Welcome to the first blog in our series of WordPress plugin of the month.
You probably know that WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms available on the Internet today. The versatility of WordPress allows you to create a site that looks like a static website, however, you have complete control over the content and the design. You no longer have to hire a webmaster every time you want to make a minor change. This type of platform is called a CMS or Content Management System.
Jeff and I are huge fans of WordPress and in particular the Thesis theme. The Thesis Theme for WordPress is a theme that can be installed on your WordPress site and offers even greater versatility to the look and function of your site. We will be writing more about the Thesis theme soon.
The wibiya toolbar
So onto our plugin of the month, called wibiya. You might have noticed this popular toolbar popping up on many sites around the Internet. I love this plugin because of its pure versatility. It’s free, you can install it in a few minutes and no coding is needed. If you are wondering what it looks like in action, check out the bottom of this page.
You will see a tool bar with social media icons on it and other tabs like share, translate, chat and like. Most of these are self-explanatory.
When you click on one of the icons, a window pops up. This is the real power of this plugin. It makes your website immediately interactive. Plus, you are reducing your ‘bounce rate’. Your bounce rate is the rate at which people come to your site and then immediately click away.
The wibiya toolbar encourages people to interact with your site and stay longer . The downside of social media icons in the sidebar that you see on most sites is that you are directing people away from your site.
When you direct someone away from your site you lose a potential client. When a potential client visits your site, you want them to stay as long as possible and engage with your site. The longer someone engages with your site, the greater the chance they will read your content. This then builds trust and increases the chances that they will become a client (what is called a ‘conversion’ in marketing circles). Reducing your ‘bounce rate’ also contributes to your overall SEO (search engine optimisation) and potentially your ranking on Google.
Installation
So let’s go through the installation of this plugin.
If you already use the WordPress platform, you know how easy it is to install a new plugin. You follow the usual process of searching for the wibiya plugin in the plugins menu. Use the quick install. Alternatively, you can download the plugin from the wibiya site and then upload the zip file to WordPress. Note: this screenshot may look different from your WordPress dashboard as we use the plugin Ozh’ Drop Down Menu to display to the WordPress menu horizontally instead of vertically.
What is a little different about this plugin is you need to visit the wibya site, become a member and then configure your plugin at the site. The wibiya site then communicates with your plugin and loads the features that you have chosen on the site. This is what the inside of the dashboard on the wibiya site looks like:
There are many different applications that you can add to your toolbar and you can customize the look and colour of your toolbar. What’s more, you can also track and monitor analytics of the toolbar.
Once you have customized your toolbar, return to WordPress and enter the toolbar pathway from the wibiya site. This tells your WordPress blog to install your customized version of your toolbar into your blog.
This plugin is lots of fun and has enormous versatility for whatever your requirements. This is also a premium version if you are needing greater flexibility, customizations and want to control multiple toolbars.
Let us know your feedback about this plugin by adding your comments below.
