.
And I like how you took advantage of the bottom of your blog. Nice!
David Smith | Epic Traffic Systems´s last blog ..Epic Traffic Systems Affiliates Sign Up Here
Wow! Had no idea there were so many traffic getting plugins! Thanks!
John´s last blog ..Learning Guitar Should Be Fun Not Work
Thankyou for the comments
jamshaid´s last blog ..Digital and Analog Systems
Paula…just curious, what does this trackback pingback thing at the end of your articles do for your site? Is it a plug in that posts all your trackbacks? I get a ton of those on my skin care site and not sure what do do with them.
Work at Home Money´s last blog ..Keyword Academy – HubPages
We get a lot of trackbacks as well but most of them are spammers. The only ones I approve are the ones where people have written a legitimate post on their site and linked back to us as a relevant resource.
I am not sure if it has any benefit to me….I’ve never really researched it. But I just see it as a way of rewarding people who have linked to my blog posts.
It’s not a plugin. It’s part of WordPress. If you approve them in your comments section they should show up on your blog (like they do at the bottom of this one) but it may also depend on your theme.
Great list, I found a use for a few of these. Thanks!
thanks for this, I’ll definitely use this
nice article, i will install some plugins now.
teknoloji haberleri´s last blog ..Uçakta Cep ve ?nternet Kullan?m? Ba?l?yor
this is great list of plugin, i check these
Really very great collection Paula. And i found that your ways are very effective.
Learned some good tips. I’ve heard of a few of them but not all. I’m a new blogger. Keeping up the blog is the easy part, getting it noticed and getting traffic to it is the hard part. The page source code shows nofollow for all the comments, but you have Comment Luv installed. Has something maybe been overlooked or is this actually nofollow?
Christian´s last blog ..Are We Throwing Rocks at Jesus
Having Comment Luv on your site doesn’t necessarily mean that the site is a dofollow blog.
Our site used to be dofollow but it seemed to attract a lot of spammers. So we went back to a nofollow blog.