Whether it’s making the design process easier or helping your clients better manage their own site, you’ll probably find a WordPress plugin to help.
Some plugins are better than others and these five great WordPress plugins are quickly becoming must haves for many developers and designers. These are great additions to the already popular plugins many sites already use.
If you haven’t already tried at least one of these, make it a priority to add one to current or next project. It could be just what you’re client is looking for.
Custom Login Page Customizer
For sites with multiple users or members, having a custom WordPress login page gives the site a more branded feel. The plugin makes it easy to create a custom login page complete with logos, background images and custom fonts. While this can be done without a plugin, it’s much easier. Instead of having to custom code it, all you have to do is customize the login page from within the WordPress customizer. This makes sites look even more professional, which makes clients happy. With over 10,000 active installations, Custom Login Page Customizer is an up and coming plugin to watch.
Menu Image
Images grab attention better than text alone. Menu Image is a newer plugin that makes it easy to add images to menus. This eliminates complex coding while adding more visual appeal to the site itself. The plugin gives you fields to easily add in images. It also lets you change the image size, how text appears with the image and choose alternate images for when a visitor hovers. For any sites look for a fun design change to engage visitors, menu images are a good idea. This plugin makes it far easier to make that change while still looking great for your clients.
Conductor
Constantly changing page layouts to reorganize content isn’t always easy. Clients don’t want to have to call their developer just to change a layout to feature certain content for a limited time. With the new Conductor plugin, rearranging a page layout is as easy as drag and drop. The plugin not only makes it far easier and faster for you to create sites, but it allows your clients to have more control over layouts. It’s easy enough for clients to use and powerful enough for developers.
Safe Redirect Manager
Coding and testing redirects can take forever. Plus, if you miss any, visitors may never find the content they were searching for. Safe Redirect Manager gives you an easy to understand interface to redirect URLs. The plugin is designed to only redirect to whitelisted hosts for better security. All whitelisting is handled automatically, so there’s even less manual work to be done. This plugin is ideal for sites that have recently undergone major design changes and may have numerous redirects to handle.
Tabs Shortcode and Widget
Tabs give sites a different look and feel than standard menus. Creating them manually takes time. A newer plugin seeks to change how tabs are created and used. Tabs Shortcode and Widget lets you create both horizontal and vertical tabs in an interface. The tabs can then be easily added to any template, sidebars or even the post/page editor. It removes the need to code in tabs manually. All you have to do is create them and choose where you want them to appear. If the tabs need to change, just revisit the tab editor, make the changes and add them back in. It saves developers valuable time and ensures clients get the changes they need quickly.
Conclusion
New WordPress plugins are released daily, but as always, there are quite a few standouts. You don’t have to do everything the hard way with each site you develop. Instead, give at least a few of these plugins a try. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Not sure which plugin to try first? Start by learning more about Conductor and how it can benefit you.