All Ping

Now a day’s – every blog, forum and website owners uses social share button on their platforms. A blogger or a website owner that doesn't have a share button is not ready for exposure (fact).

In the Wordpress arsenal, we have a lot of social share buttons which are just so awesome but I have selected just 7 awesome plugins that will make your blog sharing experience worthwhile.

Top 7 Social Share Buttons You Just Got To Love

Now without wasting any of our time, let’s start with the show 

Share this: This plugin is one awesome social plugin that as all it takes to be on my number one spot. Recently the developer of the plugin added some cool feature to make it more interesting – and some of the features are;

√ It has the ability to track people that copy your blog post

√ It protects your blog from those lazy bloggers who only copy from other blogs and paste on theirs

√ You get to know how many people share your post and how many people viewed the links.

√ It helps you improve your social media strategy and lots more…

I am using the plugin on my blog and I’ll recommend it to any blogger running a wordpress blog

You can download sharethis plugin here

Sexy bookmark: Also known as Shareaholic is one of the most attractive sharing plugins I have ever seen. It can do almost all what sharethis plugin can do and can even do more. Since the last update, they have added some cool feature to their plugin to make it more active and relevant. Most of the things added are;

√ You have the ability to show related post and recommendation post without installing yet another plugin

√ You can choose the URL shortner you want to use yourself

√ You can track down your social share performance with their simple to understand social analytic tool

The shareaholic plugin can do all that and more .

You can download Sexy Bookmark plugin here

Dig dig: Is a floating share button that helps your reader better share your content. But how does this actually works? Let me just show you … if you check the left side of this blog, you will see a floating share button that looks attractive, right? The name of the floating share button is called Dig Dig.

This plugin is indeed effective – no wonder thousands of blogger use it…

You can download Dig Dig plugin here

Metro style social widget: What this widget simply does is, it allows your readers and fans to subscribe to your fan page easily without them living your blog. Incase you are wondering how it looks, take a peek at my side bar and you’ll see it.

In case you do not like hand coding, this simple light widget is the best for you to increase your fan page.

You can download Metro Style Social Widget here

Flare: Many bloggers are using this share button because it has some unique features that make you wanna love it. Among the wonderful things it can do are;

√ It scores blog posts (from 1 – 100) based on the presence your blog gets socially.

√ It gives you the option to place the widget anywhere you feel like on your blog

√ It also gives you the choice to choose where you want it to appear on your post or page. And it does even more…

You can download Flare Plugin here

Add this: This plugin is one of the oldest and also among the popular social plugins around. It has some good features which I know you’ll like and some of the features are stated below;

√ You’ll know who and who are sharing your contents

√ You’ll know the services they are using to share your content

√ You will also know the content shared the most. And it does even more…

No wonder it is been used by millions of people all round platforms…

You can download AddThis Plugin here

Sketch bookmark: For those who want their mobile users to share their contents, this social share feels perfect for it. The plugin is simple and also beautify your blog because the icons are handmade drawing. It gives you the option to choose which icon to display. It also gives you the option to choose how large you want the icons to display.

You can download Sketch Bookmark Here

The above plugins are my top 7 social share plugins for the year 2013. Hope you find the plugins interesting enough.

Rank Author Plugins Are A Must For Any Blog

For several months, experts have been commenting on the influence of the Author Rank in SEO, it is necessary to clear all possible doubts. What is Author Rank? The Author Rank or author brand is very important in any blog because, besides being our signature content author, it improves our personal brand on the Internet.

It is not just about displaying your image in Google results, not even a matter of personal ego; it is much more than that. The Author Rank allows the network to become visible to the author and out of the supposed shadow before simply signing an article with our name. It allows conveying confidence, professionalism to our readers and so on. Another important aspect is that it helps to increase the number of followers of our blog and social networking profiles.

Does Author Rank have an impact on SEO? The Author Rank positively influences the SEO and PageRank in our blog. For this reason, we must incorporate information authoring plugins. How do you start using the Author Rank on your blog? To insert the brand image is as simple as installing any of the following Rank Author plugins for Word Press. The configuration of each of these plugins Author Rank is very simple, and it requires no computer knowledge to get it ready.

Best Rank Author Plugins for Word Press

If you run a website or blog with a single author, this creates more of a headache, it is expected that the thing is complicated when managed by a team, so imagine alone. Clearly, the key to success is communication so after taking this into account just give some attention to details.

Thanks to the best Author Box Word Press plugins, you will be able to walk towards online success:

1. Author Sure: Build your brand on Google search results with this plugin.

Features:

• It’s easy to get the Google verification authoring.
• Supports multiple authors.
• Create links to social networking profiles Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn , Pinterest , YouTube and Skype and Google+.
• Creates a link to your Google+ page.
• Improve the SEO of your blog.

2. Author Information: It replaces the classic author link your Google+ profile.

Features:

• Establish the content authorship by linking to your Google+ profile.
• Very easy to configure.
• Improves the SEO of your blog.

3. Social WP SEO Booster: Activate this plugin and boost your position through a fantastic mix of strategies (SEO and Social).

Features:

• Shareable with Word Press SEO by Yoast and All in One SEO package.
• Integrates micro formats to enrich our content.
• Integrates content authoring for one or more authors.
• Improve the SEO of your blog.
• Includes the star rating associated with the author.
• Author Rank Plugin: WP Social SEO Booster.

4. Social Author Bio: Social Author Bio automatically adds a author bio box along with Gravatar and social icons.

Features:

• Easy configuration.
• Integrates content authoring for one or more authors.
• Improve the SEO of your blog.
• Integrates social networking profiles.

5. Editorial Calendar: It schedules entries visually.

Something strange in Word Press is its way of arranging tickets (drafts and schedules) more visually pleasing, not only in list form. Well, with Editorial Calendar can be displayed simultaneously all in a convenient calendar with quick editing functions and even drag and drop to rearrange Publication dates and times much easier.

6. Authors Plus: It allows multiple authors for an entry.

Two heads are better than one so that an item that combines the knowledge of two or more authors can look better and be more complete than one with a single creator. Allowing Co – Authors Plus is the allocation of several authors in editing an entry in its publication in the feed for each author. Each author will have permissions to perform actions on the site: delete entries, edit pages, post, moderate comments, upload media files, install themes and plugins, etc. This brings a couple of interesting alternatives to users. It even hides all menus and other unnecessary elements (such as forms of SEO plugins) for each author, creating an atmosphere of writing step easier.

7. Audit Trail: This is like the so-called Big Brother.

This plugin will record all activity within the site authors: new tickets, tickets issued by each and earlier drafts, time log in and log out, IP and solutions for suspicious or interested in knowing even the slightest movement.

It is all about finding the best plugins that will surely release headaches and concerns. Get to manage your posts one by one without a single problem. Plugins will help you hide what you don’t like and highlight what you do. Some are even more specific and practical without making the error window with the typical message “you are not authorized to edit this section”, etc.

The ultimate plugin goes along with social networks. To allow a better link between authors and readers, it may be good to facilitate links to social media profile. Apart of implementing author box plugins consider writing a short biography, useful for sites that do not have a special page for a more detailed review of the information collaborators. Author Profile Avatars, widgets, lists and many other tools will allow you to achieve your online goals.

Wrapping it up, a simple widget can make a significant difference. Some are similar to a block that is embedded with subscriptions of Facebook and has some minute detail editing as authors to exclude, the size of the profile pictures and the number of people to show.

WordPress is famous for many reasons , but the plugins and themes plays the main game.

WordPress themes plays a vital role in the appearance of a blog and plugins in the management of the blog. These two thing makes a WordPress blog admirable. WordPress plugins are of two types free and premium , there is a little difference between them.

Free plugins provides you with some limited features whereas premium will fulfills your needs.

Choosing a best plugin for your blog is bit difficult , but don’t worry I’m here to help you out. After a hard work, I’ve listed down some the best plugins which will definitely sparkle up your blog. I’ve categorized them into different segment to help choose the better one , so mate are you ready ?

So let’s start up and make your blog sparkle

#1: Security Plugins :-

Security is the main problem of a WordPress blogs. Recently many of the WordPress blogs were hacked due to some loopholes in their security. There are some awesome plugins which will keep your blog 99 % safe from hackers .

1. WP Better Security:

Better WP Security takes the best WordPress security features and techniques and combines them in a single plugin thereby ensuring that as many security holes as possible are patched without having to worry about conflicting features or the possibility of missing anything on your site. The best part of this plugin is that it’s 100% Free. This plugin got 4.8 out of 5 Ratings , It’s it Amazing ? So I’ll prefer this plugin for security.

2. Wordfence Security:

Wordfence Security is a free enterprise class security plugin that includes a firewall, anti-virus scanning, cellphone sign-in (two factor authentication), malicious URL scanning and live traffic including crawlers. Wordfence is the only WordPress security plugin that can verify and repair your core, theme and plugin files, even if you don’t have backups.

3. Bullet Proof Security:

This plugins gives you a all round WordPress website security protection. Website security protection against: XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection and SQL Injection hacking and lots More .. This Plugin Ranks 3rd in the Security Category.

So , the top 3 security plugins are listed above and I ensure that all of them will be working. Lets now start the comments category.

#2: Spam Comments

The commenting feature on WordPress is proven to be the best as it links up your website or blog with your name! But there is a small disadvantage, the spam .

The Spam comments always spoils the game , I just hate spams , you too ? That’s good. But you cannot spend all the time deleting the spam comments yourself , you’ll need a help and that too a strong help, so here is the helping plugins :-

1. Anti-Spam:

Anti-spam plugin blocks spam in comments automatically, invisibly for users and for admins. This Plugin got 4.6 out of 5 Rating.

2. Spam Free WordPress:

Comment spam blocking plugin that blocks automated spam with zero false positives.

3. Akismet:

Akismet is the best spam prevention plugin for WordPress. Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. This Plugin got the maximums Hits ( downloads ) 16,789,373 , Isn’t this Cool ? You can get the API key for the plugin for free.

#3: SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the key factor to make our blog stand out to crowd. Setting up of SEO needs takes lot’s of time. But WordPress has some plugins that saves your time , Let’s have a look 

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast:

Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. WordPress SEO by Yoast is one of the best and easy to use SEO plugin which helps you getting out of the box SEO results . this is a free plugin and awesome one too.

2. All in One SEO:

WordPress SEO plugin to automatically optimize your WordPress blog for search engines. One the best SEO plugin after WordPress SEO. This Plugin got a download hits of 15,403,441 and 3.8 out of 5 Rating. This Plugin has free version and premium version too.

3. SEOPressor:

Real-time evaluation and recommendations to improve site content for SEO. It’s essentially as though you’re having an SEO expert right beside you and suggesting on ways to improve your site’s on-page SEO. This is a premium Plugin. 

So , here we end up with the SEO plugins for best search results. Utility Plugins are of great need , there are some out of the box , best WordPress utility plugins, which I have listed Below.

#3: Utility:

1. JetPack:

Jetpack is probably one of the best free WordPress Plugin. It is a whole package of plugins that will improve the features of your WordPress site. Here are some of its features: Site Stats without additional load on the server, spelling and grammar check, mobile theme, sharing, backup and much more.

2. W3 Total Cache:

This plugin improves user experience by boosting server performance and reducing download time. It also provides transparent CDN or content delivery network integration. It’s a free Plugin.

3. BackWPup:

With this plugin, you can use the backup files to save your entire installation, which include WP-Content. It pushes them to an outside backup service, if you choose not to save your backup files in one server. You can restore your installation with one backup.zip file.

4. Contact Form:

You may require a contact form if you are creating a website. For that, the best free and most suitable plugin is Contact Form 7. It is so easy to use and can deal with dozens of numerous contact forms.This is one of the best contact form plugins.

5. FontPress – Font Manager Plugin:

This plugin will allow you to customize your WordPress site with customized fonts. You can even do it without writing any code or file. Amazing plugin which will make your blog sparkle!

6. WordPress Quiz:

WP Quiz is a plugin of WordPress that allows you easily create the multiple choice questions for many purposes, such as teaching, blogging, advertising and etc.

The Main Features are : -

• MVC code structure
• Nice design
• Multimedia in questions
• Many configuration options
• Randomly sort questions and answers
• Customize interface
• Localization
• Shortcode
• Multiple quizzes on the same page
• Preview questions when finish
• Submit score via email to owner
• Social sharing
• Statistic with chart

This is the unique plugin ever made for WordPress, this is a premium plugin which provides you with out of the box services.

7.WordPress Email Newsletter Plugin:

This is a bulk emailer plugin that was created particularly for WordPress 3.x versions. It is very rich in features and so easy to use. With this plugin, you can send professional newsletters quickly to your existing user database. This is a premium Plugin .

8. Attention Grabber: WordPress Notification Bar:

This will allow you to grab user attention through a fully customization, but simple banner in your site, which is displayed on the top or bottom of the page. This is also a premium plugin.

9. ROYALSLIDER:

This is jQuery content slider that is cross device capable and incorporated with fluid layout and touch base navigation.

10. CSS3 Responsive Web Pricing Tables:

This is actually a pure CSS3 Web Pricing Table Grid set designed for WordPress that has 12 predetermined color versions and a couple of table styles.

11. WordPress Live Chat Plugin for Sales and Support:

This plugin will allow you to chat with your clients easily within your website for sales and support. There is no need for monthly payments when you are using this plugin. Just install it and it is ready for business.

12. Go – Responsive Pricing & Compare Tables for WP:

This is a responsive plugin that will allow you to create beautiful tables quickly and easily, and incorporate them into your WordPress powered website.

13. Toolset Plugin :- Develop your WordPress site without PHP knowledge!

Toolset plugins make website development faster and give you the power to create sites exactly like you want. Web developers get more work done with Toolset. This plugin is available for free trial.

14. Emma Boxes - Multipurpose Boxes:

This plugin was created to display various kinds of contents. You can select the kind of content that you will display, create custom contents and show them. It might interest you to know that Emma Boxes has been optimized for displaying WooCommerce content.

15. LivIcons for WordPress – Animated Vector Icons:

LivIcons are cross browser vector icons. They are built with JavaScript and there is a individual mini animation for every icon (except ‘Brand names’ ones). LivIcons are powerful in animated mode when you need strong attention effects (for example on ‘call-to-action’ buttons, different promo blocks etc.) and in static mode, as well.

16. Subscribers Magnet:

This plugin will allow you to integrate email list signup forms easily to almost all sections of your WordPress site. If you want to save time, track your signups, and gain tons of email subscribers this is for you! want to increase your subscribers ? then buy it!

17. Hide My WP – No one can know you use WordPress!

This plugin will let you control PHP files access. It will protect your website from almost all XSS and SQL Injection attacks, which means that you no longer have to worry about security very much. 

18. Logos Showcase – Multi-Use Responsive WP Plugin:

This plugin will allow you to display images in a carousel slider or grid. It is the perfect option for displaying lists of partners, sponsor logos, supporters and clients in your WordPress powered site.

19. Booking System PRO (WordPress Plugin):

This is a plugin that helps in creating bookings and reservation systems easily into a WordPress powered blog or website. 

20. Quform – WordPress Form Builder:

If you are requiring custom forms and a WordPress user but do not have the knowledge or time for codes, Quform is the perfect tool for you. This plugin will allow you to create multiple forms quickly and easily in WordPress with complete control.

21. Sidebar & Widget Manager for WordPress:

This is a premium plugin for WordPress that will let you have complete control over the widget areas, page contents and the widgets themselves. If you will widgetize your page, you could drag and drop the widgets in the page content area using horizontal and vertical alignment.

22. The Countdown Pro:

You can add countdown functionality easily into a sidebar or content area using this plugin. With its up and down counting function, you can have complete control over your counter.

23. WordPress Social Share Buttons

Adding jQuery social sharing buttons to your WordPress website is more fun with this plugin. Buttons can be added through jQuery to enable faster loading of pages.

24. Banner Rotator / Content Slider:

This plugin includes five kinds of banner plugins for WordPress. These include thumbnails banner, content slider, carousel, banner with playlist and banner rotator.

25. Fanciest Author Box:

This is an author bio plugin that is rich in features. It adds the author bio before, after or both automatically into pages, custom post types and posts.

So, utility plugins ends up here. There are lots of awesome utility plugins, but these are the best ones.

Over to You !

Even though there are a lot of plugins to install, you should take care of page speed in one hand. Because some plugins uses too much CPU resources which might result in suspension of your hosting account.

The list ends up , now tell me which plugins do you use ? Do you know any of the other best plugins ?

I would like to have your awesome answers through Comments

All plugins come with downsides, and even though Contact Form 7 is well optimized for speed, like many it can still be guilty of running on (slowing down) pages that are not your contact page.

Sometimes, a simple copy-paste script is all you need!

The Embedded Contact Form Alternatives! 

I started out wanting to use http://www.foxyform.com/ but their embed script was not playing nice at all on WordPress. 

Then I tried to use http://cloudcontactforms.com/ as recommended by some other bloggers, but it is somewhat clunky and appears to no longer be in active development. 

I’ve used http://www.contactme.com/ successfully before – but I wanted something with less of their branding while still being free. 

If I was using it on a site with heavy traffic I might look at http://www.jotform.com/ (but I’m not, at least not yet). 

So I finally settled on using: http://kontactr.com/ which is super simple, straight forward, and does one thing well (with minimal app branding). 

The only downside to Kontactr (which is also an upside in some cases) is that it uses a script embed rather than an iframe. I’m cool with that – but older versions of WordPress may not be happy with this. (Upgrade your site!)

Using Kontactr To Add An Embedded Contact Form To Your WordPress Site 

1) Visit http://kontactr.com/ and set up a free account. Confirm your email address and then log in. 

2) Once logged in, you can either copy the “Ajax Widget” as it is or click customize to make changes. I’m using it “as is”.

3) Create a page on your WordPress site named “Contact” or “Contact Us” and add your desired text. Then flip over to the Text/HTML tab and paste in your script after the text.

4) Preview then Publish your page and go view the result.

5) Be sure the page is published) Fill in the form with some sample data and hit send. To verify that it works. You should then see a confirmation message display:

6) Check your email inbox and in a few moments you should receive the test email

(Though it shows “no-reply” as the from email address… the email address the person provided is actually the reply-to address. So all you have to do is reply to the message to send them an email.)

7) It works and you’re done!

It’s as simple as that to add a simple contact form to your website or blog without mucking around with plugins. 

This is an excellent replacement for a plugin when you do not need an elaborate form with more “stuff”. 

Many contact forms are guilty of calling their plugin data (and thus slowing stuff down) on every page of a site… even though we only use them on a single page! By using a script such as this, we ensure that we do not need to do development tweaks to make the contact form plugin behave. 

Of course, you will want to check in, every few months, to make sure that it is still working, since free tools like this come and go. 

Do you have a contact form on your website? What do you use for it?