The 7 Amazingly Smart WordPress Content Marketing Plugins

“The Sure and Steady way to everlasting fame on the internet is through a finely tuned and well applied content marketing strategy.”

Regardez, you will get better at creating glorious content and marketing it so it receives the attention it deserves. You’ll also need the tools to make it happen. And that’s where WordPress, with its veritable army of plugins, comes in play.

While no longer just a content management system, WordPress still retains all the lovely features that every blogger and content marketer needs. The out-of-the-box features themselves are pretty awesome (see: inline linking, permalinks, titles and tags, taxonomy), but things can get ‘better’ from ‘good’, yeah?

On that note, here’s a list of 7 unbeatable WordPress plugins that will not only put your content marketing strategy in flawless action, but take it right through the roof.

1. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)

Displays other posts on your site related to the one that a visitor is currently on

• Last Update: January 2016
• Usage Stats: 300K+ Active Installs
• Rating: 4/5
• Available at: WordPress.org

YARPP is handy to create the perfect Catherine’s Wheel ride for your visitors – keep them engaged to the content.

It does what it says: It uses a customizable algorithm to determine other posts, pages, and custom post types (other than the one your visitor is currently reading) that could be of further interest and displays them in a Related Posts area just beneath your post.

You can choose to display them as thumbnails or list, control how the display looks (via plugin’s built in templates), and even display the related posts in RSS feeds. The premium version has even more options to play with (mostly for sponsored content), but the free YARP plugin is pretty nice on its own too.

2. Pods

Lets you create – and save –templates for varied content types, and more

• Last Update: April 2016
• Usage Stats: 30K+ Active Installs
• Rating: 4.9/5
• Available at: WordPress.org

Pods is less of a plugin and more of a content framework.

The plugin will take you back to your earlier years of playing with Windows Office tools, especially Powerpoint, where you could create and customize your own formats for ‘slides’ (Yeah, I am old. Go on, laugh). Pods does the same – It lets you create (without code, I must add) formats and custom post types, content types, taxonomies, and more, which you can then save for your own (and other contributors’) future use.
It doesn’t sound like too much of a deal, but when you’re consistently dealing with content types and authors of all kinds, Pods will save you precious time in content creation and publication process.

3. Edit Flow

Editorial and Publishing Management Plugin

• Last Update: April 2016
• Usage Stats: 10K+ Active Installs
• Rating: 4.5/5
• Available at: WordPress.org

Edit Flow streamlines your workflow by helping you manage it better. It’s like your own personal assistant!

It’s exactly as glamorous as it sounds – Features like monthly calendars, custom status, editorial comments (with threading enabled) and metadata, notifications, budgets, and user groups make this plugin a joy to have around, especially if your workflow is hectic (I am thinking magazine/news, contributor blogs, etc.)

4. MailChimp for WordPress

Toolset for email Marketing Automation

• Last Update: April 2016
• Usage Stats: 400K+ Active Installs
• Rating: 4.9/5
• Available at: WordPress.org

MailChimp needs no introduction, even outside of WordPress.

The plugin (MailChimp for WordPress) is a beauty – a lightweight, brilliantly optimized and user-friendly tool that with amazing customizable sign-up/subscription forms.

There are add-ons to the free (for first 2000 subscribers) core plugin to enhance conversions even further – MailChimp Top Bar, Activity, User Sync, Scroll-trigger Modals, etc. The fact that it integrates with popular eCommerce and form-builder plugins (among others) is icing on the cake.

5. Easy Content Templates

• Last Update: 2015
• Usage Stats: 1K+ Active Installs
• Rating: 5/5
• Available at: WordPress.org

For those of you who don’t quite need something as extensive as Pods (#2 in the list), Easy Content Templates is the answer.

The plugin lets you create and save custom templates (without code) for future use. You can choose to share these custom templates with other authors/contributors, which gives them the power to use (but not customize) the templates created by admin.

It’s not quite as detailed as Pods, but it’s simple, trustworthy, and gets the job done.

6. ImageInject

Looks up relevant, free creative commons images that can be added to your posts

• Last Update: September 2015
• Usage Stats: 10K+ Active Installs
• Rating: 4.8/5
• Available at: WordPress.org

Formerly known as WP Inject, the ImageInject helps add some excitement to your text posts by providing you with pictures to spice it up.

The plugin pulls free images from creative commons (Flickr, Pixabay, etc.) based on the post you are diligently working on. It also adds attribution, because it doesn’t encourage petty thievery. It will even upload the picture you select to your WordPress media library and add ALT and title tags to it, because it’s a lovable busybody.

7. SumoMe

Tool set to grow your Email List, Social Sharing and Analytics

• Last Update: December 2015
• Usage Stats: 100K+ Active Installs
• Rating: 4/5
• Available at: WordPress.org

You must have seen it at quite a few sites by now. The growing popularity is well and truly deserved.

SumoMe has an entire arsenal of features, add-ons and extensions that cover extensive grounds – from social share buttons, subscriber list builder, ‘Welcome Mat’, Top bar, and scroll-triggered modals for better conversion, Image sharer, and more.

The … toolkit loads asynchronously and comes complete with beautiful analytics and A/B testing features. For those who absolutely need complete control over all the minutiae of their digital ‘marketing paraphernalia’, SumoMe is perfect.

EndNote

I hope I was able to disabuse you of the notion that an SEO plugin is all you need to market your content effectively. It boils down to creating great content, consistently ¬and telling the entire world about it. Search engines may or may not notice, but (some) people will. Those are all you need to start with.