You know what time it is.
It’s that time where I share with you some useful, fun, or just plain cool tools you might use.
Today, I bring to you the MainWP Toolbox.
Buckle up; today we ride.
Highlight and Share
Ronald Huereca is known as MediaRon and has several plugins available through his DLX Plugins brand.
One that I recently tried was his free Highlight and Share.
Social media has lost some of its luster in recent years, but there is still a need to use it to share articles.
Ron’s plugin is super light, easy to install and set up. Thus, it will allow you to share an article and a quote from the article with relative ease.
This is a great plugin to use for content-rich websites making it easier to share snippets of an article on various social media platforms.
I added it to Conway Scene, which is published often, and look forward to using it to share articles easier on social media.
Anchor Episodes Index – a widget for Anchor podcasts
I’ve been using this little plugin for some time. I use Anchor (now Spotify Podcasts) to host and run my podcasts and one of the things I did not like is only embedding one podcast per time.
I wanted a simple little widget that holds a series of my podcast episodes to display on my website.
With this plugin, Jesse Sugden does just that. I was grateful.
Then something happened.
One day, I go to my website and I see a clear problem. Only one podcast is showing.
Now, since I’m not the smartest when it comes to coding, I had no idea what happened. I kept hoping for an update or some miracle to change it back to how it once was.
But then I remembered. Anchor recently switched to Spotify Podcasters. So I thought, “there might be an issue with everything.”
I checked and double checked. The RSS feed really didn’t change, and neither did the URL.
I checked the forum and saw someone had a similar issue. So, I sent Jesse an email.
He replied promptly. We had a couple of emails. He gave me a solution to try, but it was late and I said I would try it the next day.
The next day I woke up and, he had sent me an email telling me he updated the plugin. He asked me to update to the new version and try it.
So, I updated the plugin. What do you know? It worked!
He spent the night making the necessary changes to update the plugin and fix the new issue with the change.
Did I mention that this is a free plugin?
Let me tell you friends, sometimes I don’t get that kind of support for plugins I pay money for.
Setting up the plugins is a cinch. Simply add your RSS feed and your podcast feed, then tell the plugin how many episodes you want to display.
Next, add the easy shortcode where you want the widget and bingo.
Jesse told me he is working on a premium version, so I’m excited to see what it holds.
If you use Spotify to host your podcasts, this plugin will help you create a handy widget!
Print my blog
Print My Blog – Print, PDF, & eBook Converter WordPress Plugin
Print My Blog – Print, PDF, & eBook Converter WordPress Plugin
Many, many years ago, when PDF lead magnets were a thing (are they still?), we learned how to easily create a PDF version of a blog post and use it as a download to generate email leads.
I remember that one SEO expert, in particular, would use this quite successfully.
One time I had a newspaper as a client and in the early days we added buttons so folks could print (free of web formatting) articles from their browser.
Those days seem long gong, but I think it could be an advantage to add those to your website for articles.
I came across this simple little plugin that adds buttons to do just that.
This plugin is super handy for articles that are long-form and take some time to read. Some want to save a PDF version or even a printed version to read while on the go.
This little plugin can help you do that.
The free allows for you to customize the buttons by where you place them and what you print. It does not allow for customizing the color of the button to fit your website scheme.
You can configure the format of printing the blog post, which is really nice. You can choose Paper, Digital PDF, ebook (ePub or MOBI) or HTML.
Feel free to use this for visitors who want to print out or save your articles as a PDF, but there is more to this plugin I have yet to explore.
Something fun and useful.
Recently I got an email from Google telling me I was invited to give Google Bard a try. I was put on a waiting list.
Now, I have never been one to want to use an AI tool to write a complete blog post.
Bard has been tested against ChatGPT and Benj Edwards from arsTecnnica thought it was better.
So, I went ahead and thought I would try it out.
Since Google is likely the world’s most powerful search engine, I figured it would be pretty good at gathering info pretty quickly.
I even asked Bard what is the best way to use it, and it gave me a nice, concise answer complete with bullet points.
I asked Bard to write me a story and gave it this prompt: A comedy story about John Wick fighting gremlins.
Bard then gave me a cute little story about John Wick fighting gremlins.
We proceeded to have a nice chat. I asked Bard about Bigfoot and it gave me some interesting facts. Then we talked about the Big Bang Theory and many of the characters.
We chatted about a few other shows, too.
All in all I had some fun.
Bard is a great way to gather some information quickly and boost your creativity.
Have you given Bard a try?
Wrapping it up
If you run a content heavy website, these three plugins may be beneficial to your readers. They are small and efficient and helpful for providing a better expeirence for your readers.
I enjoy having the opportunity to play with these conversational AI services. I can’t say I have used them in a productive manner, but I imagine it is a matter of time.
That being said, don’t mistake them for replacing the need for good, quality writing. But have fun trying them out!
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the MainWP Users Facebook Group.
