![\"best-wordpress-plugins-cro-400x400\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/best-wordpress-plugins-cro-400x400-310x310.jpg\")
If you’ve spent more than ten minutes configuring a WordPress site, you know that finding the best WordPress plugins is a headache and a half.<\/p>\nIf you’ve spent more than ten minutes configuring a WordPress site, you know that finding the best WordPress plugins is a headache and a half.<\/p>\n
In a perfect world, we would install every single WP plugin out there, but this would cause some serious problems.<\/p>\n
Here’s why:<\/p>\n
So how do we find the right balance between necessities, site performance and everything in between?<\/p>\n
What separates the best from the rest?<\/p>\n
The answer is simple:<\/p>\n
Conversion.<\/strong><\/p>\n What good is a website if it’s not working for you?<\/p>\n Sifting through thousands of plugins to find one golden nugget is a waste of time.<\/p>\n So here’s what I did:<\/p>\n I asked thousands of WordPress website owners for their advice and curated a list of the 14 top WordPress plugins that will work for you to get what you want in 2015:<\/p>\n Whether you’re running a blog, corporate or eCommerce website, there’s some love in here for everyone to start getting results fast.<\/p>\n Here are your 14 must have WordPress plugins to boost your conversion rate sorted by objective.<\/p>\n Free Video Training:<\/b> Click here to get an exclusive behind the scenes conversion rate optimization demo.<\/a> I’ll show you exactly how I create the perfect cohesion using these WordPress plugins.<\/p>\n What’s wrong with this picture?<\/p>\n Websites are not using white space effectively.<\/strong><\/p>\n As your visitors scroll through your content, the sidebar disappears with it.<\/p>\n Basic conversion rate optimization (CRO) practices say to keep your call to action “above the fold”.<\/p>\n What if you can keep the fold running with you throughout the entire page without looking tacky, obtrusive or spammy?<\/p>\n Here’s where this sticky little widget comes in play.<\/p>\n LowerMedia Sticky.js menus allow you to create sections that will float with the scroll rather than having them disappear into thin air.<\/p>\n Here are a few actionable uses for this gooey plugin:<\/strong><\/p>\n Setting it up is simple:<\/p>\n <div class=”.sticky-menu”>Your sticky menu content<\/div><\/strong><\/p>\n A simple 5 minute setup and some tact will get you more leads and get your money page seen.<\/p>\n Get LowerMedia Sticky.js Menus <\/a><\/p>\n Let’s be real:<\/p>\n The money is in the list.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you haven’t started collecting a list of email subscribers, then you need to start.<\/p>\n An email address is a very personal thing. When someone is willing to give it to you, they are showing interest in your product, service and content.<\/p>\n Don’t deprive them of getting good news, promotions and developing a personal relationship with you.<\/p>\n OptinMonster is a paid service, but it is well worth the money. In fact, it has helped me to generate a whopping 43% conversion on one of my opt-in pages.<\/p>\n OptinMonster allows you to build a variety of high converting forms without any coding knowledge. Some of my favourite features include:<\/p>\n This WordPress plugin gives you total control of generating leads in every possible circumstance with integrations for email marketing services like Mail Chimp, AWeber, Constant Contact and the list goes on.<\/p>\n They have a 14-day money back guarantee and monthly subscriptions can be cancelled at any time.<\/p>\n Get Optin Monster<\/a><\/p>\n This WordPress sidebar plugin allows you to create as many sidebars as you want and customize them through your widgets page.<\/p>\n Custom sidebars allow you to give relevant content, an applicable call to action and appropriate menus to your visitors.<\/p>\n For example, in my keyword research tutorial<\/a>, I have a custom sidebar with a call to action for my free online course<\/a>.<\/p>\n Having the same call to action for my case study about selling on Amazon<\/a> would be irrelevant. Chances are, if people are reading an Amazon case study, they will be more interested in the Amazon marketplace over creating their own web business.<\/p>\n Providing relevance with this nifty custom sidebar plugin will improve conversion dramatically.<\/strong><\/p>\n Get Custom Sidebars<\/a><\/p>\n SEO is not dead.<\/strong><\/p>\n But here’s the cold hard truth:<\/p>\n No plugin is going to send you a flood of traffic.<\/em><\/p>\n Search engine optimization is multi-faceted and requires both on-page and off-page work.<\/p>\n Fortunately, WordPress SEO by Yoast covers the technical side of the on-page factors without editing the WordPress core code.<\/p>\n Wordpres SEO by Yoast has numerous features. The two that help me convert traffic are:<\/p>\n Although there are more features to this plugin, let’s cover the basic foundations for on-page SEO<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meta titles and descriptions aren’t going to get you search rankings.<\/p>\n Period.<\/p>\n Getting found in Google is >90% of the battle. The other <10% is in getting the click through.<\/p>\n Meta titles and descriptions have the power to sway a click when you’re not the top ranked search result.<\/p>\n Let me explain.<\/p>\n If you search for “when do babies start talking?”<\/p>\n Here are the top four results:<\/p>\n Now what kind of people would be searching for when babies begin talking?<\/p>\n Most likely a new parent.<\/p>\n The Quick Answer Box solves the mystery immediately, but the user will likely want to learn more about their newborn’s developmental milestones.<\/p>\n Although Baby Center ranks fourth on the list, they earn my click through from their meta title alone.<\/p>\n They fulfill the user’s intent.<\/strong><\/p>\n Why stop at talking right?<\/p>\n Here’s how you can create awesome meta titles and descriptions with Yoast’s SEO plugin.<\/p>\n 1. Click on any page or post in your WordPress admin.<\/p>\n 2. Scroll to the bottom of your post and you’ll find a box that looks like this: 3. Enter your SEO title and meta description.<\/p>\n When I launched Money Journal I asked some friends to share my site with their networks.<\/p>\n But I made a mistake\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026I forgot to optimize the share settings.<\/p>\n Here’s what it looked like when my friend Jesse shared my home page:<\/p>\n My share image showed as one of my blog post featured images and had no message\u2026<\/p>\n *Face to Palm*<\/strong><\/p>\n Here’s how you can avoid making this mistake:<\/p>\n And here’s the final result:<\/p>\n Having an attractive title, description and image will increase your click throughs from your favorite social networks.<\/p>\n Get WordPress SEO<\/a><\/p>\n Social lockers might seem annoying, but they’re ultra effective.<\/p>\n Here’s how they work:<\/p>\n You create an offer such as a checklist, downloadable document, video, content or anything of value to your readers.<\/p>\n In order for a reader to “unlock” the content, they must pay you with a “like”, “tweet” or other form of social currency.<\/p>\n Want to see it in action? Click one of the share options in the fancy box below.<\/p>\n \r\n And that is how they work \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n \n The plugin has multiple customization features, but here are the most basic ways to use it:<\/p>\n <\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n Your hidden content \r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n <\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n The social locker plugin sends you some social signals in exchange for your mystery content.<\/p>\n Get Social Locker<\/a><\/p>\n This plugin isn’t going to convert traffic, but it will help stop the “bad guys” from interfering with your great commenters.<\/p>\n If you’re using the default WordPress commenting system, then you’ve witnessed the power of Ray Bans bot and of course a penile enhancement bot.<\/p>\n I have some bad news for you:<\/p>\n These guys don’t think your website is great and they certainly have no good intentions.<\/p>\n The bots programmatically leave comments on thousands of websites hoping to gain some shady backlinks to their money page.<\/p>\n Cookies for Comments to the rescue.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a 100% free plugin that blocks WordPress spam. I’ve had great success with this plugin on all of my blogs.<\/p>\n Here’s how it works:<\/p>\n This plugin has reduced my comments spam by over 85% on my niche sites.<\/p>\n Just install the plugin and let the Cookie Monster do the dirty work for you.<\/p>\n Get Cookies for Comments<\/a><\/p>\n\n
![\"LEAD-GENERATION\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LEAD-GENERATION.jpg\")
<\/p>\n1. LowerMedia Sticky.js Menus<\/h2>\n
Objective:<\/strong> Make your call to action unavoidable.
\nPrice:<\/strong> Free
\nGet LowerMedia Sticky.js Menus <\/a><\/div>\n![\"empty-sidebar\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/empty-sidebar.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"cro-sidebar\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/cro-sidebar.png\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
![\"floating-toc\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/floating-toc.png\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
![\"cro-facebook-likes\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/cro-facebook-likes.png\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
![\"sticky-menu-settings\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/sticky-menu-settings.png\")
<\/li>\n2. OptinMonster<\/h2>\n
Objective:<\/strong> Get more email subscribers.
\nPrice:<\/strong> Paid – view pricing plans<\/a>
\nGet Optin Monster<\/a><\/div>\n![\"optin-monster-stats\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/optin-monster-stats.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/optinmonster.com\/wp-content\/themes\/optin-monster-theme-saas\/images\/exit.gif\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
![\"timed-popups\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/timed-popups.png\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
![\"ab-split-test\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ab-split-test-768x477.png\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
![\"optin-monster-analytics\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/optin-monster-analytics.png\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n3. Custom Sidebars Plugin<\/h2>\n
Objective:<\/strong> Create relevant sidebars for your content
\nPrice:<\/strong> Free and Paid
\nGet Custom Sidebars<\/a><\/div>\n![\"sidebar-course\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/sidebar-course.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"sidebar-amazon\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/sidebar-amazon.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"SEARCH-SOCIAL\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/SEARCH-SOCIAL.jpg\")
<\/p>\n4. WordPress SEO by Yoast<\/h2>\n
Objective:<\/strong> Optimize on-page SEO, social share images, headlines and descriptions.
\nPrice:<\/strong> Free and Paid
\nGet WordPress SEO<\/a><\/div>\n\n
Optimize Meta Titles and Descriptions<\/h3>\n
![\"meta-description-examples\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/meta-description-examples.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"wordpress-seo-by-yoast-meta\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-meta.png\")
<\/p>\nCreate attractive social sharing messages<\/h3>\n
![\"bad-share-image\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bad-share-image.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"face-to-palm\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/face-to-palm.gif\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"yoast-seo-plugin-social-sharing\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/yoast-seo-plugin-social-sharing.png\")
<\/li>\n![\"social-sharing-example\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/social-sharing-example.png\")
<\/p>\n5. Social Locker<\/h2>\n
Objective:<\/strong> Get more social shares
\nPrice:<\/strong> Free and Paid (Premium)
\nGet Social Locker<\/a><\/div>\n\r\n \n
\r\n \r\n ![\"DISCUSSION-ENGAGEMENT\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/DISCUSSION-ENGAGEMENT.jpg\")
<\/p>\n6. Cookies for Comments<\/h2>\n
Objective:<\/strong> Stop WordPress comment spam bots.
\nPrice:<\/strong> Free
\nGet Cookies for Comments<\/a><\/div>\n![\"comment-spam\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/comment-spam.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
7. Facebook Comments<\/h2>\n
![\"facebook-comments-plugin\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/facebook-comments-plugin.jpg\")
<\/p>\n