If you decided to go platform building alone and run your own WordPress blog, here are ten plugins that may be very useful to you.
All the plugins listed are available to Author Buzz bloggers.
1. Redirection
Redirection is a great little plugin for taking care of permalink changes and renamed pages. I recommend it for all WordPress installs because it just takes care of a few of the nasty messes you can make when bringing structural changes to an established blog.
Set it to detect changes and then forget about it. Everything will be taken care of for you.
2. WordPress Editorial Calendar
This is a must have for bloggers planning posts in advance.
This is especially true as WordPress makes no effort to let you see when your posts are scheduled. The editorial calendar offers an overview of your blog including when each post will be published. You can drag, drop, edit, and pull drafts onto the calendar.
If you accept guest posts but have your guest writers as contributor (can write but not publish) then this is a perfect way to see iof there is a pending guest blog post waiting.
Get WordPress Editorial Calendar here.
3. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO has two features that are amazing for author bloggers.
The first is that it evaluates how well you are writing to your chosen keyword. It will track if you over or underuse your keyword. It reminds you to add links. Yoast SEO also tells you if you have other content that already uses the keyword.
The second, and for me, the best feature is that it evaluates how well written a post is. Yoast SEO has a bunch of different metrics that generally indicate if a post is easy to read. It will check you for heading use, passive voice, over-sized sentences, repetitive word use, and reading ease. While not always correct, it does make you think about what you are doing and acts as a reminder to write the best content that you can by tracking all the things that generally make for a good post.
Yoast is a premium plugin but there is a perfectly good free version too.
4. MyBookProgress by Author Media
My Book Progress is the perfect choice for NaNoWriMo as well as just keeping readers up to date with how ell you are writing.
My Book Progress features a progress bar widget and a host of integrations and nice touches that can make this a powerful tool for authors.
Get My Book Progress here (or here).
5. Akismet Anti-Spam
No one has time for dealing with spam comments. Akismet takes care of spam for you.
There is not really much to add other than crappy advert comments are unlikely to clog up your day. It works by leveraging a global database of bad actors, malicious content, and annoying spam. Which means your blog will always be kept safe from people trying to abuse your blog.
6. GDPR
GDPR compliance can be a pain for single author websites. That’s why this plugin is so handy. A little admin and your blog is now compliant with EU rules.
7. WriteShare Writing Community Platform
WriteShare is a plugin specifically designed for writing and sharing stories. It’s authors describe it as perfect for education/LMS, fanfiction, creative writing, and more.
I use WriteShare for my noodling and short stories that I’m probably never going to submit to a publisher but I still want to share.
Get WriteShare Writing Community Platform here.
Over to you
Do you agree with these plugin picks? What plugins would you add to this list?
If you have found a great writer or author appropriate plugin I would love to hear about it.