Andreas Hecht May 24th, 2016

Best of May 2016: Ten Free WordPress Plugins

In May, just like every month, I searched through the official WordPress plugin index to find the most functional and appealing new plugins for you. I don't do this entirely selflessly, however, as I myself find it very exciting to test new free WordPress plugins for my diverse projects. This month was very generous and brought a couple of interesting plugins to light.

1 - Posts For All Pages

Posts for all Pages allows you to have your posts displayed on other pages than just the index.php. You can let it help you show all posts of a particular category on any page you want to. This allows for the creation of multiple blogs based on certain categories in not time.
  • Developer: wpyb
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.20.2016
  • Cost: Free from WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Unknown
  • Download on WordPress.org

2 - Engaging Convo

engaging-convo Engaging Convo is an innovative comment plugin which provides unusual features. For instance, your visitors can mark an area in your text and start a debate on it directly there. Thus, there's no reason to scroll to the end of an article, just to be able to leave a comment. Additionally, it is possible to create multiple comment sections for various post areas, and the different sections can be accessed guided by the color in which the text segment is highlighted.
  • Developer: lazharichir
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.21.2016
  • Cost: Free from WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Unknown
  • Download on WordPress.org

3 - Social Icon Widget

social-icon-widget This widget brings you appealing icons to link to your social networks in the sidebar.
  • Developer:mostafiz
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.19.2016
  • Cost: Free from WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Unknown
  • Download on WordPress.org

4 - UTM Switcher

utm-switcher The UTM Switcher is a useful plugin for online shops and all digital sellers. You can determine precisely from where your visitors came to certain pages, and then optimize them with customized content, like individual phone numbers e.g.. In digital marketing, it can be tough to find out which advertisement channel brings the best results. It could be Adwords, paid ads on Facebook, advertorials on blogs, and so on. This plugin helps you to find out which channel's results are the best.
  • Developer: punchrockgroin
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.18.2016
  • Cost: Free from WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Unknown
  • Download on WordPress.org

5 - TS Collections

TS Collections lets you activate or deactivate plenty of features with just one click. The following things can be influenced:
  • Move all JavaScript into the footer, including jQuery.
  • Force ASYNC for all JavaScript files, except for jQuery.
  • Automatic linking of Twitter usernames.
  • Mark comments with long URLs as spam.
  • Set the minimum comment length to 20 words.
  • Allow PHP in the text widgets.
  • Remove the automatic URL linking in the WordPress comments.
  • Remove the URL field from the WordPress comment form.

Plugin Details:

  • Developer: rktaiwala
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.18.2016e
  • Cost: Free from WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Unknown
  • Download on WordPress.org

6 - Universal Icons

universal-icons This convenient plugin allows you to display icons before or after a widget's title. Supposedly, this works with any widget.
  • Developer: rktaiwala
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.18.2016
  • Cost: Free from WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Unknown
  • Download on WordPress.org

7 - WallpaperChanger

The WallpaperChanger enables you to make wallpapers switch automatically, depending on the time of day. This means that your website can have one background in the morning and a different one in the evening, without you actually doing anything. This helps to set your site apart from others.
  • Developer: taniafi786
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.18.2016
  • Cost: Free from WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Unknown
  • Download on WordPress.org

8 - Disable Blogging

Disable-Blogging Disable Blogging should be especially interesting for developers that often develop and sell pure business websites without a blog. The plugin deactivates the entire WordPress blog functionality. On top of that, all blog-relevant entries in the WordPress dashboard can be removed.
  • Developer: Fact Maven Corp.
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.18.2016
  • Cost: fee via WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Unknown
  • Download on WordPress.org

9 - Pay-to-view

Pay-to-view's goal is a fair web. This also includes the display of ads, as the owners of most websites need to earn money. However, advertisements are often annoying from the visitor perspective. Thus, the plugin displays a message for every visitor with an active ad blocker, asking them to pay one (1) cent per viewed page, to be able to enjoy the website without ads. If a visitor that uses an ad blocker is not willing to pay the cent, the plugin deactivates the ad blocker. The costs are charged at the end of each month. Every website owner has to decide whether he want to use this solution or not, as he might lose a couple of visitors. But one cent per viewed page really isn't much.
  • Developer: AFairWeb
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.18.2016
  • Cost: Free from WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Unknown
  • Download on WordPress.org

10 - Addonist WhatsApp Share

Addonist-WhatsApp-Share WhatsApp is becoming more and more relevant on mobile and thus also in online marketing strategies. That's why it sounds like a good idea to make your articles shareable via WhatsApp as well. This could result in a wider spread broadcast of your content. Thus, the plugin adds a share button for WhatsApp to the posts. In the pro version, you can also add the button to WooCommerce products.
  • Developer: addonist
  • Work in Progress: yes
  • Last Updated: 05.18.2016
  • Cost: Free from WordPress.org
  • License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • Known Compatibility Issues: unknown
  • Developer Homepage: Adonist WhatsApp Share Pro
  • Download on WordPress.org

Conclusion

This month was very generous regarding new and exciting plugins. I like the comment plugin "Engaging Convo". I was also impressed by the "UTM Switcher", which I might use myself after I've integrated a shop into my website. Which plugin is your favorite of this month?

Find other recent plugins here:

(dpe) Featured Image by Sophie Janotta from Pixabay

Andreas Hecht

Andreas Hecht is a journalist and specialist for WordPress and WordPress Security. He roams the web since its inception. He has published an ebook on WordPress Security, which you might want to take a look at.

2 comments

  1. The link for the Engaging Convo is broken. Did they remove it for some reason? A shame, the plugin looks interesting.

  2. Hi Andreas,

    I stumbled on this article when I was trying find how to turn off comments on my WordPress site and found that the “Disable Blogging” plugin really helpfull! Thanks!

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