This post was inspired by a great group discussion we had in the Podcasters google+ community and Jeffrey Powers, who helps podcasters record podcasts.
Keep in mind that in order to install any of these plugins, you need to have a hosted WordPress.org website. I recommend going with BlueHost, because they have a one-click-wordpress install (what this website uses) and it’s pretty easy to get started.
1. Pretty Link Lite
I’ve begun using Pretty Link Lite religiously. It’s a great way to quickly create short links on your own domain which are easy to reference in an audio interview or in a blog post. In addition, the plugin tracks the number of clicks. For example, if you want to check out my podcast on crowdfunding in the iTunes store specifically, just go to CrowdCrux.com/iTunes.
There is also a paid version, Pretty Link Pro, which allows you to “create pretty links automatically, cloak links, auto-tweet links, replace keywords thoughout your blog with pretty links and much more.”
2. Optin Monster
Optin Monster is the pop-up subscriber window that this website uses. If you’re doing a podcast in the tips/advice category, or want to offer your website visitors a way to stay in touch with new announcements, this plugin is a good way to do that. They also have a lot of customizable themes.
Keep in mind that this plugin is paid. You can also use a free popup subscriber plugin like Popup Ally or Optin Revolution Lite.
5. Ninja Popups
Another user suggested Ninja Popups. The plugin has a very good sales/review rating and comes in at an affordable price.
“Ninja Popups combines a professionally designed popups to convert visitors on your site/blog into taking an action.”
3. Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is an easy way to give your listeners the option contact you via email, without giving out your email. “The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.”
Personally, I just provide my actual email to people who want to reach out for the blog related to my podcast. I don’t really get much spam, thanks to gmail. However, for other sites I run, I do use contact forms.
4. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms are another option for creating and implementing a contact form on the website for your podcast. I’ve never personally used this type of form builder, but I’ve heard great things.
“Gravity Forms allows you to quickly and easily integrate with a variety of third party services such as PayPal and provides for even deeper integration with WordPress through our collection of optional Add-Ons.”
5. WP Touch
I’m horrible at design. I understand the technicalities of installing a new WordPress website, but I’m not the guy to make it look pretty. When I heard about WP Touch, I thought it was too good to be true! It’s a free plugin that you can use to create a mobil-optimized website, which is mattering more and more to search engines like google.
Since a lot more people are listening to podcasts from their smartphone, it’s only natural that a they will be viewing your website on their mobile device. Rather than investing a fortune in creating a responsive theme, WP touch does it for you!
6. OptinSkin
I use OptinSkin on this website as an alternate way for visitors to enter their email address. Email list building tools like Aweber and MailChimp come with a few different opt-in themes (or CSS that you can customize) to capture emails on your website/blog. However, not all of them are pretty or contain statistics.
OptinSkin gives me stats in terms of the number of people that are opting into my email newsletter and it gives me an easy way to customize those forms. It’s kind of expensive, but I care a lot about maintaining an ongoing relationship with listeners/readers on this website and others.
7. WordPress SEO by Yoast
I love this free plugin! It’s easy to customize a SEO title and meta description for both posts and pages. In addition, it will give you a score on how well your targeted “key word” appears in the text of the particular post/podcast notes or transcript.
The one advice I’d give is don’t go overboard with SEO. Keyword stuffing or including too many meta tags is a no no. Don’t over optimize for a particular phrase. Just write notes and record podcasts for other humans!
8. Smart Podcast Player
I haven’t personally tried out this plugin, but I’ve seen other people gush over it. Basically, it lets visitors on your website see and listen to a bunch of podcasts one after the other, rather than having to click through to new articles that contain an embedded podcast player.
It’s kind of expensive. I can’t see myself investing in it yet, but it could be a useful tool for other power podcasters who want to ramp up the user experience on their website and are tired of the standard player provided Libsyn or other podcast hosters.
Conclusion
Should you install each of these? No! In general, the less wordpress plugins that your site requires, the better. Not just for speed, but also just for the general architecture of the website.
Let me know what functionality you’d like to add to your website so I can better help link you to the correct plugin!
