Top WordPress Plugins for Effective Company Branding
Due to the fact that there are more than 1 billion websites in the online galaxy, not establishing one for your company is equal to non-existence. However, setting up a website is just the first of many steps you need to take in order to create a brand and reach a wider audience. What keeps it afloat is the effective presentation which is easily achieved with a well-executed and UX observant design.
If we take into consideration that more than 80% of websites with personalized .ME domain opt for WordPress as their CMS, it is evident that this platform has the right tools to help you in your endeavors. For the following article, we have singled out some of the top rated WordPress plugins that are bound to aid you in building your company brand and strengthening its online reputation.
Our Services Showcase
Since people tend to disregard brands which present them with irrelevant information, it is of utmost importance to focus on communicating the right message to your potential clients. With a handy WordPress plugin such as Our Services Showcase, you can clearly display a list of your services or products. With an unlimited spectrum of colors, over 600 icons for site owners, 2 featured image templates and 2 icon templates, you are provided with the opportunity to highly personalize your portfolio. It is ideal for WordPress newbies since it requires no coding knowledge.
Furthermore, if your services include offering professional help and advice, you can attract customers with easy-to-use Booking Calendar. Aside from being extremely practical, it can be customized to your preference to display one or more months, set single or multiple day selection, as well as the number of unavailable days so that the website visitors are provided with a clear insight into your schedule. It is certainly one of the oldest and most reliable booking WordPress plugins, appropriate for a wide range of businesses.
OptinMonster
There is a rumor going around that email marketing is dead. Nevertheless, we cannot neglect the fact that smartphones keep us logged into our email accounts 24 hours a day with push notifications enabled. Emails are certainly a more personal way of reaching out to people. For this reason, many websites present you with an option to subscribe to various newsletters related to either products, company news or some industry trending topics.
OptinMonster is a simple form builder that allows you to create different type of opt-ins, such as WordPress popup forms, floating header and footer bars, slide-ins, sidebar forms, after post forms, in-line forms, welcome gadgets, etc. It is important to note that all of the templates are responsive and mobile friendly. OptinMonster can easily be integrated with more than 19 different email marketing services, including MailChimp, Hubspot, AWeber, GetResponse and many more. What’s unique about this plugin is its page level targeting module which you can use to display unique offers and campaigns based on visitor’s geographical location. This way you can group your subscribers and ensure you send only offers that are of interest to them. As a result, you will avoid high unsubscribe rates.
Kudobuzz Testimonial Widget
More than 60% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision and, therefore, are more likely to purchase from a website which can provide input from previous users. But nowadays, simply putting up product reviews is no longer enough. Since they are published by a company looking to promote a product or a service, they are sometimes viewed with a bit of apprehension. In order to develop trust and make your business more credible, it is advisable to focus on humanizing your company brand by publishing honest and informative statements from your previous clients.
Testimonials build the bridge that connects the product that is being advertised with the source of information. Still, people can easily sense insincerity and are a bit skeptical when they cannot connect the claim with the picture, and plugins such as Kudobuzz Testimonial widget aid you in collecting positive comments from your previous clients. This plugin collects and posts on your company website any words of praise others have published about you on their social media profiles, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. It keeps the testimonials up-to-date so that your future clients are provided with fresh information.
Floating Social Bar
According to statistics, more than 20% of buyers visited branded social network groups or pages. This is precisely why 64% of organizations claim that investment in online communities is extremely important. Thanks to Twitter and its real-time processing of requests, complaints and special offers, it is evident that the relationship between a seller and a customer has been revolutionized. Facebook too has set the bar high with its groups and company profiles, as did LinkedIn and other business social networks that enable companies and their representatives to get in touch with leading industry names and reach out to target customers. The most common problem when looking to incorporate social media buttons on your company website is that they tend to slow down the loading time. Unfortunately, this more often than not chases away visitors after only 3 seconds.
Floating Social Bar, without affecting the website speed, encourages visitors to share content via their profiles. What is unique about this plugin is that it provides buttons only for the most popular social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Another thing that sets it apart from other social media plugins is the fact that it loads scripts only when it is necessary and uses socialite script to load buttons only when users bring the cursor over the button itself.
Ultimate Responsive Image Slider
Years of research have shown us that people are more interested in content that contains visuals than that which has none. Regardless of the niche of your business, sprucing up the website with high quality images is essential in order to both make the website content more appealing and personalize your company brand. Consider uploading photographs that depict you and your entire team in a working environment, as they add life to a website and let people meet the faces behind a product or a service.
With plugins such as Ultimate Responsive Image Slider you can present your customers with infinite amount of image slides in a single slider and tell the entire story. It allows you to customize image height and width to suit your preferences or the WordPress theme you’ve chosen. It is compatible with all browsers and is optimized for mobile phones.
Being the most popular and easy to use CMS, WordPress is used not only by bloggers but also by businesses. With ease of use comes simplicity and because of it WordPress hasn’t got much to show for in its basic state. But when used in combination with plugins, it becomes equally powerful as almost any of the CMSs out there.
Have you had positive experience with any other WordPress plugins that helped you build your company brand? Share your experience with us!
