This was originally written and published for ShootDotEdit. The article is republished here with search engines blocked and canonical set to the original published article. It is here for archival purposes and so my community can find it too.
In the last article about the best 4 visual WordPress plugins for wedding photographers. In it, I mentioned that the article was part one of series. So here is part two, on lead generation plugin.
Lead generation is the act of obtaining a person’s information from website visits. There are many ways to do so, and there are many forms of leads. There are social leads, email leads, qualified leads and so on.
Like before, I want to make sure you understand that almost all the plugins I’m recommending are free but have paid counterparts and services.
Social Warfare
Social Media remains extremely popular, and common these days. In fact, having a striving Facebook page is extremely important for wedding photographers. There are a few things that you want from a Facebook page:
- A lot of Likes
- A lot of shares
- A lot of mentioned
- A lot of 5-star reviews
So how do you make people aware of your social media channels? One of the ways is to have people share your content on their profiles.
Social Warfare is the best plugin for the job. It’s lightweight so that it won’t slow down your site. It’s customizable, and the paid version unlocks a lot more features.
With Social Warfare you can specify the look of your share buttons, have their fixed in position or be floating with page scroll. On mobile, it turns into an app-like sharing experience. It is one of the few social sharing plugins that have a true share count, even with the ongoing algorithm changes from each social network. And it has deep Pinterest integration – more than any other plugin out there.
With Social Warfare Pro you can take complete control over the social sharing experience, on any social platform that is important your wedding photography business.
WordPress to Buffer
Going along with social media sharing from your site visitors is social media sharing by you. Studies have shown that you need to share content multiple times to be seen.
There is a line drawn between those who are for and against automating social media. In my opinion, and from a lot of experimenting and experience with this topic, semi-automating actually in your favor.
Think about it. Wedding photographers hire assistants to carry equipment and companies like ShootDotEdit to take tasks like photo editing off your plate. So why not use a service to take the mundane social media tasks off your plate?
Semi-automating is the idea that you are automating only part of your social media efforts. In this example, you’re automating only the initial shares of your content over a set period of time.
I use a service called Buffer which offers a queue with my own set timing each day. There is one queue per social network, profile, and page.
I then use a plugin called WordPress to Buffer which allows me to have newly published blog posts automatically sent to my Buffer queues. The paid version of the plugin allows me fine tune controlled over the timing, and even base it on categories and tags. Because of the plugin, my new content is shared a lot over a two-month time frame. All without having to do it manually. That’s what I call time-saving!
Now I can worry more about getting those who engage with the social posts to convert into leads.
OptinMonster
When it comes to gathering emails, there are multiple methods to go about. Some work better than others, but at the end of the day, the one that works best is the one your customers prefer. And that’s where a lot of testing comes in.
There are so many plugins and services available to obtain emails (and phone numbers) from your site visitors.
But only one comes to mind when people ask me which is the best. OptinMonster is a software as a service business. That means although the plugin is free to install, it won’t work without paying for a subscription at their website.
OptinMonster allows you to create many forms of optins, from top or bottom bars, to slide ups, and even full-page takeovers. Each has its place, but as I said earlier, not all will sit well with your customers. So test! OptinMonster offers a lot of trigger methods, A/Z testing which is like A/B testing but with unlimited variations, and with precise placements.
The service also includes numerous designs for each optin style. Each of which can be customized with graphics, logos, text, and colors.
A good example of a test to make would be doing an A/B with the second variation having a different call to action in the button.
Related Posts for WordPress
Keeping people on your website is good for many reasons. Keeping people engaged with your content is a way to gain more interest in them contacting you. So like social media, engagement can turn into lead generation.
Another reason is that Google has an SEO factor which is time on site. As a site owner, you should have your site connected to Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Because of these things, Google knows what people do on your site. They know how long people stay. And although this factor might be a tiny piece of the SEO algorithm, it’s still good to have people browsing a lot.
One method of increasing site engagement is to show content related to the page the site visitor is already reading.
But the problem with related posts plugins is that they tend to be resource intensive. Meaning, they use a lot of the memory your server offers, and in turn, can crash or slow down a site. That’s not a problem with Related Posts for WP. The plugin comes in two varieties, free and paid. The free version does exactly what you need it to. And most people can get by with just that one. The advantage of the paid version is additional customization choices as well as more precision on how content is determined related.
What makes this plugin not impact site speed or server usage, is that it runs a scan during install and writes the related factors into the database. That way showing what is related is instant and not trying to work on the fly. When you create a new blog post, it will then find what’s related to the one post rather than all posts over again.
Up Next
So there you go – 4 lead generation plugins for your wedding photography websites. Let us know if you’re using any of these, or if you have your own preferred lead generation plugins.
Next time you hear from me, it will be in an article about the best utility plugins.
