WordPress Resources
Here are the Plugins and Resources we used to create WPHostingreviews.com. All of the plugins were selected based on Developer and WordPress community support.
We try not to make any customizations to plugins. We have learned that code customizations just lead to headaches when it is time to upgrade. The one exception to the customization rule is the theme which is has quite a few changes to improve the look and feel of the site.
We hope you find the resources helpful!
FeedBurner Plugin
You may notice that our feeds are run through feed burner. We like seeing the stats and the ability to change the feeds behind the scene. To accomplish this we used the FD Feedburner Plugin. It was super simple to set up and use.
Review Functionality
MyReview Plugin (http://www.myreviewplugin.com/) This plugin is the core of WordPress Hosting Reviews. It provides all of the review functionality as well as the chart functionality. The developer support has been excellent, when ever we had questions or feature suggestions the were fixed or added in just a few days. There are many review plugins available for WordPress but I would look at MyReviewPlugin first.
Look and Feel
Afterburner Theme from RocketTheme (http://www.rockettheme.com/wordpress-themes/afterburner) We are very familiar with this theme from our Joomla Experience and were very excited to find that it was available for WordPress. Afterburner does not have all of the unneeded eyecandy plugins added rather it focuses on core functionality and speed. We prefer to keep sites simple and let the content and copy speak for itself.
Search Engine Optimization
Yoast WordPress SEO (http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/) first we were using the All in One SEO plugin as most were, then moved to WordPress SEO. The additional features and ease of use made it an easy choice. We have been very please with this SEO plugin so far.
Social Networks and Sharing
Socialize (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/socialize/) There are quite a few social sharing plugin but Socialize by Jon Bishop met our needs perfectly. We were looking for the ability to add Twitter / Facebook / Google Plus official sharing buttons to various posts and reviews. Socialize gave us all of the control we needed without any extra unneeded code.
Install Tutorials
ScreenSteps (http://www.bluemangolearning.com/screensteps/) This is our new favorite piece of authoring software. It is not a WP plugin but rather desktop software that make documentation creation a snap. They make it super easy to create the guide, get the screen grabs, and upload to the blog. We use this for all of our sites as well as for client documentation and how-to’s.
Review Videos and Guides
Intown Web Design Video (http://www.intownwebdesign.com/video/) We use quite a few tool to create the videos. If you are interested in learning more about how we do it. Check out our Video for the Web Services Page as well as our video blog. We are always creating new guides and posts of what we have learned and experienced.
What else should we be using?
Know of any other great plugins we should be using? Contact us and we will try them out.
Thanks! — Steven
