wordpress plugins

Apr

2015

Recently Related Plugin

Update: The sale for the Recently Related plugin for WordPress is now live at just $17.00.

***

[youtube id=”KyLXxME-c9k” width=”650″ height=”366″ autoplay=”no” api_params=”&rel=0&showinfo=0″ class=””][/youtube]

Demo Site

That’s a bit of a strange name I know, but I think it sums up how the plugin works very nicely.

What it does is actively keep your visitor on your site longer in a completely white hat way.

o Unlike other plugins that use a proprietary algorithm that you can’t control, you get to control which posts are related via the use of standard WP tags.
o Create multiple related posts and recently viewed content via the sidebar widgets and shortcodes.
o You can optionally choose to show titles, images and excerpts.
o You can set default numbers of posts to display.
o Works with your existing tags so no need for any extra work to set up.
o Widgets add related content to any sidebar or footer.
o Shortcode puts related or recently viewed posts on any page or post.
o Your visitors can quickly see the posts they’ve read and related content they might find interesting.
o Examples of use might be (and not limited to) review blogs, affiliate sites, or any website that you’re monetising in some way, or using to build a list.

It’s well known that the longer someone spends on a page, the more likely they are to take the action that you want them to. That would for example typically be to buy, to share or to subscribe.

The same is true if you keep someone on a site for as long as possible. They’re far more likely to subscribe if they find what they’re looking for on your site, and if that’s several examples of what they’re interested in, then they’ll go for it.

The plugin does two key things.

#1 – It enables you to display to the reader content that is related to the post they’ve just viewed.

#2 – It enables you to display content that they’ve recently viewed, allowing them to easily get back to the content they’ve just been looking at.

You can present this content in your sidebars via two new widgets, and / or present it on specific pages and posts via the use of a shortcode.

The best bit is that unlike other plugins that only do part of what Recently Related does, it lets YOU decide what content is related by the use of tags.

What I mean by that is, every other plugin I’ve seen (that only does the related posts thing) uses an inbuilt method to decide what’s related. In other words you have no control whatsoever on what’s displayed to the viewer.

By using tags to identify related content, you get full control. 😉

The recently viewed content comes into play when your visitor returns to your site to find what they were looking at before.

Or maybe they’ve been working their way through a few posts. This just makes it very easy for them to get back to where they were.

-Frank Haywood

Mar

2015

Dynamic Easy Share Plugin

Update: The sale for the Dynamic Easy Share plugin for WordPress is now live at just $17.00.

***

[youtube id=”Hi3NW9MtwPg” width=”560″ height=”315″ autoplay=”no” api_params=”&rel=0&showinfo=0″ class=””]

Demo Page

The problem addressed with this plugin is one of getting people to share your content on social networks.

It’s getting harder.

The way I see it is if it’s getting harder to get people to do the actual sharing and so send traffic to your sites, then we need to make it even *easier* for them to do so than it’s *ever* been before.

Dynamic Easy Share addresses this by taking the two main social sites that account for over 85% of social traffic and making it easy for visitors to share your content and generate backlinks.

In other words it hooks into Twitter and FaceBook.

This is NOT just another social plugin, and there’s nothing to stop you from using it with any other social buttons you may have on your site. What you’re actually doing is extending and improving your sharing capabilities.

You need to see what it can do. 😉

There are two modes.

The first allows YOU to select and highlight snippets of content on your pages and posts that you feel someone would actually share. Any content you’ve presented in this way stands out on your page and all the reader has to do is click a button to share that content snippet on Twitter or FaceBook.

The second mode is javascript driven and allows the READER to post snippets that THEY select. When they highlight a snippet of text, the plugin detects this action via javascript and automatically presents the share dialogue wrapped around the content they’ve selected themselves.

Then all they have to do is click a button and it’s shared.

I know you’ll probably have to see it to understand exactly what the benefits are and how easy it is, and so that’s why I’ll do a short video showing exactly how the plugin works Monday morning.

(I intend to use this plugin on an upcoming project, and I’m absolutely convinced it will give me an edge in the social sharing arena. I can’t let the cat out of the bag now, but I’ll explain it all to you at a later date and I know it will be incredibly useful for you. I’ve been puzzling this all out for a while now, and I’m certain you’ll like it when I unveil it all.)

Here’s a quick feature list for the Dynamic Easy Share plugin.

o Use on posts and/or pages.
o Control over sharing boxes – colours, borders, etc.
o Optionally pre-define content for sharing.
o Optionally enable reader selectable sharing.
o Readers can optionally highlight text, click a button, and share.
o Unified actions with Facebook and Twitter.
o Complements your existing social sharing methods.
o Unlimited color choices and 3 styles of quote boxes.
o Full developer (client / flipper) licence in this sale.

-Frank Haywood

Jan

2015

Magic Sticky Ads Plugin

Update: The sale for the Magic Sticky Ads plugin for WordPress is now live at just $17.00.

***

Demo Site Here

The name comes from the style in which it presents your ads, they look just like the constantly changing stickies I seem to have peppered all over the wall next to my desk.

Set a custom image and the font styles.

Set your message and URL when clicked.

Add, remove and edit your ads.

Set the global options for ad display.

Override the global settings on individual posts and pages.

Set the cookie duration or disable during setup and test.

Here’s a quick bulleted list of the features.

o Developer licence (client / flipper).
o Create unlimited different sticky ads.
o 18 colourful sticky designs or upload your own images
o 6 different hand writing fonts for authentic looking stickies.
o Easy to use and self-explanatory interface.
o Global sticky display settings by home, pages, posts and category.
o Override on individual posts and pages.
o Add any text using the WYSIWYG editor.
o Set an optional URL for when ad clicked.
o Definable cookie length to control ad display.
o Optional CSS customisation for complete control.

You really can create cheerful, eye-grabbing ads with this plugin and I have a feeling it’s going to become one of my personal favourites. 🙂

-Frank Haywood

Dec

2014

Profit Builder Plugin and Theme Review

Continuing my recently started quest, what I’ve been looking for is a plugin or theme that will enable me to build modern looking sales pages and also while having a clean looking blog too.

Well, I received a couple of emails about a plugin and theme combo that I missed when it came out.

Profit Builder Plugin and Theme

What’s nice is that the creator (Sean) is doing a special at the moment and is only charging 67 CENTS more (!!!) for the developer licence which allows you to install it on UNLIMITED personal & client sites.

That’s what I call a good deal. 😉

What I particularly like about this theme and plugin set is that it comes with more than 60 pre-made layouts that you can select from to instantly build a page. This includes the “traditional” marketing pages you might need such as squeeze, sales and JV, but also has a pile of other layouts too.

All you then need to do is edit the colours and the content.

It also ticks the box for my requirement of a clean looking blog.

With a bit of a proviso…

At the moment the provided theme component forces you into publishing excerpts on the front page rather than the full content, so I’ve just written to the creator about that to get it changed to be an option.

I understand why he’s done it that way – it’s purely because of SEO – but at the moment I like to put the full content of my posts on the blog page.

I might change my mind about that, we’ll see, and at any rate, if I really want to I can just use the plugin component with another theme.

That’s because one of the on-page options is to use a full width blank page template, and that means you can use any theme and still get the benefit of the snazzy looking pages this can build.

Now that’s what I call joined-up thinking. 😉

It would be nice if that small part of the theme worked the way I wanted it to, but maybe I’m nit-picking over what is actually a very powerful plugin and theme combo.

That aside, I like this plugin so much I think I’m going to use it to launch a new product range and site. More on that when I’m ready.

It has a ton of really nice features and almost everything can be amended in either the plugin, theme or on-page settings.

There’s also some included extras like an exit redirect so you don’t need to install a separate plugin to do that.

The creator has really tried to think of everything and it’s clear he uses this himself.

Here are just some of the features – I had to create a video to show off some of the other stuff so you’d understand how it all ties together.

o Over 60+ pre-designed lead, sales and marketing layouts
– Opt-In Pages
– Social Gates
– About Me Pages
– Sales Pages
– Coming Soon Pages
– Local Marketing Pages
– Member Portals
– Review Pages
– JV Pages
– Webinar Pages
– Bonus Pages
– ECommerce Sites
– Launch Pages
– Upsell Pages
– Training Series

o Easy to use drag and drop marketing page builder
o The plugin component will work with any theme
o Included theme for search optimised usage
o Create and save your own layouts/templates
o Save all your theme settings to use on another site
o Full featured typography section for INDIVIDUAL elements
o Optional included exit redirect on pages
o Includes the Revolution slider plugin bundled with the theme
o A ton of other cool stuff…

Okay?

I stumbled with some of the functionality as a) there’s so much of it, and b) it isn’t all totally clear until you get a feel for how it all works and ties together. Hence the video above – I hope this helps you to get started quickly with the plugin.

You can get to the sales page here. There’s a 67 CENT developer special currently running, but I honestly don’t know how much longer this will stay in place, so don’t dilly-dally over this one.

Profit Builder Plugin and Theme

This is definitely one to pick up, and I suspect you might start using it for many of your sites.

-Frank Haywood

Nov

2014

Support Desk Plugin

Update: The sale for the Support Desk plugin for WordPress is live at just $10.00 for a little while longer.

This plugin fully integrates with WordPress and gives it support desk capabilities.

It will then rise to ~~$17.00~~, and then again to ~~$47~~.

***

This plugin will allow you to CHARGE for support via a 3rd party membership plugin.

As well as a support desk, you also get full knowledgebase and troubleshooter functionality.

o Support Tickets
o Full WP integration
o Knowledgebase (also includes categories)
o Simple Troubleshooters
o Knowledgebase, Categories and Troubleshooters in WP menus
o Editable emails
o Ticket filters and selection for support staff
o Multiple support desk staff
o User MUST be logged in to WP to submit ticket
o User can select the staff member (admins can change)
o User can upload multiple files to support ticket
o Tickets added and edited using WP built in TinyMCE editor
o and more…

One of the reasons behind this plugin is I’ve had several people ask me over the years if there was any way they could CHARGE for support.

It seems this is particularly important to many people, including consultants who charge by the hour and want to make sure money has changed hands before they do the work.

And the way you can do this is because this plugin is fully integrated with WordPress, it means you can opt to use a third party membership plugin to manage and charge your customers.

In other words you can make sure that only your genuine customers can get access to the support desk.

Not being able to charge for support has been a real frustration for many people, myself included.

Let me give you a really annoying (for me at least) example. Even more annoying is this happened a few times to me before I started checking up on who I was dealing with.

After spending easily a couple of hours of my own time puzzling over a problem someone had with one of my plugins and a certain theme, and then asking the programmer to make some changes which weren’t really necessary…

I updated and uploaded the plugin zip and told the guy who was having the problem to re-download it as it would solve it for him.

He came back to me and said he couldn’t as the page wasn’t there any more.

After a few questions, it turns out I was giving support to someone who had bought the plugin from someone else on another site – this wasn’t even a resale rights plugin I’d sold – it was one of my key products.

In other words, I was helping someone who was using a pirate copy. 🙄

For a while now, I’ve been checking to see if each person who raises a support ticket is a genuine customer of mine, and not some “randomer” as my children like to put it.

Unless I know the person well it can take a few minutes to track them down.

Anyway…

This issue has been niggling away at me for a long time, and I eventually decided to do something about it and so it’s culminated in this first version of the plugin.

More info including a video showing how it all works is to follow.

-Frank Haywood