WordPress Plugins – January 2014

Get your website ready for 2014 with these new WordPress plugins that will help you maximize the functionality of your website:

Icon Box for Visual Composer

Icon Box plugin is an add on for Visual Composer Page Builder that allows you to create nice looking informative boxes with icons easily. Icon Box is ntegrated with real time icon search to help you find the right icon you need quickly. This plugin provides you with three box option styles with over 9 customization possibilities giving you more than 25 different designs to match your website design. This plugin works with all installations of Visual Composer.

WordPress User Bookmarks for UserPro

WordPress User Bookmarks for UserPro is an extension for the UserPro Profiles Plugin for WordPress. This plugin will allow users to bookmark any content they want, posts, forum topics, custom posts, and also manage their bookmarks into collections. This ajax-powered plugin offers a simple way to show the bookmarks and bookmark widget and can be integrated into any theme. You can show the bookmark widget in different ways: via dynamic sidebar widget, via automatic mode below post content, or via a shortcode.

Simple Social Bar

Simple Social Bar is a premium WordPress plugin with drag and drop functionality that allows you to show your social bar 3 ways: top, bottom, or static. Its floating feature allows it to be visible to your visitors all the time. Main features include: simple user interface, multiple languages support, Socialite support, floating bar, embedded color picker. It is also fully customizable.

Drag and Drop Shortcodes

Drag and Drop Shortcodes is a great WordPress plugin that lets you create remarkable things even with mediocre themes. Spice up your content and draw visitors attention with dynamic animation and modern parallax effects.
This plugin lets you create content of pages and posts by simply using the drag and drop interface, without messing with code. No need to remember any shortcode as each attribute is accessible from pop-up modal windows and forms.
For advanced users, this plugin supports shortcode editing in text editor. Simply highlight shortcode and press Add/Edit Shortcode button, and shortcode will be loaded in modal window form.

Commentator WordPress Plugin

Commentator WordPress Plugin is a fully featured ajaxified comments system for your WordPress website that lets you easily supercharge your discussions. Main features include: social login (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+), ajaxified comment form, login and register, and pagination, comments upvotes and downvotes, thread likes, front end comments sorting, customizable icons and colors, easy integration, translation ready, with more features on the way.

Commissioned Work or Commissioned Creative Vision?

Creative ownership has always been a controversial issue. Demarcation lines have been difficult to draw with the coming of the information or digital age. As far as WordPress themes go, a piece of work that emanates from the WordPress author, known as the creator or artist, and transferred to the recipient often identified as client, becomes an arduous task because the artist is oftentimes unable to remove or distance himself from the work of “art” even if it has long left his hands.

For example, a WordPress developer or professional, commissioned to work on a project and whose work has been accepted by the client has intrinsically turned over all rights to his design and has received remuneration for it. In essence, the client now owns the work. However, the designer is still credited to the public eye and both are at the mercy of the terms and stipulations of the legal contract between them.

The coming of the internet/digital age has birthed governing rules such as Creative Commons or GPL where artists openly share the rights to their work to the public under specific licenses or terms of use thus complicating further the very delineations that are supposed to protect the interest of the artist. But where do you draw the line? In the eyes of the WordPress author, the output can be treated as artistic and creative output while to the client, the full rights to the use of the output, specifically, the WordPress theme created, belong to the latter once money is exchanged.

Discussions continue to be controversial. Schools train and teach multi media students how to treat their work and how to avoid exploitation or unjust use of their artistic output. But this is not so in the “real world” marketplace where copying is a “generally accepted” practice. It is not uncommon for a best-selling WordPress theme to birth clones and spin-offs of some sort in a matter of days. How do we address the idealism of upcoming authors and developers who are scared that their designs might get ripped off? The exposure and professional experience of seasoned web developers have given them the wisdom and resilience to cope with these real world ripoff concerns. But this should not discourage those who are can add to the pool of creativity because of fear.

Thankfully, there are many mentors within the WordPress community who are willing to give back to the community and pay it forward to those who are just starting. The dialog is also always ongoing. This is perhaps what makes the whole WordPress community strong and what makes its members continue to thrive.

WordPress Admin Panel

Navigating your way around in the backend area of your WordPress website need not be complicated even if you are a beginner. The WordPress Admin Panel area found in the backend is a powerful and flexible area where you can manage your website content and other WordPress functions. It has continually evolved since 2003 and with the help of and contributions from the WordPress community has improved and become more and more beautiful and user friendly.

The Administration Panel provides access to the control features of your WordPress installation. Each Administration Panel is presented in sections:

The Header

The top portion of all Panels, the header, is featured in dark shading. The header shows the name of your blog as a link to your blog’s main page, comments awaiting moderation, +New to add new posts, pages, media, or users, a Search Engines Blocked message if you Privacy settings block search engines, a favorites menu, and links to your profile (shown as your user name), and Log Out. Just below the top shaded area are two hanging tabs, Screen Options and contextual Help, that can be clicked to expand them.

The Main Navigation

On the left side of the screen is the main navigation menu detailing each of the administrative functions you can perform. Two expand/collapse arrows just below the Dashboard and Comments allow the navigation menu to collapse to a set of icons, or expand (fly-out) to show an icon and description for each major administrative function. Within each major function, such as Posts, a pull-down arrow is presented upon hovering mouse hovers over the title area. A click of that arrow expands the menu to display each of the sub-menu choices. Clicking that arrow again collapses the sub-menu.

The Work Area

The large area in the middle of the screen is the work area. It is here where specific information relating to a particular navigation choice, such as adding a new post, is presented and collected.

The Footer

Finally, in the footer, at the bottom of each Administration Panel in dark shading, are links to WordPress, Documentation, and Feedback. In addition, the version of WordPress you have installed is shown. Just below the menu tab section, if your version is NOT the latest version, you will see the message An updated version of WordPress is available. Please update now. Click on the provided link to navigate to the Updates SubPanel.

Below is a list of the submenu items you will find in your default WordPress Admin Panel main navigation menu. Some of them may or may not be included depending on the WordPress version you have installed.

Dashboard

The Dashboard tells you about recent activity both at your site and in the WordPress community at large and provide access to updating WordPress, plugins, and themes.

WordPress Updates

This sub panel gives you an easy method to update WordPress, plugins, and themes. Note not all hosts will allow the automatic update process to work successfully and will require you to manually upgrade by following the Upgrading WordPress instructions.

Posts

This sub panel is where you can publish writings, compositions, discussions, discourses, musings, and, yes, even rantings, of a blog owner and contributors. Here you can write new Posts, create new Categories, new Tags, and new Custom Fields. In addition, any Media (pictures, video, recordings, files) can be uploaded and inserted into the Posts.

Media

This sub panel allows you to upload new media to later use with posts and pages. A Flash Uploader is provided and the ability to use a Browser Uploader is supplied if the Flash Uploader does not work.

Pages

A good example of a Page is the information contained in About or Contact Pages. A Page should not be confused with the time-oriented objects called Posts, nor should a WordPress Page be confused with the word page referring to any web page or HTML document on the Web. In this Sub Panel you can select the Page to edit or delete. Multiple Pages can be selected for deletion and for editing. As with Posts, a powerful bulk edit tool allows certain fields to be edited for a whole group of Pages. A handy in-line edit tool, called Quick Edit, allows you to update many fields for an individual Page. Various search and filtering options allow you to find the Pages you want to edit or delete.

Comments/Reader Feedbacks

Comments are a feature of blogs which allow readers to respond to Posts. In this sub panel you can edit and delete as well as mark comments as spam. Comments that are awaiting moderation can be marked as approved or previously approved comments can be unapproved. Multiple comments can be selected and approved, marked as spam, unapproved, or deleted. A section at the top of the Comments SubPanel displays the number of comments awaiting moderation and the number of approved comments. A search box allows you to find specific comments.

Appearance

From the Presentation Administration Panel you can control how the content of your blog is displayed. WordPress allows you to easily style your site by either installing and activating new Themes or changing existing Themes. This sub panel includes customization controls for Themes, Widgets, Menus, Background, Header, and Theme Editor.

Plugins

Plugins allow you to add new features to your WordPress blog that don’t come standard with the default installation. This sub panel allows you to view the plugins you’ve downloaded, add new plugins, modify the plugins and choose which plugins you want activated on your site.

Users

Every WordPress site probably has at least two users: the admin, the account initially set up by WordPress, and the user account you, as the author/owner of the blog. This sub panel allows you to set up all of the user accounts you need, change user information, assign roles, or delete users.

Tools

WordPress Tools provide you the ability to speed up WordPress for your local machine, import content from other sources, export your content, or to upgrade your WordPress software to a new release. This includes the Import, Export, and Press This functions.

Settings

The Settings Administration Panel contains all of the settings that define your website as a whole: settings which determine how your site behaves, how you interact with your site, and how the rest of the world interacts with your site. This sub panel includes control settings for: General (basic configuration settings), Writing, Reading, Discussion, Media, Privacy, and Permalinks
(source: WordPress codex)

The backend or Admin Panel may vary from theme to theme. The look and appearance may vary depending on the customizations and tweaks done by authors and developers. Nevertheless, no matter how Admin Panel is tweaked, these basic functions are standard and generally remain the same no matter what WordPress theme you install.

The WordPress Dashboard for WP Beginners

According to the WordPress,

The Dashboard is a tool to quickly access the most used areas of your blog’s Administration and to provide glimpses into other areas of the WordPress community. The Dashboard Screen presents information in blocks called modules. WordPress delivers eight modules: Right Now, Recent Comments, Incoming Links, Plugins,QuickPress, Recent Drafts, WordPress Blog, and Other WordPress News.

The first screen you see when you log into the administration area of your blog is your Dashboard. The main idea of the dashboard is to give you a place where you can get an at-a-glance overview of what’s happening with your blog. You can catch up on news, view your draft posts, see who’s linking to you or how popular your content’s been, quickly put out a no-frills post, or check out and moderate your latest comments.

The Dashboard acts like a cockpit with all the controls and switches you need to help your website function the way you want it to. This might seem basic to those who have been using WordPress for quite some time now but there are still quite a few out there who are still struggling to figure out how to find their way through the backend, scared to death lest they “break” their website beyond repair.

Getting to know your WordPress Dashboard

If you are a WordPress beginner, the Admin Section or backend can be quite intimidating at first, but once you become familiar with the different sections, everything will make sense. What do you see after you successfully login to your WordPress website? Here’s what you can expect.

The Dashboard contains the following default modules. These modules can be dragged, dropped, repositioned, or toggled on and off according to your preferences.

Right Now

This module, at its basic, gives you a concise overview of your what’s going on with your site. It contains information and stats about your content (posts, pages, categories, tags), discussions (approved, pending, or spam comments), the name of your WordPress theme and the number of active widgets you are using, users online, and the WordPress version installed. More information can be included in this module depending on any additional plugins you install. You can also customize your Privacy Settings if you wish to keep your site private.

QuickPress

This module is the best and quickest way you can create a simple post. You can add a title, content, media files, custom forms, tags, and save your post as a draft or publish immediately. It’s a great tool for capturing and publishing ideas without going through the “Add New Post” module.

Recent Comments

If you allow comments on your website, this module helps you moderate the discussions on your posts. You can approve (unapprove), edit, reply, mark as spam, or delete comments right on the dashboard.

Recent Drafts

This module displays saved drafts of posts and pages that you are working on which still needs to be edited or published.

Incoming Links

This module reveals the urls of other websites that has linked to your WordPress website. You may or may not find this module useful as it does not always include all the websites that link to you. You can also configure incoming links you allow by editing the RSS feed information ( url, number of items to display, item date).

What’s Hot

This module displays recent posts from the official WordPress Blog, Other WordPress News, Popular or Latest Posts from around WordPress. This keeps you updated on the latest WordPress related news such as version announcements, security notices, and general WordPress community posts and updates.

Plugins

This module lists the Most Popular, Newest, and Recently Updated plugins available. If you are adventurous and you want to experiment with how different plugins work on your site, this is the perfect resource to find plugins to play with.

Site Stats

This module is probably the one you need to pay most attention to. It shows you a graph of your website’s activities – views, visitors, traffic – per day, week, or month. It’s a great tool to find out how many visits you get, what your top posts are, top searches on your website, and overall statistics to help you improve, maintain, and optimize your site even further.

Knowing the functions of each of these modules will help you learn how to use them to manage your website. Take some time to go through each one of these modules and familiarize yourself with each of them. You’ll soon be mastering all of them and it’ll be instinctive later on.

What Should WordPress Themes Sell For (Individually)?

Product Pricing

Product pricing is one of the trickiest things to determine as far as market positioning goes. Why? There are several market forces that need to be carefully considered, on top of the actual cost of producing or creating the product to be sold, before you can actually arrive at a Selling Price that is equitable to both buyer and seller. Intellectual/intangible/Service products or Works of Art are even harder to price because their value is greatly hinged not only on the actual skills and experience of the creator but on his perceived market persona as well. Premium or Custom WordPress themes are intangible products whose pricing has often been debated and discussed. One recent hot topic on this was ThemeForest’s price increase on WordPress themes sold in their marketplace.

WordPress Themes – Commodity or Work of Art?

There has been a long-standing debate on how much a WordPress Theme should actually sell for. The WordPress Themes market has evolved greatly in a span of two to three years and a lot of discussions about fair pricing, competitiveness, costs, man hours, economies of scale, quality, fair market value, after-sales support etc. have gone on and on because this market has yet to reach its full maturity. The deluge of new premium themes flooding the market regularly from new but not necessarily seasoned web authors taking their designs to the marketplace has its pros and cons. D more themes equal more choices for buyers, which makes more income for authors? Maybe or maybe not.

The influx of these new premium WordPress themes in the market place definitely has a major impact on every theme’s individual pricing. Premium themes are slowly becoming “commoditized,” with very little differentiation from one theme to the next, turning into “common” products with common features and common functionalities. The market recognizes this “common-ness” and, without getting into too much detail about the law of supply and demand, this characteristic influences and eventually dictates their fair market value and eventually, the success of these themes. Often, the not-so “common” ones stand out and do better sales-wise.

It boils down to how much a buyer is willing to pay and how much the seller is willing to sell. This is not to devalue or diminish the efforts and man hours invested to create such themes but if the author decides to place his product in a marketplace where there are other similar products offering the same features and benefits then he is virtually agreeing to subject his product to the conditions (price control included) existing in that marketplace. It makes no difference how much time and effort he’s invested in creating the theme. It’s like a choice between selling in your own stand-alone boutique or selling in the mall. Different market forces. Different pricing strategies.

As a seller, you have to decide not only which distribution channel works best for your products, your business and your brand. You also need to come up with a marketing strategy that will help you achieve your business goals. Taking your products to a marketplace has its pros and cons and opening up your own store has its own benefits too. Some authors do both to ensure that their products get maximum exposure in the marketplace and in their own storefront.

How Much is Your Time Worth?

Cheap is relative. The Internet has made the global economy a tangible reality and prices do matter depending which side of the globe you are. Placing a dollar sign, a euro symbol, a peso sign, or whatever currency symbol in front of a number will have different values depending on where you are in the world. A cup of coffee in the USA is probably worth a week’s wages in Bangladesh. Because the currency scales are not equal what is cheap in one country may be exorbitant in another.

That’s why pricing is really tricky. It creates the market you want or eliminates the market you don’t want. But regardless whether your target market can afford you or not, your pricing strategy will attract the market you want to service. Those who can afford to buy will simply buy regardless of the price while those who can’t will scrimp and save just to afford what you have to offer especially if you are selling what they are looking for. These customers might not necessarily buy in bulk but definitely they will turn into loyal customers as long as they keep getting the kind of quality product they need. The question now is how much is your time worth and at what price are you willing to sell your product.

From the WordPress author’s perspective, there are many elements involved in computing how much a WordPress theme is worth. No it’s not about the selling price but the worth of each theme according to what was invested in it. Every author’s investment in each theme he creates includes actual man-hours worked on the theme, software bought and used, training, demo files, documentation files, psd files, support system setup, and so much more. Quite a lot actually.

How the author intends to get back a return on his investment (ROI) depends now on his pricing strategy, how much he is willing to sell his theme for (the actual selling price) to get an ROI and earn a decent profit as well. Low Price + High Volume? or High Price + Low Volume? Whatever he/she decides on will determine the distribution channels he chooses.

To Support or Not to Support?

People buy stuff expecting things to work. Whether they follow the instruction manual or not, they expect the product to function the way it was advertised. And if it doesn’t, they expect and demand some sort of support to help fix it or else they simply return the product, if they can. Major businesses and companies always include some type of support or warranty on items sold. They recognize that this is still part of the company’s marketing efforts for these specific products. WordPress authors need to think the same. Support is part of the marketing strategy of any successful business. Even if the customer is wrong. Of course, that doesn’t mean that abusive customers can just have their way. One sure fire way of decreasing the probability of customer complaints and the need for extensive support is to make sure that every theme released is as much as possible thoroughly tested and meets standard WordPress requirements.

In the end, the power of choice belongs to the consumer and it is he who determines whether a product is worth buying or not, affordable or not. No matter what the cost – if they need it, they will buy it. And they will keep on buying if they feel that they get the support from these WordPress authors about the product issues and questions no matter how trivial they are.