Running and managing a website can be a time-consuming and tedious process. You need to take care of your publishing frequency, monetization, promotion and everything else. Would it not be nice if there were some WordPress plugins or tools to help you automate such tasks?
Well, you have come to the right place. In this post, we will be taking a look at 10 awesome WordPress plugins that can help you automate tasks on your WordPress website and save a great deal of time.
1 Google Analytics WD
Google Analytics WD lets you integrate Google Analytics with your WordPress site and access all your site reports directly from your dashboard. With this plugin, you can view reports on your site performance, user demographics, visitor locations, as well as Ecommerce sales stats and AdSense and AdWords reports. The plugin allows you to set custom reports, track custom dimensions and truck targeted activities that visitors accomplish on your website. The reports come in comprehensive charts, and you can also download the reports in PDF or CSV files.
2 MailChimp WD
If you are using MailChimp to manage your email subscribers list, MailChimp WD is the perfect plugin for you. It can help you automate all tasks right from new subscribers’ signup,to popup display and frequency,subscription confirmation,and more.
All signup forms and fields are fully responsive and you can create as many as you like. The plugin features an advanced form editor which lets you create and customize the forms the way you want.
3 WPeMatico
WPeMatico lets you put your entire blog on autopilot. It is an autoblogging solution that can import full text or partial excerpts of articles from elsewhere by means of RSS or Atom feeds.
You just need to specify the feed and set the import frequency. WPeMatico will scan the feed and automatically import the articles. You can choose to publish them automatically, or save them as drafts for manual reviewing.
You should bear in mind that autoblogging can have legal consequences if you import absolute copyrighted material from elsewhere sans permission.
4 Automatic Alternative Text
Automatic Alternative Text adds alt tags to your images automatically. It scans your images for meaningful data, and then makes use of Microsoft Cognitive Services Computer Vision API to generate meaningful alt tags.
Having alternative text for your images is a great idea as it can boost your search ranks too. Many search engines take alt tags into consideration when determining the usefulness of an image for search results.
5 Akismet
Who hasn’t heard of Akismet? It is the de facto leader when it comes to fighting spam! Akismet comes installed with every WordPress website, but you need to activate it. It is free for basic usage, but you need to have a premium plan for any advanced level of use.
Akismet can automate all spam fighting measures. It can detect bad IPs, fake comments, spam posts, and a lot more. If you are looking for an anti-spam solution that lets you automate comment management, Akismet is the best option there is.
6 Auto Approve Comments
As the name suggests, Auto Approve Comments lets you automatically approve comments. You can whitelist certain IPs or users or even user roles and their comments will be automatically approved.
Naturally, this particular plugin works if you have a limited audience or a smaller site. For instance, you may be running a “behind the scenes” blog and want your team members to be able to comment instantly. In such a case, Auto Approve Comments is a good fit.
7 Broken Link Checker
Broken Link Checker scans your website for any broken links. It can scan and parse your pages and posts, and then notify you of any broken links that are found.
The best part about this plugin is that it can ensure search engines don’t follow broken links on your site. Plus, it can inform you via email or even in the admin panel of WP. You can create custom checks as well — Broken Link Checker can scan for not just broken links but also redirects or missing images.
Note that such scans can consume system memory, so if you are on a weaker web hosting plan, you might notice slower performance with the plugin.
8 Ad Inserter
Ad Inserter is an ad management plugin that can automatically insert advertisements in locations specified by you.
It works with JavaScript ads, HTML ads, AdSense, Amazon ads and even contextual ads. You need to provide the location of the ad and the required code, and then Ad Inserter will automatically showcase and rotate your ads as per the settings that you specify.
Ad Inserter works will all posts, pages, custom post types and even category and tag archives. It is available in both free and premium versions.
9 Amazon Auto Links
If you use an Amazon Associate account to monetize your content, Amazon Auto Links is the perfect plugin for you. It makes use of your Amazon Associate ID to showcase automatic ads on your site.
Here is how it works: you specify your Associate ID, and the category of products that you wish to showcase on your site (say, mystery fiction books). Then, the plugin automatically scans the given category of products, and shows ads for the latest additions to the said category. In other words, your website will show the latest mystery fiction books from Amazon automatically, all with your Amazon Associate ID. As and when new books are added, the plugin will showcase them as well.
10 NextScripts
NextScripts lets you post from your blog to your social networking profiles, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, YouTube, and many more.
As and when you publish a new post, NextScripts shares it across all your social networking profiles automatically, with a link to the said post. There are many other plugins for this task, but NextScripts is far more popular with over 200,000 active users. NextScripts also supports many unique social networks such as 500px and Medium and even messaging apps like Telegram.
So which of the above WordPress plugins will you be using to automate your site? Share your thoughts in the comments below!