So when you need to extend your presence, you should look for a website that is more than just a single platform offering you a single idea. Enter WordPress. What’s WordPress without its developers? If you love the website which is a content management system, a blog hosting platform and a website developing base, then you are already aware of its potent widgets and plug-ins.
WordPress benefits from the expertise and know-how of a brilliant community of developers and with their involvement, the website can proudly boast of having plug-ins to suit your every requirement.
Plug-ins are important when you want to do more than what your widgets can give you, because they provide flexibility and power. Some of the plug-ins will cost you a bit of money, but when you take the benefit you reap from it, hopefully money will not be an issue any longer.
Let’s take a look at popular WordPress Sidebar Plug-ins.
• Sidebar and Widget Manager
With this plug-in you can not only control what widgets are displayed on what categories, posts or pages but also use a short code system to create a one of a kind layout for your pages. You don’t need code to do this and you can align widgets, drag and drop and find support for everything from taxonomies to tags.
• Custom Widget Areas
Custom widget areas are nothing but multiple sidebars and with this plug-in you can add widgets and then feature them in posts or pages, all with the use of short codes. There’s support for customizing posts and you can actually set up separate sidebars for every category, post or page you feature on your space.
• Who’s Online ($5)
This plug-in is worth every dollar you spend on it because it tells you the exact number of people on your website or blog. This will give you an idea of traffic-peak or low- trends and can be vital information when you want to strategize on a winning virtual presence.
• WordPress Widget Ninja
Using conditional tags, you can decide on widget visibility with the Ninja. That means no need for more than one sidebar or numerous sidebars because all your widgets can be customized to feature in certain specific areas of your choice. And when we say there are conditional tags for all your uses, we mean it- the page has 23 of them!
• Advanced Social Widget Mailchimp Edition ($10)
Instead of opting for different social media side bars and running the risk of confusing visitors to your website, Mailchimp puts all your social network options on a single sidebar, making it easy for users to add your page.
• Navigation Menu Widget
Remember the function, wp_nav_menu()? Based on this very function, this plug-in you can control every single aspect in terms of the output of your menu, including displaying them as links. That means full features, easy customization, multi-widget support and resizable images for page features.
• About Me ( $5)
This plug-in eliminates the need to put your information on a separate page, by putting it all on a sidebar on the main page. So whether it is your avatar, your profile or your latest tweet, readers can find it all in one space, creating a closer bond, if you so choose.
• Widgets on Pages
This free plug-in lets you create sidebars and add widgets to posts and pages using short codes or to themes using template tags. This means you can show widgets within the page content itself.
• Twitter Trending Widget ($7)
Not only does it grab eyeballs from its position in the sidebar, it tells you what is the most talked about content from your website. What’s more it scales up or down to suit any sidebar, with ease.This is just a sample of what’s out there. WordPress is so popular that plug-ins are updated all the time and that is good news for all of us.
Mark BennettAbout the Guest Author:
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