Part of the guide: Blog Traffic
If you’re running a WordPress blog, I’m sure you know how tough it can be to generate traffic. Well, traffic generation is pretty easy. BUT – if you want to generate loads of traffic, you need to take advantage of every resource available to you. As I’m sure you know, WordPress plugins can enhance your blog in numerous ways. There are WordPress plugins for everything, but what’s more important than traffic?
Sure… Plugins that help organize your content or make your site load faster are great and all, but at the end of the day, we want to get more traffic. I’ve tried and tested probably hundreds of plugins, and I’ve got rid of at least 90% of them. Anyway, I know which ones work and which ones can increase your blog’s traffic. Here they are:
1. Facebook Social Plugin (checked as of July, 2024)
This is one of those plugins almost every good blog has. It gives you a like box widget you can install anywhere on your blog. It allows visitors to like your Facebook Fan Page straight from your blog. Take a look at my like box in the sidebar, over 35,000 likes. A lot of those come straight from people liking via my like box on my blog. To use this plugin, you need a Fan page obviously, and if you don’t have one, create one! They are practically mandatory if you’re trying to build any form of business online. Ever since I installed the Social Plugin like box, my Fan Page’s likes have skyrocketed. The more fans I get, the more traffic my blog receives.
2. Facebook Comments For WordPress (checked as of July, 2024)
As a blogger, you should know how important comments are. If your posts aren’t getting any comments, then it means you’ve got no real community of followers. This plugin basically installs a little Facebook commenting widget below all of your posts. It gives visitors more than one option to leave a comment. Besides increasing the amount of commenting, it also drives traffic with the cool “post to Facebook” option. The post to Facebook feature allows visitors to share their comment on their Facebook wall. Getting on someone’s wall gives you great exposure for obvious reasons.
3. Sharebar (checked as of July, 2024)
Sharebar is a fantastic plugin that I’ve only started using recently. In fact, I think the whole world just started using this plugin. The plugin is dead simple. It displays a bar on the side of your blog posts with a bunch of share buttons.
It allows visitors to share your posts on their favorite social networks and bookmarking sites. While it does very little, the effect is phenomenal. Ever since I installed the Sharebar, my blog’s traffic and social activity have gone right up. Get it, install it, and watch the magic happen!
4. Tweet Old Post (checked as of July, 2024)
I’m not huge on Twitter (now x.com) marketing, I never have been. In fact, I don’t even like Twitter and only use it because I know what it can do for my business. I mean, even Google has started using Twitter signals in its algorithm, so you’d be stupid not to use Twitter. Before I came across this plugin, I was using Twitter to promote my new blog posts.
I had everything set up so whenever I published a post, it would automatically be syndicated onto my Twitter network. I literally forgot about the dozens of older posts I had written that were barely getting any traffic. After I installed this plugin, I saw an instant surge of traffic hit my “elderly” posts. What the heck does this thing do? In a nutshell, it automatically syndicates your OLD blog posts onto Twitter pumping them with new links and traffic.
5. WP Syndicator (no longer available; consider using Blog2Social)
You were never meant to do this alone
Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →Now this plugin is completely different from the others I mentioned. What it does is automatically syndicate your new blog posts onto 10+ web2.0 sites. It essentially gives you 10 instant backlinks and shares your posts on Twitter. As of right now, the plugin syndicates your posts onto Blogger, Multiply, Typepad, Friendfeed, Xanga, Tumblr, and more. What do I mean by syndicate? Well, it takes a snippet of your post and publishes it onto the web2.0 sites with a link back to your post. It also uses your desired keyword as anchor text.
I do advise people to get this plugin, I believe there are now better alternatives that submit to more sites. However, I wanted to introduce this idea to everyone. This thing gets you instant backlinks by syndicating your new posts onto web2.0 sites + social networks. Syndicating your content onto web2.0’s and social networks results in rapid search engine rankings and instant traffic. Check the plugin out and if you like it, buy it.
In Prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments, and questions in the box below!
Comments (carried over from the previous site)
Luke White, December 1 2011, 10:23
How about this Free EzTraffic wp plugin http://uptodate-seo.info
Another User, December 2 2011, 12:45
This is a great list! I’ve been using Sharebar for a while, and it works wonders.
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Tweet Old Post is the one here that’s actually automation and not just a widget — auto-resurfacing your backlog on a schedule instead of manually digging up old posts. The other four are basically ‘add a button,’ which isn’t automation, it’s decoration.
Trina’s right that most of this list is decoration, which got me thinking about how much of blogging in this era was decoration generally — like buttons, share bars, comment widgets, all signaling activity rather than creating it. Feels a bit like putting a bell on a bike that doesn’t have pedals.
Sorry if this is a silly question, but the post mentions 35,000 likes on the Facebook page and then says the like box brought a lot of that traffic — isn’t that a little backwards, like don’t you need the traffic first for people to even see the like box and like the page?
I ran a version of every plugin on this list for years, back when I was still building a team and needed the blog doing some of the talking for me. None of them individually moved anything on their own — the like box didn’t create fans, the share bar didn’t create shares, the Twitter plugin didn’t create followers who cared. What actually moved things was consistent, useful posting over a long stretch of time, and the plugins just made that consistent posting slightly more visible to slightly more people who were already inclined to look. If you don’t have the first part figured out, I don’t think this list does much for you at all.
Samir just described the entire plugin economy in two sentences.
Roy’s not wrong, and it matters more when you’ve got 45 minutes total some nights. Installing five plugins eats the whole window. If I only get one, it’s Tweet Old Post, set once and forget. The rest is nice-to-have I don’t have time for.
Samir, ‘the plugins just made the consistent posting slightly more visible’ is the most useful sentence in this whole thread. Nobody else said it that clearly.
I read this wondering how much of it depends on Facebook being the dominant network for the reader. Where I do business, WhatsApp and Instagram matter far more than a Facebook like box, so half this list would need a completely different set of plugins to mean the same thing locally.
What’s being described across this whole post is basically distribution amplification. The underlying research on social proof widgets, like box counts and share counts shaping perceived credibility, is decent. The research specifically tying them to search traffic gains, which is the claim made here, is much thinner than the confident tone suggests.