Most intranets fail because keeping them updated is a laborious chore.

A good intranet should be much more than the digital equivalent of that filing cabinet nobody ever opens. A well-structured, regularly updated intranet is a vital resource for every level of employee, a repository of company knowledge that can guide your business through good times and bad. It needs to be easy to use and easy to maintain: that’s why many companies rely on the convenience of a WordPress intranet.

Relying on the standard WordPress features to update your intranet can be limiting and inefficient, however. It was originally designed for public blogging, after all, not internal company comms. It’s likely that the team members responsible for intranet upkeep will have other roles to fulfill as well, and if this part of their job is one they dread, then it inevitably gets deprioritized.

It’s easy to improve your CMS with plugins that make updating your intranet more convenient, lightening the burden of those tasked with managing it.

These widgets can also increase accessibility, functionality, and visibility for end-users, ensuring regular, painless updates and high engagement — the goals of any intranet.

With that in mind, here are five essential tools that can be added to WordPress to ensure all these benefits are felt in your company.