As a writer, you face a lot of different tasks and need to meet a lot of different expectations. You’re not only expected to write but also to edit, proofread, promote your writing, write for SEO, and do so much more. And, just like any other professional, you can’t do it all with just your two hands. You need help from the right writing tools and resources. Luckily, there are WordPress plugins that are perfect for making a writer’s workday so much easier.
If you want to start using the right WordPress plugins for your writing but don’t know which ones to choose, just keep reading. We’ve put together a list of 10 essential WordPress plugins for writers and writing.
Let’s break it down.
1. Yoast SEO
As a writer who publishes their content online, you must be aware of the importance of writing search engine optimized content. Optimizing for Google is a demanding task that requires a lot of research and SEO knowledge.
It’s virtually impossible to do it without any tools. And Yoast SEO is one of the best WordPress plugins for SEO.
This plugin will help you with:
- title and meta description templating
- analyzing the readability of your text
- analyzing the level of SEO of your text
Using this tool, you’ll be able to improve the overall quality of your content and make sure you’re publishing only highly optimized writing.
2. Google Analytics Dashboard
As a writer, you should never be in the dark. You have to ensure you know what your audience is doing, how are they behaving, and how much they’re enjoying your work.
The only way to do it is to analyze your data and learn from their behavior.
And, if you’re using Google Analytics, this plugin can help you connect your WordPress site with your Google Analytics. This plugin by MonsterInsights will provide:
- a dashboard with analytics reports
- statistics you care about
With this plugin, you’ll learn about your content creation process. Also, you’ll always know what your next step should be and what our audience expects from you.
3. Editorial Calendar
If you’re a writer who has a lot on their hands and publishes content on a daily basis, you’ll need a WordPress plugin to keep you organized. Editorial Calendar is a plugin designed to help you keep everything in control and provide a regular publishing flow without too much trouble.
It allows you to:
- schedule publishing your posts in advance
- set post titles, publishing times, and contents
- change any of the above
- create your ultimate editorial calendar
This way, you’ll be able to keep track of all your writing and publishing plans in one place.
4. WProofreader
Proofreading your content for grammar or spelling mistakes is a must for any reader. It doesn’t matter if you’re a world-famous blogger or you’re just getting started, you need to make sure your content is accurate and polished.
WProofreader is a plugin that will analyze your written content and immediately let you know about:
- grammar mistakes
- spelling mistakes
- punctuation mistakes
It will underline the mistakes and offer a solution, leaving it up to you to make the final decision. It’s a great proofreader that every writer should use.
5. Akismet
Whether you’re running a small e-commerce blog or a major fashion blog, people are going to leave comments. And while this type of user engagement is highly desirable, you don’t want to allow the wrong type of comments to ruin your reputation.
This is why you need to keep an eye on spam comments. Akismet is a WordPress plugin that does it for you.
Here’s what you get:
- automatic check of all comments
- filtering potentially spam comments for you to review
- reveals misleading links
It protects you from allowing malicious or harmful content to reach your site, and doing hard for your loyal readers.
6. Broken Link Checker
As we’ve already mentioned, you have to make sure your readers and target audience are completely satisfied with every aspect of your writing. And, since links are often a part of your content, you should use a plugin such as the Broken Link Checker.
Imagine placing a link into your content, and when someone from your audience clicks it, it turns out to be a bad or broken link.
This could seriously damage their user experience and negatively impact your SEO.
This is why you need this plugin to:
- monitor and analyze all your internal and external links
- detects broken, bad, or missing links
- notifies you about these issues
With this plugin, you’ll have the help you need in making sure every link is properly placed and works without issues.
7. Sumo
Every writer needs a plugin that can help them grow their readership and build a solid database of followers and readers. Sumo is a plugin that does all that and makes sure you’re happy with your improvement.
Here’s what the plugin offers to writers:
- high-quality opt-in forms to grow your email list
- timed popups across your site
- automated email campaigns
Sumo allows you to boost conversions, increase sales, and get a better ROI. It’s great for anyone looking for a way to make sure they’re making all the right steps.
8. Image Inject
As a writer, you already know that the quality of the content you’re publishing is your number one priority. But, the presentation also matters.
Adding images to your content will make it more appealing, memorable, and interesting to read. Luckily, there’s a plugin for quick and convenient image injection.
Image Inject is a plugin that allows you to:
- Easily insert images to your WordPress posts
- Search for royalty-free images using a keyword
- Add images you like to your WordPress library to use in the future
Setting up an image in your WordPress blog post is just a couple of steps away, and you’ll make your posts visually rich in seconds.
It’s a plugin perfect for writers who aren’t making their own visuals but have the need to include some in their content.
9. Smush
Smush is another image-related WordPress plugin that makes sure you’re placing your images into WordPress posts the right way.
As you probably know, page load time can significantly influence how your readers react to your content and how they feel about it.
If it takes too long for the content to load, they might get so annoyed that they’ll leave your blog entirely.
This is why you need a plugin, such as Smush.
Smush will make sure your images are perfectly optimized. It will:
- compress your images to a smaller size
- remove unnecessary data
- resize images
- speed up your page load time
This way, you can use more images, but your site will work faster and without any interruptions. Optimized images will take up less space and won’t influence the speed of your site negatively.
It’s definitely an essential tool for writers who love adding visuals.
10. Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons
Finally, you can’t forget the power of social media and how important it is for promoting your content. Showing your content on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter is a must nowadays.
You also have to make sure that your readers and audience have the opportunity to easily share the content they love on their social media accounts.
This is why you should use a social sharing plugin on your WordPress blog.
A social media sharing plugin will make it easy for you to:
- add social sharing buttons to your posts
- choose different social media icons design
- add counts to your social sharing buttons
It will invite people to share your content with their friends and help you expand your readership using the power of social media sharing.
Final Thoughts
WordPress plugins are designed to help us work better, surpass issues, and solve problems we otherwise wouldn’t know how to deal with. They also speed up our workflow and help us stay productive and efficient.
Hopefully, the list above will help you find the right tools for your writing sessions. Use the ones that make you feel empowered and inspired to work harder.
Author Bio:
Dorian Martin is a professional writer and freelance blogger with years of experience covering diverse topics. He mainly focuses on giving actionable tips to his readers who need help achieving a professional or personal goal. He currently works as an editor at an academic writing service EssaySupply.com and loves every second of it.