Web and WordPress News Roundup for April 2014

Hello spring, farewell winter. Time to get out of the house, grab a comfy chair, watch the snow melt and catch up on the most interesting news on the web today. Here are some of the most interesting posts and articles buzzing right now in the big www.


Top 5 BuddyPress Themes April 2014

BuddyPress ready themes enable you to create your own special social network centered around your website and content. This means that visitors can register as members and connect and network with other members who are part of your specific niche community. This is especially useful in creating and growing a social network where members share common interests. Here’s a rundown of the top 5 themes that have BuddyPress integrated into them.

WPLMS

WPLMS Premium WordPress Theme is a learning management solution for WordPress. It is designed to deliver and manage educational content for an online audience. WPLMS enables you to create and sell courses as single items, as subscriptions or as a combination of both. You can embed videos and other multimedia content into your courses, create your own question bank with multiple choice, single answer or essay type questions including quiz timers, timelines and auto submit with WPMLS’s built-in quiz and test capabilities. WPLMS includes an instructor dashboard allowing you to check submissions of students as well as your own course content. The theme also has a progress page for users to track progress and l badges and certificates earned and attained. This theme uses BuddyPress for collaboration and discussion with other learners.

Kleo

Kleo Premium WordPress Theme is a multipurpose theme designed to meet various requirements of most websites.This BuddyPress and bbPress ready theme gives you great flexibility to create a membership site with complete ease. Powered by the popular visual composer plugin, Kleo enables you to simply drag and drop elements into a single page. Kleo enables managing content according to membership level. The theme gives you the ability to restrict content according the type of membership one has. Kleo comes with key features such as an awesome option panel, shortcodes and templates for easy customization, 700+ Fontello icons, WPML ready, and so much more.

Xphoria

Xphoria Premium WordPress Theme showcases what BuddyPress and bbPress plugins are capable of doing. Xphoria gives you the ability to create display forums turning your site into a big social network exchange. Visitors can join groups, post messages, make connections and the like. Conversations are displayed in a neat tiled fashion showing the number of posts under each thumbnail. Groups are displayed on the homepage and may be viewed according to popularity, alphabetical order, activity or date created while each group has a separate page displaying member info and conversations. Essentially, a social network in a box, Xphoria can hel you build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community.

Plexus

Plexus Premium WordPress Theme is a multisite theme created especially for enabling your site to host a blog network within WordPress. This theme is fully integrated with BuddyPress and bbPress giving the social networking power fitting for a blog network. It comes with specific network settings that give you control over what blog admins can do with it. Aside from BuddyPress and bbPress full integration, the theme also includes: Visual Composer plugin for that drag and drop convenience in customization, Layer Slider plugin to create a responsive slider with hundreds of transitions, site wide widgets that display content across the blog networks, and so much more.

Klein

Klein Premium WordPress Theme is a powerful community theme that gives you the utmost power to maximize social networking. At the heart of this theme is the Gears core framework that enables you to integrate other plugins easily. This innovative WordPress theme was built to support BuddyPress, bbPress, and WooCommerce. It is ideal for a website that interacts with a lot of users. Members can create profiles, send messages, add connections, or simply share what’s happening. It also allows members to collaborate through forums or sell any products you require. Key features include: Visual Composer plugin for drag and drop layouts, paid membership pro features to manage subscription packages, supports Woocommerce to set up a vibrant private online ecosystem, etc. This theme works well with BuddyPress plugins such as Events Manage and Album Plus, extending the power of your site’s network.


7 Bestselling Unusual Themes for WordPress

There are some things that are truly unique and outstanding that they can’t help but stand out and rise to the top of the heap. Here are some of the best selling WordPress themes that owe their popularity to a unique niche that they fill.

X Theme

Dubbed as Themeforest’s most popular new product, this theme presents itself as the ultimate WordPress theme. The claim’s validity is backed by real world results and real time feedback from its satisfied users who have experienced the endless customization options available to its owners. While it offers a lot to those who want to dabble into the “nuts and bolts” of the theme, X also offers strong solutions for those who just want to get something up and running on their sites in no time. The theme has 3 predefined stacks that can be easily tweaked to give newbies and non-techies a “made by a professional” look for their websites. X offers features that have set the standard and raised the bar as far as WordPress themes go. Not surprising considering the experts who have given their inputs in the development of the theme not to mention the developer’s open ears to customer feedback. It is also not surprising that many already consider this as the last WordPress theme they will ever need.

Directory

This unique theme allows you to easily set-up an online directory portal listing categorized items of any type. You can have a directory of shops, websites, companies and more. This may be accomplished conveniently with from a frontend like admin panel giving you a more user friendly set-up experience. Visitors will find Directory a convenient reference resource as it delivers information in a concise, convenient manner. Entries are displayed as pins on a google map of the locale of interest. Alternatively visitors may search from a search box or browse off a category of entries. Directory comes with a lot of ad spaces so you can cash in on the traffic your content generates. This theme is integrated with Paypal so administering payments from advertisers and listed establishments isn’t a hassle. With more than 6000 satisfied users, Directory is considered the Best selling directory portal theme on themeforest.

Gymbase

This theme has been around for quite a while but remains a bestseller in its own right because of its special qualities. First and foremost it’s a Gym theme – unique and not like the rest. It addresses a viable niche market – the health and fitness market – where gym owners can easily create a website that can service players in this industry. Some of the useful features the theme has include: a timetable plugin included that allows members and visitors to plan the classes they will attend, Gymbase also displays the pricing for classes, features that allow updates for its members regarding upcoming classes, an easy to use admin panel equipped with a color picker to help you create your own custom look, and everything else you need to run a health and fitness website.

Academy

Designed to be a learning management solution for educational or training institutions to maximize the power and reach of the internet, Academy enables you to sell and share knowledge online. This theme gives you the platform to deliver classes and lessons to interested parties. Academy allows you to upload media content and documents as well as to encode quizzes and tests to check for your subscribers competency. You are also able to check the progress of your students, monitor the courses they take, as well as, administer payments. This theme is integrated with WooCommerce. Academy is an invaluable tool especially today, as more and more people turn to e-learning as a means of acquiring new skills and education.

Fundify

Fundify is the first WordPress theme designed for crowdfunding. This enables you to have a websites in the likes of Indiegogo and Kickstarter where parties can setup campaigns to raise funds for causes they support. Fundify allows you to setup campaigns for a fixed amount of money where supporters are only billed if the minimum target amount of the campaign is reached. Alternatively, the theme also enables flexible campaigns where whatever amount pledged is collected. Fundify also allows you to administer rewards to those who support your causes. The theme integrates with Paypal and easy digital downloads which makes it convenient for supporters to finance causes and advocacies that appeal to them.

Knowhow

With knowledge and information being an important commodity nowadays, it is not surprising to find a knowledge base theme in this list. What makes Knowhow special is that it enables you to setup your own knowledge base with ease and convenience while maintaining the privacy and control of information not available on public Wikis. You can list your content in the form of an FAQ. Knowhow also allows users to search by question or by topic which makes searching more convenient. Not your ordinary WordPress theme.

Jobify

Globalization and the internet have made the job market more competitive. Jobseekers have a need to display their resumes online so they can get the best jobs available. In a similar fashion, employers need to get the best talent available. Jobify is a job exchange solution used by top companies like dropbox to acquire the best talent globally. Employers can subscribe to your site for posting privileges. Jobseekers can post their resumes in response to job postings. This theme integrates with WooCommerce and Contact forms plugins to give you the best in payment and input management.


Nick Roach’s Elegant Themes Review

Elegant Themes - Updated Review for 2014

Updated: April 12, 2021 – 2021 is nearing the middle of the year, and now is a good time to update one of our most popular articles here on Blogging Experiment. For several years we have been singing the praises of Elegant Themes, and 2014 is shaping up to be no different. In a day and age where companies and websites come and go, Elegant Themes has not only stood the test of time, they have continued to innovate by creating massive value for their over 250,000 customers! In the following article, we’d like to give you a detailed overview of just why we call Elegant Themes the Best Deal in WordPress!

After all, having the right WordPress Theme is crucial to your websites’ success. It’s kind of like the study that showed how people looking to buy a home can make up their mind within 8 seconds of walking in the door whether they like it or not – by not giving your visitors the right first impression (your design) – you’re literally inviting them to hit the back button.

The Dilemma

As a blogger your focus should be on content. Blog design is important, but when you think about it, do people go to Craigslist because it looks pretty? Absolutely not. They use it because they’re the best in the field.

Since we’re not all Craigslists, we must merge the design and content aspects together in as seamless a manner as possible. You want to have a nice looking design, but you most likely are not strong in design itself (much less coding that pretty design). You want a unique, impressive look that conveys professionalism and passion about your craft, but you’re probably not an expert at usability (how “usuable” your site is to visitors). And finally, you want to do all this in the cheapest, most cost effictive way possible (nothing wrong with that).

Elegant Themes

Have you ever spent any length of time browsing around countless free wordpress theme sites only to be left feeling unsatisfied? Does it seem like most of the free themes are … well … free for a reason? Where are all the best wordpress themes? After going through these motions for a period of time, I decided to take a look at some premium wordpress themes to see if they were really that much better than the free ones. Shortly thereafter, I discovered Nick Roach’s Elegant Themes, and that changed everything for me.

I knew I could hire a web designer to create a nice looking website as I’ve done countless times in the past. But at $800 to $3500/pop, designers can be expensive. I was interested in finding a nice looking design that I could learn to tweak and modify myself to make it more personalized and customized to my liking.

As a website and blog developer, I am frequently developing new sites, and aside from the content itself, I want each design to be unique and professional. Enter ElegantThemes.

Elegant Themes Premium WordPress Theme Club

Forget $200 to $500 like many other premium theme clubs, for $69…YES, $69 – members get unlimited access and unlimited use to all of Nicks’ premium WordPress Themes. To date there are 80+ elegant WordPress Themes.

I’m going to get out of the way and let Nick’s design speak for itself. As you will see, these are top notch designs that would normally run you several thousand dollars a piece (I’ve researched hiring a good WordPress theme designer, and that is the going rate – typically the floor of their going rate).

Without further ado, here are some of the premium WordPress themes from Elegant Themes:


Nexus WordPress Theme

Blogex image_nexus

Nexus Features:

  • Magazine style
  • Responsive design
  • Unlimited color schemes
  • Secure and valid code
  • Complete localization
  • Browser compatibility
  • Perpetual updates
  • Unparalleled support
  • ADVANCED: ePanel theme options
  • ADVANCED: shortcode collection
  • ADVANCED: page templates

Example Site(s) using the Nexus Theme (Showcase):

More Information On Nexus From Elegant Themes:

Demo Nexus

 

Vertex WordPress Theme

Blogex image_vertex

Vertex Features:

  • Responsive design
  • Unlimited color schemes
  • Secure and valid code
  • Complete localization
  • Browser compatibility
  • Perpetual updates
  • Unparalleled support
  • ADVANCED: ePanel theme options
  • ADVANCED: shortcode collection
  • ADVANCED: page templates

Example Site(s) using the Vertex Theme (Showcase):

  • Email us if you are using the Vertex Theme, and we’ll list you here.

More Information On Vertex From Elegant Themes:

Demo Vertex

 

Fable WordPress Theme

Blogex image_fable

Fable Features:

  • Responsive design
  • Unlimited color schemes
  • Secure and valid code
  • Complete localization
  • Browser compatibility
  • Perpetual updates
  • Unparalleled support
  • ADVANCED: ePanel theme options
  • ADVANCED: shortcode collection
  • ADVANCED: page templates

Example Site(s) using the Fable Theme (Showcase):

  • Email us if you are using the Fable Theme, and we’ll list you here.

More Information On Fable From Elegant Themes:

Demo Fable

 

Foxy WordPress Theme

Blogex image_foxy

Foxy Features:

  • eCommerce
  • Responsive design
  • Unlimited color schemes
  • Secure and valid code
  • Complete localization
  • Browser compatibility
  • Perpetual updates
  • Unparalleled support
  • ADVANCED: ePanel theme options
  • ADVANCED: shortcode collection
  • ADVANCED: page templates

Example Site(s) using the Foxy Theme (Showcase):

  • Email us if you are using the Foxy Theme, and we’ll list you here.

More Information On Foxy From Elegant Themes:

Demo Foxy

 

Explorable WordPress Theme

Blogex image_explorable

Explorable Features:

  • Location based directory
  • Responsive design
  • Unlimited color schemes
  • Secure and valid code
  • Complete localization
  • Browser compatibility
  • Perpetual updates
  • Unparalleled support
  • ADVANCED: ePanel theme options
  • ADVANCED: shortcode collection
  • ADVANCED: page templates

Example Site(s) using the Explorable Theme (Showcase):

  • Email us if you are using the Explorable Theme, and we’ll list you here.

More Information On Explorable From Elegant Themes:

Demo Explorable

 

StyleShop WordPress Theme

Blogex image_styleshop

StyleShop Features:

  • eCommerce
  • Responsive design
  • Unlimited color schemes
  • Secure and valid code
  • Complete localization
  • Browser compatibility
  • Perpetual updates
  • Unparalleled support
  • ADVANCED: ePanel theme options
  • ADVANCED: shortcode collection
  • ADVANCED: page templates

Example Site(s) using the StyleShop Theme (Showcase):

  • Email us if you are using the StyleShop Theme, and we’ll list you here.

More Information On StyleShop From Elegant Themes:

Demo StyleShop

 

Fusion WordPress Theme

Fusion Theme from ElegantThemes.com

Fusion Features:

  • Responsive design
  • Unlimited color schemes
  • Secure and valid code
  • Complete localization
  • Browser compatibility
  • Perpetual updates
  • Unparalleled support
  • ADVANCED: ePanel theme options
  • ADVANCED: shortcode collection
  • ADVANCED: page templates

Example Site(s) using the Fusion Theme (Showcase):

  • Email us if you are using the Fusion Theme, and we’ll list you here.

More Information On Fusion From Elegant Themes:

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WordPress Themes for Photographers – March 2014

Creating an online portfolio is no longer a challenge nowadays. There are hundreds of options for displaying photographs available to photographers today that give you that expensive professional look. Here are some of the latest WordPress photography themes you can use to show off your prized images:

PhotoReactive – Fullscreen Studio for WordPress

PhotoReactive Premium WordPress Theme is a full screen studio theme for WordPress that photographers will love. This premium theme gives photographers tons of creative options for them to showcase images and other multimedia content both on the homepage and also in the portfolio pages. Full screen slideshows options include touch swipe capability, captions (with or without), photo wall, YouTube and Vimeo videos, static image, and the popular Kenburns slideshow (with or without audio). This theme is also equipped with Ajax & normal portfolio showcases, WooCommerce functionality to help you set up your own photography shop and it is also WPML ready (includes .po .mo language files.)

Devendo Photography WordPress Theme

Devendo Premium WordPress Theme is a flat and modern portfolio theme suitable for photographers. This premium theme is built with Bootstrap 3, is 100% responsive and is also available in four color schemes that can be changed in the theme’s options panel. Key features include: smart overlay search function, integrated social sharing, responsive mega menus with Bootstrap grid inside dropdowns, full screen portfolio with direction aware hover effects, smooth scrolling AJAX-powered horizontal blog, among others.

Fidelity – Premium Photography WordPress Theme

Fidelity Premium WordPress Theme is a modern photography theme with a future-oriented design targeted primarily for photographers but can also be used by design agencies, architecture bureaus, etc. This premium theme takes a full advantage of the latest CSS3 hardware-accelerated transitions (with a fallback to jQuery animations) giving users incredible performance on diverse platforms like desktops, tablet PCs and smartphones. Some of the unique features include: the ability to set up narrow or full width page in a few clicks, the ability to show EXIF data in the portfolio posts, and the horizontal masonry style blog layout that gives you that high end magazine feel. You can also display unlimited slideshows and videos for your background.

The Gentleman – Photography & Portfolio Theme

The Gentleman WordPress Theme is a fully responsive multipurpose theme perfect for any photographer, designer, agency, or any business looking to show off their work. There are multiple homepage layouts, tons of portfolio styles to choose from, and a lot of other features allowing you to build your perfect photography/portfolio website. This theme includes features like: Price tables, team members, multiple blog layouts, preset flat and pattern styles, a powerful theme options panel, multiple sliders including the popular Revolution Slider, multiple portfolio options including the Magnific Responsive Lightbox, and so much more.

Camilla – Horizontal Fullscreen Photography Theme

Camilla Premium WordPress Theme is a modern, minimal, full screen horizontal canvas ideal for displaying your photographs the way you intended them to be seen. This theme’s minimalistic design shifts the focus to your work with the use of distraction-free full screen video-ready galleries . Some of this theme’s modern features include: one-page layout, horizontal scroll, vertical scroll sections in horizontal layout, and it is optimized for mobile devices with its swipe navigation feature for smartphones and tablets, etc.


Top WordPress Plugins February 2014

Dynamic Featured Image

Dynamic Featured Image gives you multiple featured image (post thumbnail) functionality that enables you to have multiple featured images within a post or page. This is especially helpful when you use other plugins, post thumbnails or sliders that use featured images. Why be limited to just one featured image alone when you have the option to add more.

Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

Google Analytics Dashboard for WP will display Google Analytics data and statistics inside your WordPress Blog. This plugin displays detailed analytics info and statistics about: number of visits, number of visitors, bounce rates, organic searches, pages per visit directly on your Admin Dashboard. Authorized users can also view statistics like Views, UniqueViews and top searches, on frontend, at the end of each article. The analytics data is collected in a fast and secure manner because Google Analytics Dashboard uses OAuth2 protocol and Google Analytics API. Its real-time feature displays real-time visitors, real-time sources and per page real-time traffic details

Shareaholic

Shareaholic is an extremely useful tool to get readers to actually discover and submit your articles to numerous social bookmarking sites. This plugin adds an attractive social bookmarking menu and related content widget to your posts, pages, index, or any combination of the three for easy sharing. You can increase pageviews and engagement by highlighting relevant content from across your site to your readers who would not otherwise encounter them. Shareaholic reports all of your important actionable social media metrics including popular pages on your website, referral channels, and who are making referrals and spreading your webpages on the internet on your behalf bringing you back more traffic and new visitors.

Google Drive WP Media

This plugin turns Google Drive into your upload files hosting storage where you can upload and get direct access to your Google Drive so you can manage, upload, and share your files remotely from your WordPress blog. You also have the option to auto insert your Google Drive files into your WordPress Media Library, attach your Google Drive files to your posts, upload your files from your WordPress Administration to Google Drive, or create folders to store your files.

Ebyline Payments

Ebyline Payments is a plugin that allows editors to pay blog contributors easily and safely, all within the WordPress Admin. This plugin is easy to install and setup. You can make payments via credit card to contributors directly in the WordPress interface. Contributors receive payments via PayPal. This plugin is totally tax compliant and the system generates 1099s for each freelancer you pay.

Thank Me Later

Thank Me Later sends ‘thank you’ emails to your commenters. Simply write a message saying thanks and it will be emailed after a time of your choice — 5 minutes, a day, a month, whenever. Thank Me Later attracts readers back to your blog and asks them to check for replies to their comments. Other uses of the plugin include: linking to your RSS feed to get more readers; linking to your Twitter or Facebook pages to get more followers or likes; or giving a discount for purchases.

Google Pagespeed Insights for WordPress

Google Pagespeed Insights is a tool that empowers you to make decisions that increase the performance of your website. Use Google Pagespeed Insights to increase your site’s performance, your search engine ranking, and your visitors browsing experience. This plugin features advanced data visualization, tagging, filtering, and snapshot technology. Report Summaries are a powerful and exclusive feature of Google Pagespeed Insights for WordPress. Summaries display your average Page Score, largest areas for improvement across ALL reports, as well as best and lowest performing pages. You can also configure Google Pagespeed Insights for WordPress to generate Desktop reports, Mobile reports, or both.


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.


The Perfect Landing Page?

So you’ve got all this great content and you’ve gained a group of regular readers that visit your website almost all the time. What do you do next?

Many website owners start off their websites with a simple blog without a thought about creating a landing page. Landing page? Huh? What’s that? Is that necessary? Others, on the other hand, start out with a main sales page and append other pages like a blog or a gallery page as the need arises later on. Is there a right order as to which should come first?

What is a Landing Page anyway?

Seth Godin puts it simply,

A landing page is the first page a visitor to your site sees.

Technically, whether it’s a blog page or a static page – any page that your visitor “lands” on is your landing page. Some prefer a static page over a blog and vice versa. Whatever type of page style you choose, your page treatment (goal of the page, page design, call to action, etc.) and the traffic that you direct to it will determine whether you have a successful and effective page that eventually leads to conversion. The goal is to make the visitor do something when he gets there.

How do people arrive at your landing page?

What you can ask people to do when they get to your landing page (CTAs)

  • Buy something
  • Register or sign up
  • Subscribe (mailing list)
  • Share
  • Learn
  • Download
  • Leave a comment or feedback
  • Click a link

What’s the best type of landing page?

A simple, uncomplicated landing page is the best. Your visitor got to your page because his interest was sparked. Now that he’s there give him a clear call to action that is tied to achieving your goals. Keep it simple and be specific. More than two CTAs is probably too much already but it still depends on your goals.

Poorly converting landing page? Keep testing. Revise if necessary. Check for distracting elements. Most people are comfortable just giving their first name and email address. Remove extra fields if necessary. There’s always room for improvement.

Try creating a landing page and see how it works out for you. Leave a comment and let us know.


WordPress Plugins and Widgets To Help You Manage Your Content Efficiently

Managing large volumes of content can be quite a task if not managed well especially if you are handling multiple contributors, authors, and guest authors. Here are some useful WordPress plugins to help you streamline and monitor your content activities:

Postrunner

Postrunner is a guest posting system connecting authors with site owners. This plugin facilitates the process of hooking a WordPress site into Postrunner to receive guest posts. PostRunner streamlines the guest posting process for authors and publishers who want to share content, but don’t want to deal with the normal prospecting, pitching, and negotiating traditional guest posting requires. Authors get abundant guest posting opportunities; publishers get quality content for their blog or website while maintaining total editorial control.

Really Simple Guest Post Plugin

Really Simple Guest Post Plugin allows your visitors to submit posts even without registration (as a guest author). Anyone will be able to submit post and it will be added automatically as a pending post for review, approval or rejection. Posts will be directly saved into WordPress database and will show up in Admin Dashboard as pending post with given Title, Description, Category and Tags.Moderator will be able to review and approve them as needed. Authors Name, Author url and email will be added as custom field.

Frontend Publishing

Frontend Publishing is a lightweight plugin that allows you to accept guest posts/articles without giving your members access to the sensitive WordPress control panel. It will automatically filter out all the posts that don’t meet the submission guidelines of your website. It can be a huge time saver if you have a very popular blog or article directory. You can allow members with a certain user level to publish posts instantly. All other posts are added to the ‘pending’ queue.

Custom Content Type Manager

The Custom Content Type Manager (CCTM) is a WordPress plugin that allows users to create custom content types (a.k.a. post_types) with virtually any type of custom field. This plugin allows users to create custom content types (also known as post types) and standardized custom fields for each, including dropdowns, checkboxes, and images and more. You can select multiple images, posts, or media items and store them in a single field making it easy for you to store a gallery of images or long lists of values. This plugin also lets you export and import your content definitions, making it easy to ensure a similar structure between multiple sites.

Ajax Content Filter

Ajax Post Content Filter allows you to filter your content with a drop down box. Just install the plugin, activate and open the ACF Posts located in the left side menu bar. You will need to add new ACF posts by filling up the post title and placing your content in the editor then publish it. Simply put the shortcode [ACF] in a page or post in admin. You can also put the shortcode ajax_content_filter() in your template file and you will get the simple dropdown box on your page at front side.

Fancier Author Box

Give identity to your single or multi-author WordPress website with Fancier Author Box – a WordPress plugin that allows you or your authors to connect with your audience on all levels and encourages people to read the author’s bio and engage on major social networks. You can modify display settings and color settings according to your preferences.

Editorial Calendar Plugin

The Editorial Calendar Plugin gives you an overview of your blog and when each post will be published. You can drag and drop to move posts, edit posts right in the calendar, and manage your entire blog. See all of your posts and when they’ll be posted. You can drag and drop to change your post dates, manage your drafts with our new drafts drawer, quick edit post titles, contents, and times, publish posts or manage drafts, easily see the status of your posts, manage posts from multiple authors.

Custom About Author

This plugin acknowledges authors for their post by displaying a brief biography about them at the end of their post. It is perfect if you have multiple guest bloggers on your website and they do not each have a user account. It also gives an added incentive for bloggers to write guest posts on your site. Multiple custom profiles can be created and they take preference over website user profiles. You also have the option to specify a specific profile to display for each post. Custom profiles are completely configurable, it can include links to social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Google+) or you can specify any HTML/text you want to display. This plugin displays the author profile at the end of the post. It gives you have the option to display the author’s website user profile or a custom profile.

WP Biographia

This plugin allows you to add a customisable biography to posts, RSS feeds, pages, archives and to each post on your blog’s landing page as well as via a widget in your sidebar. It integrates out of the box with the information that can be provided in each user’s profile and supports custom post types. Display of the Biography Box can be hidden on a global or per user basis for posts, pages and custom post types as well as on a per category basis.