Welcome to the Mom Blog Money Blog Series! For 30 days we are following the Mom Blog Money Blog Workshop (affiliate link) sharing some tips so that we can work through the steps and grow together. Grab your coffee, have a seat, and join us.
Yesterday in Day 15 we talked about multiplying your blog traffic using Google Analytic. Today we are going to continue on with more technical talk and dive into the subject of…
WP Plugins.
You can’t live with them. You can’t live without them.
The basic issue is that WP Plugins WILL slow down your blog. So choose carefully and be VERY selective.
Only install ones that you will use daily.
This is not like shoes, you CAN have too many.
There is one plugin that I can’t live without and that is what I will talk about today:
Editorial Calendar WP Plugin
My favorite WP plugin is the WordPress Editorial Calendar. Remember how we talked about a 12-month editorial calendar and how important they are for you as a blogger? This plugin installs a calendar that integrates your posting schedule in an easy-to-see format. Once you install Editorial Calendar, you will see it under “posts” in your dashboard.
When you click on the calendar tab, it takes you to a traditional calendar view.
The coolest thing about this plugin is once you are in this view, you can drag and drop posts to schedule and re-schedule them.
This is an ABSOLUTE must plugin for anyone with multiple authors. It allows you to see what all is going on and how each post fits.
The other thing you can do from this view is change the time/date, make quick edits and view the post.
About 6 months ago I was having difficulty with the loading time on one of my blogs so we started by eliminating all plugins. It was this plugin that I missed the most.
It was nearly impossible to run a multi-author blog without it once I was used to it!
Thankfully, the root of the problem was identified and it was NOT this plugin.
Whew.
I almost threw a party when I re-installed it!
What is YOUR favorite WordPress plugin?
Don’t miss Day 17 which focuses on monetizing your most popular blog posts.
I just installed this plug-in a couple weeks ago and I LOVE it. I don’t even have a multiple author blog. I just like being able to see what posts have been scheduled, which are drafts, and what days I have free. It’s just incredible.
I agree Roxanne, it is an incredible plugin. I use it on both of my blogs and it has made such a difference.
I am trying hard to like the editorial calendar plugin. Trying. Not 100% there yet.
I really like the plugin Laurie suggests in her workshop that automatically sends a thank you email to your readers after they leave a comment on your site. It is a great opportunity to automatically send a personal message thanking them but you can also encourage them to take a peek at other areas on your blog and share links to specific posts. I believe the plugin is called Thank Me Later.