Helpful WordPress Plug-ins for your Portfolio Site
Now that you’ve got WordPress up and running on your site… you don’t? Well, this post assumes that you’ve read over my first post “Building a Portfolio Site using WordPress”. Now that you have read through that, let’s take a look at a few plug-ins that will help your site stay up and running. There’s a ton of WordPress plug-ins out there so I wanted to share the plug-ins that I use or have used on my own site to keep it running smoothly. It’s not good to use too many plugins for your blog and with there being so many plug-ins out there it can be hard to find the right one for you. There’s an amazing number of ways to add to your original WordPress installation so let’s take a look at them now.
If you’re not sure how to install a WordPress plug-in I found this helpful YouTube video to get you started.
Google Analytics – http://www.google.com/analytics/
While it’s not really a plug-in Google Analytics shows you the full customer picture across ads and videos, websites and social tools, tablets and smartphones. It lets you keep track of how many visitors are coming to your site and where they are coming from. This makes it easier to serve your current customers and win new ones. Once you’ve signed up for a Google analytics account there are many plug-ins that you can install to WordPress to give you a picture of the people who visit your site. One of these plug-ins that comes highly reviewed from other WordPress users is called Google Analytics by Yoast and you can find it here.
All in One SEO Pack – http://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
All in One SEO Pack is a WordPress SEO plugin to automatically optimize your WordPress blog for Search Engines such as Google. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s natural or un-paid search results.
Shareaholic – http://wordpress.org/plugins/shareaholic/
Shareaholic adds an attractive social bookmarking menu and related content widget to your posts, pages, index, or any combination of the three. Shareaholic is a extremely useful and successful tool in getting your readers to actually discover and submit your articles to numerous social bookmarking sites. Full support for Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and a shocking number of others.
Thank Me Later – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/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!
Print Friendly and PDF Button – http://wordpress.org/plugins/printfriendly/
The Print Friendly & PDF button automatically creates printer friendly and PDF versions of your pages without the hassle of having to create a print CSS file. No coding, hacking or programming required. Simply install the Print Friendly & PDF plugin, activate, and choose settings for full customization. It also gives your user the ability to remove images and paragraphs of text, so they really only have to print exactly what they want.
nRelate Related Content – wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nrelate-related-content/
The best way to display related content from your site, and/or your blogroll. This ultimately leads to higher page-views for your site, and a better user experience for your visitors.
BackUpWordPress – http://wordpress.org/plugins/backupwordpress/
BackUpWordPress will back up your entire site including your database and all your files on a schedule that suits you.
MailChimp for WordPress – http://wordpress.org/plugins/mailchimp-for-wp/
MailChimp for WordPress lets you create a highly customizable sign-up form which you can display wherever you want it to display using a simple shortcode, widget or template function. You can also add sign-up checkboxes to various forms on your site, like your comment or contact forms.
These are just a handful of the many plug-ins out there for WordPress. There’s a ton more to choose from and if you’d like to see some of WordPress’ is more popular’s plug-ins check out this link and if you use any other plug-ins that could be helpful to your fellow illustrators, leave them in the comments.
Norm
Growing up on the shores of Maui, Hawaii, Norm has always loved drawing. Since leaving the islands’ beautiful beaches and landing in Oregon, he went to college and received a degree in graphic design as well as an additional degree in digital prepress technology. After graduating, he worked for an interactive media firm in Corvallis, Oregon. While there, he was the company’s lead illustrator/designer and was responsible for creating illustrations, animations, and interactive products like video games. Now living in Beaverton, Oregon, Norm worked as an in-house illustrator for 10 years at a large education company in downtown Portland, Oregon. While at this position, he was the creative mind behind nationally marketed campaigns, numerous brand identities, toy and product designs, children’s books, as well as Web and interactive designs for the company’s design team. After leaving this position to raise his son, he now spends countless hours perfecting his craft as a freelance illustrator. He has worked with companies like Highlights Magazine, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Reading A to Z, Kaiser Permanente, KinderCare, and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). He has created projects such as marketing illustrations, children’s books, coloring and activity books, video games, and educational products for these companies and others. Norm’s ability to draw has given him the chance to do the thing he truly loves: Create.
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