6 Killer WordPress Plug-ins for your Real Estate Blog (Part 2)

In last week’s post, 8 Must Have WordPress Plug-ins for your Real Estate Blog, I provided a list of what I considered the bare essential plug-ins for every blog to have. There were several additional recommendations made within the comments, so I encourage you to check those out as well. Today, I’d like to do a follow up post and highlight some awesome “nice-to-have” plug-ins that can be of great use on your blog.

As I mentioned in my previous article, while I’ve linked to the WordPress.org plug-in page for each of these plug-ins, I suggest that if you want to install them, you do so within your WordPress admin site (click on Plug-ins icon, select “Add new”, and then search based on the plug-in name).

Try to be selective with the plug-ins that you choose to use because if you get too plug-in happy, you’ll slow down the performance of your website. Find those plug-ins that will add great value to your efforts and to your audience, and ignore all the rest.

Contact Form 7: This simple plug-in allows you to design multiple forms on your real estate blog. For example, you may want to add a simple form to collect property information from sellers, or investment/buying criteria from cash buyers. You can set up an automatic email response to go to everyone who fills out the form. Really great (and flexible) plug-in.

Exclude Pages from Navigation: Have you ever created a Page (not to be confused with a Post) within WordPress and then you were irritated because it showed up in the navigation menu for your blog? I have. Multiple times. WordPress does that automatically and it is not always what you want. The Exclude Pages from Navigation plug-in does exactly what it says….it allows you to exclude specified Pages from the menu. Awesome.

Pretty Link: Have you been using URL shorteners like Bit.ly and Tiny URL? The Pretty Link plug-in is awesome because you can actually maintain your branding by creating URLs with your domain name. For example, if Josh Dorkin wanted to send an email or a tweet with a link back to this article, he could simply use Biggerpockets.com/REBlogPlugins if he wanted to. This can also be used for cleaning up those ugly affiliate links you get when you’re promoting a product or service you believe it. Pretty Link allows you not only to create these URLs, but it also provides tracking and management.

Smart YouTube: Hopefully you’re integrating video with your blog…whether its your original content or sharing relevant video content that is already available on YouTube. If so, this plug-in will help you add YouTube videos and customize the way it looks in your blog very easily.

WP-Property: The WordPress Property and Real Estate Management plug-in is pretty powerful for rehabbers, wholesalers, and Realtors who want to list their current properties for sale. All the fields you need are already there plus it has some customizable widgets you can use on your blog such as featured properties, property gallery, and property search capability. It will also link up with Google Maps, so this is a really nice one to have.

Yet Another Related Post: If I were going to add a 9th plug-in to the list I posted last week, this would’ve been the one. This plug-in does a terrific job of providing your readers with a list of related content on your blog. This is exactly what you want because the more people hang around, the more you’ll be able to establish that important “know, like, trust” relationship.

I could continue this list, but in the spirit of simplicity, I’ll leave it at this short list. I’m sure that some of you with real estate blogs have some other great ideas. Ones that aren’t necessarily must-haves but definitely add value. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.