Web Hosting Blog

One of the biggest challenges facing many website owners is how to keep the number of visitors to your website growing each month. As well as attracting more new visitors you should also look to give people a reason to come back. A great way of doing this is to increase the level of  interaction between yourself and your visitors (and between themselves). Here are a collection of WordPress plug-ins that will help you to develop a more interactive website and encourage more sharing of your content.

Smart sharing

We use this plug-in our own blog to power the sliding social bookmarking and sharing icons on the left of every blog post. http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/add-a-floating-share-box-in-wordpress-with-smart-sharing-plugin/

Subscribe to comments reloaded

Another plug-ins we have first hand experience of using. This plug-in will allow your commenters to sign up and receive an email if someone else leaves a comment so they can come back and reply. A great way to encourage more interaction on tour blog. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments-reloaded/

Sexy bookmarks

Still one of the most attractive social sharing and bookmarking plug-ins with an ever growing list of sites to choose from. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sexybookmarks/

WP Greet box

This plug-in allows you to create tailored greeting message based on the visitor’s referral source (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Digg etc.). http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-greet-box/

GD Star rating

Incredibly flexible and in depth, you can use it as a simple star rating for each product/ post or use it power an entire review website. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gd-star-rating/

Disqus

A great set of features to encourage more comments and sharing of your content. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disqus-comment-system/

Follow Me

Display links to all your social media profiles in one, easy-to-access button or window .http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/tools/follow-me/

BuddyPress

If you are feeling ambitious turn your WordPress install in to a full blown social network. http://buddypress.org/

And finally…

Facebook
This isn’t a WordPress plug-in but if you want to integrate Facebook in to your website click here for more informaiton on Facebook’s social plugins, and with instructions on how to add them to your website.

What have we missed?
If you use any WordPress plug-ins to increase visitor interaction and sharing of your content, leave a comment below and we will add it to the list.

Name:Craig Cotter

About:As Operations director, Craig handles Heart Internet's large scale projects, and is also involved with the day-to-day running of the business. Craig ensures that our customers are put at the heart of all our decision making.

Posts by Craig (34)