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Top Plugins for Large WordPress Sites

The new East Tamaki Healthcare website has 92 pages (and that’s not counting the news posts). There are a number of plugins and functions which can help manage WordPress sites like this one with a large amount of content and ensure that website visitors can always find what they are looking for.

WordPress Helps You Organise Content

WordPress’ built-in content management system lets you create as many pages as you need, then easily organise them into either parent pages or child pages in any order you like. WordPress then builds your navigation menu bar automatically using this information. New pages slot in seamlessly as you create them.

NOTE: You can also create pages off your child pages (I call them grandchildren).

WordPress Helps You Communicate

Every WordPress website has a built-in blogging system allowing any number of users to login to the website and write news and articles under any number of different categories. This news is automatically categorised and archived and appears on pages and sidebars automatically. Depending on the access level of the user, their news is published immediately or saved in pending format for an administrator to approve. Use the blog for regular communication with your target markets (create blog category for each market segment) and jobs.

Plugins for Large WordPress Sites

There are a number of plugins which you can add to your WordPress website to make it easier for your customers to find the information they are looking for. I have used all of these on the East Tamaki Healthcare website so have a browse through to see them all in action.

1. Breadcrumbs Plugin

The Breadcrumbs Plugin adds a line of text links to the top of every page and post on your website to show visitors where they are on a site. There is always a homepage link plus pages show a link to the parent page and posts show links to categories the post is listed under. This allows visitors to work backwards through your site to get to more information. You can see breadcrumbs at the top of this post and every other page/post on my website.

2. List Subpages Plugin

This plugin will automatically display a hyperlinked list of child pages on every parent page. Once you have activated the plugin, you can either paste a small piece of code on each parent page or duplicate your page.php file, add a line of code, then save as a new page template. When editing parent page, just choose this template from the drop down list instead of the standard page template. Full instructions on the plugin authors website.

3. List Category Posts Plugin

This plugin will automatically show the most recent posts published to a certain category directly on your website pages ensuring website visitors see the latest updates and news on any of your products or services. This allows to to show relevant fresh content inside your static webpages. A good example is to create a jobs page, then use the plugin to display all the most recent jobs (written as blog posts) on the page. On the East Tamaki Healthcare website, I have done just this so that patients, job seekers and health professionals all see relevant news and updates. Instructions on how to use this plugin on my previous post.

Other Tips for Large Sites

• Don’t forget to include a search box visible from every page. The best place is for this is usually in the website’s header or in the sidebar.
• Think about using 2 separate navigation bars to split content for different target markets.
• To only show parent pages, edit your header.php file and change the depth to 1. To show parent and child pages only, set depth to 2

 

Stop Google Maps Disappearing

If you’ve got a website, chances are you have a Google map displaying somewhere on your site showing your location or the locations of the places you blog about. Static maps which don’t allow you to zoom in or move around, are a thing of the past. If your location is spectacular, why wouldn’t you want website visitors to be able to click on Satellite View and see the beach, sea and surf for real.

WordPress and Google Maps

When you copy the embed code for a Google map and paste into the html view of a WordPress post or page, it appears to work as it should until you try and edit the page. When you make changes to your page, the map disappears and you have to go back to Google, get the embed code and paste all over again. Very annoying and time-consuming.

The Plugin to Solve Your Problems

As you probably suspected and I have recently discovered, there is a plugin called XML Google Maps Plugin which solves this problem and it’s not complicated to use. (See screenshots below)

First you need a maps API key.

1. Go to Google Maps API Sign up Page
2. Sign in to your Google Account
3. Enter the website address where the maps will be displaying (if your WordPress blog is in a separate folder,include this in the address, otherwise just type your website address)
4. Tick that you have read terms and conditions
5. Click on the Generate API Key button at the bottom
6. Paste the key into a blank file on your computer and logout (you will need this key later)

Next you need the XML Maps Plugin on your website.

1. Download the XML Google Maps plugin and upload to your plugins folder using ftp.
2. OR if you are using one of the latest versions of WordPress, go to plugins on your admin bar, click Upload New, find the right plugin and upload it directly into your plugins folder.
3. Activate the plugin in your plugins admin. [Read more]

Twitter Alert – Who’s Talking about Me?

Be pro-active and start using Twitter as part of your marketing strategy? Find out who’s tweeting about you or your topics of interest and join in the conversation with tweetbeep.

One of the most common questions people have when they first start using Twitter is how to actually find people interested in or tweeting about your topic of interest who might become followers and/or customers.

Twitter alerts email you hourly or daily to show you converstions involving your choosen words or phrases.TweetBeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter. You can click on anything to see more updates from the twitterer, reply or retweet. See sample email below. [Read more]