What you can expect from this guide

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2 What you can expect from this guide Plugins are one of the biggest selling points of WordPress. They extend the functionality of your site, in pretty much any way imaginable making the possibilites for your website truly endless. But, naturally, with endless options comes endless confusion. That's why I wrote this guide. After building more than 100 WordPress sites and maintaining my own for nearly 5 years, these are the plugins I come back to again and again. As a creative entrepreneur, these plugins will help you improve your blog posts, sidebar, social media, and pages, customize your site design, simplify marketing and selling, and maintain your website like a pro. Let's get started! ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P2

3 Blogging RELATED POSTS BY ZEMANTA: Adds a selection of related posts at the end of your blog posts. This is my preferred related posts plugin because it loads quickly and has the option to use your own CSS so that the look and feel can be completely customized to match your site. It also adapts well to your existing design when you use one of their pre-designed layouts. COMMENT REPLY NOTIFICATION: Gives commenters the option to receive notifications on replies to their comment, or you can choose for notifications to be sent automatically. A great way to keep people engaged with your post! TERM MANAGEMENT TOOLS: A must-have for keeping your categories and tags organized over time. Allows you to set a parent category for multiple categories at once, convert categories to tags and vice-versa, or merge similar categories and tags. EDITORIAL CALENDAR: Adds a post calendar to your Posts section in the WordPress admin area, allowing you to see when posts have been published or are scheduled in a calendar format. You can also create post drafts on the calendar or move drafts around, and the publish date will be added or updated. Sidebar BLACK STUDIO TINYMCE: The number one widget every site should have. This adds a Visual Editor widget that looks and works exactly like the WordPress post editor, so you can easily format your sidebar without code. SIMPLE IMAGE WIDGET: The easiest way to add images to your sidebar. This widget loads the media uploader so you can upload your image directly through the widget, rather than uploading it to the media library and pasting the image URL in a widget field. You can also add a link, an additional text link, open your link in a new window, and add text below the image. Perfect for an about section in your sidebar. ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P3

4 WIDGET TITLE LINKS: Allows you to add links to the widget title and choose to open those links in a new window. This is particularly handy for social media widgets, which you might title as a follow me call-to-action that users can click on. JQUERY ARCHIVE LIST WIDGET: The most organized way to display your archives. While the default WordPress archive widget just displays a list of months, this widget will show links to every post in sections collapsible by month and year. With this widget, your archive list will look clean and tidy, but still be useful to your readers. JETPACK WIDGET VISIBILITY: The Jetpack plugin from the makers of WordPress extends the functionality of your website with a number of modules. One of these modules is the Widget Visibility module. It adds a visibility option to every widget, allowing you to choose which pages your widget should be displayed or hidden. Social Media CLICK TO TWEET: Adds a click to tweet button to the post editor, which allows you to insert click to tweet links in your posts and pages. You enter the click to tweet text, and the plugin adds a call-to-action box with the tweet text in your post, then automatically adds a mention for your username with a link to the post when your readers click the link. NAKED SOCIAL SHARE: Adds social sharing buttons to your posts, which can be easily styled with CSS to match the look and feel of your site. It also picks up styling from your theme automatically if you aren t code savvy. JQUERY PIN IT FOR IMAGES or FRIZZLY: Adds social sharing to your images on hover. Frizzly adds share buttons for Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook, while the jquery Pin It For Images is for Pinterest only. However, the JPIFI plugin is easily customizable you can simply upload your own image for the pin it button. COSCHEDULE (referral link): Allows you to schedule social media directly from WordPress, control your posts in calendar view, and add team members. The unique thing about CoSchedule is that social media posts ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P4

5 can be attached to your WordPress posts, so if you change the post date, the date for the social media messages will be updated automatically. It also adds a social media scheduler directly to your post editor and makes it easy to share old posts on social media. Subscription based with monthly and yearly payment options. REVIVE OLD POST: Automatically tweets links to old posts at a set interval (I recommend every 7 hours so it sends at different times each day). You can restrict posts individually or by category or date and customize the tweet text. INSTAGRAM SLIDER WIDGET: The easiest way to add an instagram feed anywhere on your site. This plugin comes with a widget for your sidebar and shortcode generator that you can add to your posts and pages. You can choose to show an automatic slideshow or a grid of thumbnails. PINTEREST RSS WIDGET: Allows you to display a number of pins from any user and/or any Pinterest board, with a number of customization options that blend will with your site. Also comes with a shortcode option for posts and pages. Pages VISUAL COMPOSER: A drag-and-drop visual page builder. This plugin allows you to build complex page layouts without code. The live editor shows you exactly what your website will look like and comes with a number of elements you can add to your website, including images, headings, text blocks, image galleries, post grids, and more. One-time fee. DUPLICATE POST: Adds the option to clone pages so you don t have to start from scratch. SOLILOQUY: A responsive slider plugin that s easy to use and customizable. You can feature images, videos, and HTML in your sliders. The Developer license includes advanced add-ons, which also gives you the option to create carousels. One-time fee. ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P5

6 COLLAPSE-O-MATIC: Add collapsible sections to your site using shortcodes perfect for FAQ pages. Comes with a built-in CSS editor for customization. You can also choose the HTML tag you d like to use for titles so it will pick up existing styling from your theme. GRAVITY FORMS (affiliate link) or NINJA FORMS: Drag-and-drop form editors. I highly recommend the business or developer license for Gravity Forms if you can budget for it. Gravity Forms is a powerful plugin offering lots of possibilities for your business. The business license gives you access to add-ons that sync your forms with service providers, so you can easily create opt-in forms and add the option to join your list to your contact form. The developer license gives you access to add-ons for surveying your readers, creating order forms and processing payments through a number of payment providers, and syncs with a number of other programs. If Gravity Forms is not in your budget, Ninja Forms is a good free alternative. Design EASY GOOGLE FONTS: Allows you to use Google fonts on your site with minimal to no coding. Select any Google font to use in any element of your site, and add custom CSS selectors if needed. JETPACK CUSTOM CSS MODULE: This module from the Jetpack plugin adds an Edit CSS section under Appearance. This is the easiest way to add custom CSS to your website. You can overwrite your theme s stylesheet or simply add a few lines of code to tweak your widgets or overall design. Marketing SEEDPROD COMING SOON PRO: Highly customizable coming soon page that integrates with a number of service providers. Comes with built-in design options, opt-in form integration, countdown timer, and the ability to create a preview link to show your website to friends before making it live. Yearly fee for support and plugin updates. Free version available with limited ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P6

7 functionality. OPTIMIZEPRESS: The ultimate marketing tool for WordPress. Dragand-drop page builder for any kind of marketing page you need for your business, including opt-in pages, webinar pages, sales pages, and even ecourse pages. Easily customizable and comes with a number of readymade templates. You can also insert OptimizePress elements in your regular WordPress pages and posts. I ll be honest: I didn t think I needed this plugin as I can easily develop my own pages. But this plugin has quickly become one of my favorite WordPress purchases and has made my marketing efforts so much quicker and easier. Yearly fee for support and updates. POPUPALLY PRO (affiliate link): The ultimate plugin for managing your optin forms, of any type not just popups! If you know me, you know that I m not a fan of automatic popups. While this plugin does shine among popup plugins because of its polite exit intent feature (meaning it pops up when it detects that people are leaving your site) and tracking capabilities that disable the plugin for subscribers, this plugin does so much more than just popups. Easily create opt-in forms you can embed anywhere on your site, like after posts or in your sidebar using the built-in widget. You can also create static opt-in bars that always show on the top or bottom of the screen, or even popups that are shown when the user clicks a button. This plugin even has a contact form feature! Yearly fee for support and updates. NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP: Adds a checkbox to your comment form to allow people to sign up for your list. Also has a basic opt-in form option with a shortcode you can use anywhere on your site. DOWNLOAD MANAGER: Adds a downloads section to your WordPress admin area where you can share file downloads with your readers. Tracks how many people download your files great for sharing freebies with your blog readers! The plugin is free, but you can purchase add-ons for requiring opt-ins or payment for your downloads. ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P7

8 Selling EASY DIGITAL DOWNLOADS: The best plugin for selling ebooks and other digital downloads on your site. It s what I use for my shop! Adapts well to the look and feel of your site but is also highly customizable for advanced coders. Includes all the basics to get you started, with a number of free and paid add-ons to extend the functionality of your shop, including recurring payments, automatic discounts based on certain conditions, and adding customers to your list. Free plugin with paid add-ons available. PAID MEMBERSHIPS PRO: Allows you to set up free and paid membership levels for access to content on your site a good basic plugin for membership sites and ecourses. Free plugin with paid yearly membership available for support. OPTIMIZEMEMBER: A membership plugin that comes with OptimizePress for setting up free and paid membership levels for access to your content. Another option for membership sites and ecourses. The best option for setting up a membership or ecourse site quickly as OptimizePress comes with a number of templates for each page you need for your site. Included with yearly OptimizePress membership fee. Site maintenance GOOGLE ANALYTICS FOR WORDPRESS: Adds the necessary code for Google Analytics to your site. The advantage of using this plugin rather than copy/pasting the code directly to your site is that this plugin is regularly updated for compatibility with new Google Analytics features. This means that you only have to choose a few options within WordPress to update your Google Analytics code and take advantage of new features. WORDPRESS SEO: The ultimate SEO plugin for WordPress. Allows you to perform keyword searches within WordPress and analyzes your posts and pages for keyword usage. Also allows you to edit SEO titles and meta descriptions across your website. Add social media code for rich pins and Twitter cards, and even add a footer to posts in your RSS feed to link people ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P8

9 back to your site or encourage them to sign up for your list. INSERT HEADERS AND FOOTERS: An easy way to add code before the closing head or closing body tags of your website great for inserting tracking or ad codes. The benefit of using this plugin instead of adding code directly to your site is that you can change your theme, and your codes will remain. JETPACK: From the makers of WordPress, this extends the functionality of your site with a number of modules, with more being added regularly. I ve already mentioned a couple of the modules, but there are even more modules available for sharing, delivering posts via , showing related posts, automatically publishing your post links to social media, and more. Jetpack also comes with WordPress stats, which adds quick stats to your WordPress dashboard. Not as accurate as Google Analytics, but great for quick reference. ALL IN ONE FAVICON: Upload an image for your site favicon, the small image that appears in the tab when people visit your website. AKISMET + FV ANTISPAM: Must-haves for spam monitoring. FV Antispam automatically trashes robot spam, and Akismet handles the rest. REDIRECTION: A powerful plugin to redirect your WordPress links. Automatically redirects posts and pages when you update the permalink. Tracks 404 errors so you can add redirects for common errors. Also allows you to create your own redirects, which is helpful for keeping track of your affiliate links and sharing them through your own URL. BACKUPBUDDY: I highly recommend hosting your website with a managed WordPress host like Flywheel (affiliate) that takes care of backups for you. But if that s not in the budget, it s worth it to pay for this backup plugin to ensure your site gets backed up automatically. BLOGGER IMPORTER EXTENDED: Migrate your posts, pages, and images from Blogger. This plugin works better than the built-in importer. Just be aware that it s a one-time use once you begin the import, you will not be able to import anything you add later to Blogger. ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P9

10 Advanced WIDGET CSS CLASSES: Adds a CSS class field to widgets so you can target individual widgets and give them different designs. ADVANCED CUSTOM FIELDS: Allows you to extend and customize the functionality of the WordPress post editor by adding custom fields for text, image uploads, image galleries, visual editor boxes, repeatable sections, flexible layouts, color pickers, and more. Requires you to add PHP functions to your WordPress theme, but the website is well documented. One time fee. Free version with limited functionality available. WORDPRESS CREATION KIT: Create custom post types and taxonomies. You might create a custom post type for portfolio projects, or a custom taxonomy for outfit colors for a style blog. This plugin also can be used to create custom fields, but I find the ACF interface easier to use. Custom post types and taxonomies available in the free version. Paid version available with more functionality (unnecessary if you purchase Advanced Custom Fields). Love this guide? Tweet it out! Hey #creativeentrepreneurs, don't miss this guide to #wordpress plugins CLICK TO TWEET Run your website like a pro with the ultimate #wordpress plugins guide CLICK TO TWEET Not sure which #wordpress plugin you should has the answers in her ultimate plugins guide for creatives. CLICK TO TWEET ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P10

11 HELLO! I'M I m Lisa M. Butler, WordPress developer and your website guide. That means Googling and experimenting with websites is literally part of my job description. In fact, it s my favorite part! I ve built more than 100 websites on WordPress and spend my days knee-deep in CSS, HTML, and PHP turning beautiful designs into functional websites. I help my clients take their websites to the next level and teach them how to take control of their online presence. Through my blog and weekly s, I share that same advice with online creative entrepreneurs just like you. WEB GUIDE at ELEMBEE.COM And now, for the personal stuff: I currently live in Tulsa, OK. I hit the snooze button at least three times a day. In another life, I'd go to Hogwarts or star in Pitch Perfect. I have a dog named Dobby (yes, like the house elf in Harry Potter). I watch way too much TV and will never miss an episode of Scandal. Mani/pedi breaks are mandatory. Progress beats perfection... always. Keep up with my latest advice, projects, and adventures at elembee.com. ELEMBEE.COM The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins P11

12 FROM.COM COPYRIGHT 2016 LISA BUTLER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORLDWIDE. THANK YOU FOR READING!