7 WordPress Plugins You Might Have Missed

It’s plugin day again on For Bloggers By Bloggers WordPress Wednesday. With so many to choose from, there is something for everybody. Here are some that come in handy for very specific needs.

1. Pricing Table

Have you ever a blog or website with those cool pricing tables that compare multiple packages of similar products or services? Being clear on the differences could make or break a sale. This plugin makes it easy to display your packages in a clean, concise and attractive way.

2. The WordPress Multilingual Plugin

If you have a multilingual site, it’s critical to be sure that you have a smart, effective translation plugin. Case in point. A church I knew was using a free plugin until they discovered that it was translating “Holy Spirit” to “Holy Liquor.” Spirits, liquor, well, you get the idea. Not exactly the meaning a church would be looking for. Although the WordPress Multlingual Plugin is a premium one and may cost you a few bucks, finding a good free plugin can be challenging. This one translates pages, posts, customer types, taxonomy, menus and even the theme’s text.

3. Anthologize

Have you ever thought that the content on your blog would make a sellable ebook? Well, this plugin does just that. And what’s even better, Sarah here at FBBB wrote this great post on how to use it.

4. PE (Plugin Performance Profiler)

This is one of those utility plugins that you can install and run once. It’s created by GoDaddy (which kind of freaks me out), but it’s not a bad tool to measure the performance of your site’s plugins  and how they impact your load time. (Sites that load slowly can be a result of a poorly configured plugin.) And remember, on the issue of number of plugins, too many plugins can also slow your load time.  But the number isn’t always a red flag, as I believe the quality of plugins trumps the quantity.

5. The Event Calendar

I use this plugin on my own site. There is  a free version and a premium version, but the free one actually has some sweet features. You can create events as posts that have custom fields for dates, maps, etc. On the calendar page, you can switch between a visual calendar and a listing of events as well. It also comes with a handy widget for your sidebar so you can display upcoming events.

6. Simple Social Icons

There are many different plugins that let you display your social icons in the sidebar,  allowing your visitors to connect with you on various platforms. And each plugin has differently styling for the icons. This one gives you simple icons for RSS, email and eight of the more popular platforms. I like this one because it also gives you the option to choose the color for the icons, so you can match it closer to your site’s colors and get a more branded look.

7. WooDojo from WooThemes

For the last one, I’m throwing in this plugin from WooThemes. The cool thing about it is it brings some great WooTheme features to your WordPress site without having to use one of their themes. A couple of examples: The Tabs widget is a great-looking way to present recent posts, recent comments, etc. And WooSidebars allows you to seamlessly create custom sidebars for pages and posts. No more having the same sidebar on every page!

There you have it. More plugins to ponder.