I’ve just finished deploying my 6th theme in around six months, 4 on this blog and 2 free of charge for the charity Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation where I maintain their blog for free. I’m quite happy with the result and this template is definitely my best so far and I wanted to share the Best Wordpress Engagement Plugins I’ve found that will make users read more once they’ve visited my blog.

I think in my previous templates I wanted to implement all the funky plugins that I couldn’t on my old Blogware blog, rather than adding the ones that actually would increase the usage of my blog. I’ve focussed this time around on creating a layout and adding plugins that will encourage users to read more once they find my blog. Lots of posts have been written about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and also lots of other posts giving ‘insightful’ tips on how to increase traffic by doing such things as writing more often… but very few seem to focus on how to Engage readers, and how to keep them on your blog for longer.

Just like in traditional retail there’s no point getting a good footfall from search engines or other blogs, or conducting a lot of advertising on other sites enticing readers or ‘customers’ with particular items or stories, if you then don’t cross-sell another item or turn them into a repeat customer.

Yes, I know that getting the footfall and SEO is important and should never be forgotten, but below are the Best Wordpress Engagement Plugins & Tweaks I’ve Found.

1. Readers Posts

Most blogs have hundreds and hundreds of posts and it’s hard to highlight all the ones that other users find interesting. The Readers Post plugin helps to bring old articles back to the top, by highlighting the last posts that have literally just been read by other readers.

Since I implemented it (the ‘Just Read By Other Users’ section on the right of the page), it’s stunned me how many articles I have written over the last 18 months that I’d forgotten about myself, that are still relevant and are still being found on search engines. Over the last day or so, more and more of my old articles are appearing once again in my traffic stats because of this plugin, which I think is fantastic. It’s a shame it doesn’t auto-refresh or scroll, but I’m sure that will come later.

More: Download Readers Posts

2. Most Popular

This plugin drives Engagement by highlighting to new visitors what are the best or most popular posts, based on how many times other visitors have read them. Although the Readers Post Wordpress plugin can also display the most viewed posts as an ordered list, I use the WP-PostViews plugin as it’s been running a bit longer on my blog and I’m vain and I like big numbers!

More: WP-PostViews Plugin

3. Translator

I’m astounded that more blogs don’t include a translator plugin. Take a look at my clustermap below showing where my visitors have come from over the last year:

The map clearly shows the global nature of blogging. Yes, English may be one of the most common languages but you shouldn’t take for granted that all your potential readers can speak it fluently. Plus, you can’t beat offering all of your pages in a reader’s mother tongue, particularly when it is as easy as installing the Translator plugin which takes one minute.

As an added bonus, the translated pages even get picked up by foreign search engines which will add even more traffic to your blog.

More: Translator Plugin

4. Related Posts

The Related Posts plugin returns a list of the related entries for the currently displayed post based on active/passive keyword matches to words in the actual post. It offers full dashboard control allowing easy customisation of the number of posts displayed, whether or not to include excerpts and also formatting. These can be displayed anywhere, but I’ve opted to put mine at the bottom of every post.

More: Related Posts Plugin

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