Traffic … I have ambivalent feelings about this word. Having been raised in Los Angeles, traffic is the parking lot you sit in on the 405 freeway.
However, I love traffic for my website. There are two types.
- internal traffic — continual perusing within a site
- external traffic — traffic from outside source (e.g., social media)
There are countless WordPress plugins, but it’s important to find ones that fit your style and are compatible with your theme and/ or other plugins.
Internal Traffic Plugins
Encouraging visitors to peruse other pages within your website has multiple benefits. It goes without saying that the more someone browses within your website, the more exposure he or she will have to your work. An overlooked reason is a reduced bounce rate.
When a visitor enters your site and leaves shortly after (without clicking around), that is considered a bounce. When there is a high bounce rate, Google will deem that the information on your site is not relevant to what people are searching. As a result, Google could potentially remove your website from that search term, thus affecting your search engine optimization (SEO).
LinkWithin
LinkWithin is a plugin that creates thumbnails under each post. The only setback is that it uses javascript to create dynamic links, which doesn’t help you with SEO.
Efficient Related Posts
Efficient Related Posts creates a list of links below each blog post. This is the one I use (despite not having thumbnails) because it creates hardcoded permalinks, which are good for SEO.
External Traffic Plugins
Below are tools that are great when connecting with other platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest. Plus, making your site to be more social allows for more conversation and engagement.
Facebook Comments for WordPress
Facebook Comments for WordPress allows people to leave comments, Like, or post something to their Walls. Since most people are part of this giant platform, it’s easier to leave a comment (since they’re usually already logged in) rather than having to fill out their names, emails, websites and etc.
Shareaholic
Shareaholic is a bit of a hybrid. It has all types of goodies.
The plugin has its basic social media share buttons. It also has a hovering top bar, which sticks to the top of the webpage no matter where a reader is browsing. Lastly, it has a related posts section similar to LinkWithin.
An alternative to Shareaholic is AddThis.
Wibiya
Wibiya is a plugin that puts a static bar that sticks to the bottom of your website. You can customize welcome messages and social media channels to use.
Hello Bar (premium)
Hello Bar is another static bar, which hovers at the top of a webpage. Hello Bar lets you customize important messages you want people to see.
An alternative is Foo Bar (premium).
Tofurious Pinterest (free)
Pinterest is the hottest new social media platform that has proven to drive more traffic than many other mediums. Users pin photos onto digital boards, which link back to your website.
However, most Pinterest plugins only put a Pin It button at the bottom of the post, which makes it more difficult to use. As a result, I created the only plugin that adds a Pin It button that hovers under each photo, so that people won’t have to search through a gallery of thumbnails.
There are countless more cool plugins (free and premium) that do a wonderful job. Are there ones that you like that I didn’t mention? Comment below.
Best,
Lawrence Chan
P.S. Got a lovely note from Ling about my SEO e-book :)
P.P.S. If you missed out on 2012 NYC Bridal Fashion Week, check out the video I made for Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Magazine.
