Top 10 Free WordPress Plugins of the Month — September 2013

I have a nice mix of plugins for you this month.

There are plugins that deal with social media and user engagement, plugins that improve your experience with widgets and allow you to completely customize the look and feel of your site on a page-by-page basis, and much more!

My selection this month enables you to add some really interesting and useful options to your site. Enjoy!

10. Invite Friends to Register

Invite Friends to Register

This plugin creates a form that your site users can email to their friends inviting them to register on your site. It’s a useful way to grow your site membership through word of mouth and a great way for your current users to easily promote your site to their friends.

Note that in order to use Invite Friends to Register you must have registration enabled in your WordPress settings.

Download from WordPress.org

9. PHP Code for Posts

PHP Code for Posts allows you to add custom PHP code to individual pages, posts, custom post types, or even sidebars on your site. This is done without having to create new templates, or alter the existing templates making the whole process simple. You can create code snippets and then add them to your post, page or widget using custom short codes.

Download from WordPress.org

8. WP Job Manager

WP Job Manager

WP Job Manager is an excellent lightweight plugin that gives you job board functionality on your WordPress site.

It allows both registered users and guests to post job listings directly to your site, categorize those jobs and manage their status on the site. It has several other features including linking to a website to apply for the position and email notifications. If you are looking to set up a simple job board on your site, this is a great place to start.

Download from WordPress.org

7. Widget Importer & Exporter

Widget Exporter and Importer
Widget Importer & Exporter is a very useful plugin for moving WordPress widgets from one site to another. The plugin is especially useful for developers that plan on creating multiple sites with a standard setup of sidebar widgets.

It is also a very useful tool for backing up widgets before you make any significant changes to them.

Download from WordPress.org

6. Metro Style Social Widget

Metro Style Social Widget
This is a simple, lightweight plugin that displays your social network icons in your sidebar in the Metro style and links them to the appropriate social profile.

It includes Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and RSS by default, but also gives you the option to include your profiles for LinkedIn Youtube and Pinterest as optional tiles.

Download from WordPress.org

5. OnePress Social Locker

Social Locker

Social Locker by OnePress is a very useful little plugin to make your readers engage with the site using social media. This plugin allows you to lock part of your content and only open it up to the reader when they click on one of the social sharing buttons. Facebook Like, a Tweet button and Google+ are the standard options available for sharing.

This shouldn’t be used on every page or you risk driving readers away, but it can be very useful on those pages of high value to your readers. It remembers the users who have already unlocked your content so it won’t force readers to share it socially after the first time they do so.

Download from WordPress.org

4. Advanced Responsive Video Embedder

This plugin is very useful if you share videos on a regular basis.

With one simple click it allows you to embed videos from numerous providers. As well as making the embed process easy it creates them as fully responsive videos in all sizes. The plugin also shows the videos as thumbnails and opens them in the Colorbox lightbox display making it a clean viewing experience for your site visitors.

Download from WordPress.org

3. Crowdfunding by Astoundify

Crowdfunding has become extremely popular in the last few years with sites such as Kickstarter and Indigogo appearing on the scene.

The Crowdfunding plugin by Astoundify lets you create crowdfunded projects on your own WordPress site. The plugin integrates with Easy Digital Downloads so that you can use multiple payment providers, including PayPal and Authorize.net. It is also built in the same manner as other crowdfunding sites so that pledges are collected from backers but no payments are taken until the campaign reaches its goal.

If you ever thought about crowdfunding a project but didn’t want to use one of the established sites, this plugin is perfect for you.

Download from WordPress.org

2. WooSidebars

WooSidebars by WooThemes is an excellent plugin for customizing every widgetized area on your site. The plugin lets you change every widget on each individual post and page. This means that each sidebar can be contextually specific to each piece of content you produce. You can create and modify these areas manually or you can use the powerful conditional options that are built into the plugin.

It’s a fantastic piece of software that can really enhance your site.

Download from WordPress.org

1. Page Builder by Site Origin

Page Builder

Page Builder is a remarkable plugin. It gives you an unbelievable level of freedom with your page designs and does so with a point and click interface that is remarkably simple to use. The plugin allows you to create a completely responsive column layout on your pages then insert any of the widgets you have available for your site into these columns.

As well as supporting most third party widgets, the plugin comes with useful several pre-installed widgets. They include a call to action widget, a video-embed option, and testimonials as well as several others.

It really is an excellent plugin that will help you create interesting and useful pages on your WordPress site. I highly recommend you download it and take a look at it for yourself.

Download from WordPress.org

Tom Ewer

Tom Ewer is the founder of WordCandy.co. He has been a huge fan of WordPress since he first laid eyes on it, and has been writing educational and informative content for WordPress users since 2011. When he's not working, you're likely to find him outdoors somewhere – as far away from a screen as possible!

38 Comments

  1. Nisha Sharma

    Wow amazing list, I like to use wooslider. It’s awesome.

  2. fatemeh

    could you plz post some plugin for portfolio.i am a graphic designer and like to show my work

  3. Phil

    Looking for a WP plugin and found it! Thanks.

    1. Tom Ewer

      Author

      Great to hear Phil!

  4. Jordan

    Awesome site!

    1. Tom Ewer

      Author

      Thanks Jordan 🙂

  5. Constantinos

    By far the best article I found on wordpress plugins!

    1. Tom Ewer

      Author

      That’s a bold claim but I’ll take it 😉

  6. webarazi

    thankyou

  7. Vivek Moyal

    Very good list of free plugins. Thanks for sharing now i am using the metro style social widget

    1. Tom Ewer

      Author

      No problem Vivek 🙂

  8. Bashir Ahmed

    Nice collections of Free WordPress plugins. I liked the OnePress Social Locker, and Woosidebar plugins.

    Other plugins are good too but you know, using too much plugins can reduce the page speed of your blog.

    Thanks for sharing!

  9. Anthony

    Always great to discover new plugins. gonna try page builder and see if it is that good.

    thank you

    1. Tom Ewer

      No problem 🙂

  10. Emily

    I love Page Builder so much 🙂

  11. frederic convert

    Really good list 🙂

    Special “Merci” for “page builder”

  12. Nazario Saravia

    You saved the best for last. Page Builder by SiteOrigin is a game changer, I will try it ASAP with the genesis framework. I hope there is not conflicts. Greg Priday is a bloody legend.

    1. Greg Priday

      Thank you, kind sir! I’ve heard from a few people using it with Genesis and there don’t seem to be any conflicts. I’d be glad to fix things up if there are any problems though.

      1. Tom Ewer

        Author

        Thanks for stopping by Greg, and cracking work on the plugin!

  13. Jose Cervantes

    Great list this time around guys.

  14. Creative Engine

    Oooooh…. absolutely lovely!! Two plugins caught my eye straightaway – the Video Embedder and the Metro Style Social Widget. Thanks for sharing 🙂

  15. abhay

    Page builder is nice one.

  16. adato.v1.0

    Good work folks,

    Really nice and cool plugins.
    Thanks for sharing this…
    🙂
    //ThunderWarrior

    1. Hanno Malmiste

      Thanks for coming up with this list. These plugins will surely add functionality to any WordPress sites.

  17. Sahil Garg

    Hello
    its Great to see This List. i Never Used any of these. now gonna Try Some plugins to Set up a new Design For my Blog 🙂
    Thanks For Sharing the Info.

  18. Den

    Thanks for the list. Been looking for plugins like Widget Importer.

  19. sheshnath

    Thanks for sharing this list, I will going to use Page Builder..

  20. Vinod Nimbalkar

    Thanks for the sharing information of this useful plugin…
    I got one useful among them is OnePress Social Locker…..
    Once again Thanks.

  21. Ugee

    Cool! I think I like Social Locker and Page Builder. I just realized that there are plugins I’ve never heard of.

  22. Mohammed Anzil

    Metro Style Social Widget rockz. I’m really looking for a beautiful complete social widget including RSS feed.

  23. Jakes

    OnePress Social Locker seems to be a cool plugin.
    I was wondering about the first plugin in the list “Invite your friends”. I don’t see much potential in that way as hardly any user will invite their friends to visit a blog by mail. May be I am wrong 😛 .

    1. qbuster

      I disagree with you Jakes on the subject of ‘Invite your friends’ – I have a substantial mailing list of special interest users who have registered interest through related social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.Also one might add a new feature like a poll to one’s website that could benefit from an invite.

      Cheers

  24. aashish

    I have heard a lot about content locking, I gotta try it on a blog for increasing Facebook likes. Thanks for the detailed information.

  25. Harsh Agrawal

    Woosidebars looks promising…Any idea of it’s effect on resources???

  26. Manivannan M

    Thank you very much for featuring my plugin Metro Style Social Widget, Tom. I am so Happy!!!

    Thanks,
    Manivannan M

  27. Steven Gliebe

    Hey Tom, thanks for sharing Widget Importer & Exporter.

    I’ve played with WooSidebars and found it to be sharp. It’s been neat to see the Astoundify’s Crowdfunding plugin take off too.

  28. sachinnambiar

    page builder still is buggy. Try actually using it on a page. When you try out layouts with page builder you actually need to add a block just for content or you existing content might not show up. Sometimes it wipes out your content completely and replaces it with its own. This is a huge minus.

    1. Greg Priday

      Hi Sachin. Page Builder is actually a content creation plugin that’s meant to replace the content editor. It replaces your post content with your page builder text content so that search and SEO plugins have a way of seeing it. You can disable this behavior though. Just navigate to Settings > Page Builder.

      I’d love to hear any other feedback you have. I’m working hard to improve Page Builder’s features and usability. We’re getting there 🙂 – greg@siteorigin.com

      And to Tom, thanks so much for featuring Page Builder!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Over 65,000 WordPress professionals are already using ManageWP

Add as many websites as you want for free, no credit card required. Sign up and start saving time!

Have questions? Get in touch!

Over 65,000 WordPress professionals are already using ManageWP

Add as many websites as you want for free, no credit card required. Sign up and start saving time!



Have questions? Get in touch!

Over 65,000 WordPress professionals are already using ManageWP

Add as many websites as you want for free, no credit card required. Sign up and start saving time!



Have questions? Get in touch!

Over 65,000 WordPress professionals are already using ManageWP

Add as many websites as you want for free, no credit card required. Sign up and start saving time!



Have questions? Get in touch!