Even though you can use the built-in support of WordPress for specific audio files, there are better way to customize your options, add playlist and do many other cool things. Choosing the right audio player for your WordPress website can help set you apart. Here are some of the top choices if you need a WordPress audio player.

Audio Album (https://wordpress.org/plugins/audio-album/)

With the Audio Album plugin you can create a playlist and do quite a bit more. You can add single tracks to your website with shortcodes as this plugin will extend the functionality of WordPress. You will also be able to customize the media player.

Compact WP Audio Player (https://wordpress.org/plugins/compact-wp-audio-player/)

If you only use the default WordPress audio player you will notice it will take up all the width within your post area. However, the Compact WP Audio Player plugin allows you to take up less space as it’s easily adjustable. The plugin will use HTML5 playback and even offer flash, if you prefer. It’s fully responsive and will easily adjust to fit to any device.

CP Media Player (https://wordpress.org/plugins/audio-and-video-player/)

This beautiful choice provides an audio and video player you can use in WordPress. CP Media Player allows for customization with several skins and it’s fully responsive. You can display subtitles with the WebSRT format, as well.

SoundCloud is Gold (https://wordpress.org/plugins/soundcloud-is-gold/)

If you are using SoundCloud, this is the plugin for you. SoundCloud is Gold will provide you with an easy way to manage audio within the SoundCloud. You can easily embed files and do so much more. Manage your audio with ease and add files to posts and pages without any issue with this plugin.

Simple Music Widget (https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-music-widget/)

If you want to add a music player to your sidebar, the Simple Music Widget is a great choice. This plugin will make it very easy to display media within your sidebar. You can adjust the widget settings and customize it to fit your specific needs.

Simple Audio Player (https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-audio-player/)

It may be named Simple Audio Player, but this plugin packs a punch. IT’s easy to use and provides HTML5 for playback, along with flash. The plugin provides plenty of options for color and size and you can easily create playlists with shortcodes.

HTML5 jQuery Audio Player (https://wordpress.org/plugins/html5-jquery-audio-player/)

HTML5jQueryAudioPlayer

The HTML5 jQuery Audio Player provides a trendy looking choice with plenty of custom options. You can change the colors, use the many options it comes with and even use the Easy Digital Downloads to sell your files. Users will be able to rate songs and you can even display the album art for each song.

The Default WordPress Method

Along with using one of these plugins, you can easily create playlists in WordPress. This can be done with files in mp3 format. Simply upload the files using your media uploader and insert the urls into the post editor. You can also select multiple audio files from your medial uploader to create a playlist.

Even though you can create playlist in WordPress without a plugin, the default option isn’t nearly as good as the options you gain with some of the plugins. There are many ways to customize your WordPress audio player from the way you add music to the colors and skins.

If you’re looking for the best way to create and use a great media player on your WordPress website, any of these plugins will help. You can manage, customize and create playlists much easier when you install the right plugin for your WordPress website.

NameSetting

When you publish a new post to your WordPress website, does it show the wrong name as the author? Do you get something that looks more like a username than your actual name? This is something you can certainly change and it’s a pretty easy change to make.

Why Should You Use Your Full Name on Your WordPress Website?

Sometimes, you will read a blog and realize somebody is using a username on their blog posts. Not only is this dangerous as it puts your username out there or hackers and others looking to cause your site harm, but it’s also very tacky. It doesn’t show a real person as the author and it doesn’t help you build credibility or authority as an author.

Choosing a real name instead of a username will look far more professional and will actually help the search engines. It’s easier for Google and other search engines to identify the content and give credit to the right author. It will also help to establish your personal brand and people will become more familiar with you.

When the post goes live to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social sites, it will make it easier for readers to find and follow you. This can help build a more personal relationship and make your brand stronger.

How to Easily Change your Name in WordPress

Changing or adding your name to WordPress and telling WordPress to use it on your blog posts is very easy. Start by going to the Users section of your dashboard and click in “Your Profile.”

Now, you will need to scroll down to the section showing the username, first name, last name and nickname. You can set the first name, last name and nickname to anything you want. Once you have set these names to whatever you would like, you will be able to adjust the setting called “Display name publicly as.”

Whatever you select for this setting will be the display name with your blog posts.

What if You have Multiple Authors on your Blog?

If you run a blog with more than one author, the process of making sure each author has the correct name displaying with their posts is very similar to the process above. The biggest difference is you will go into the Users menu and select the “All Users” menu to find each user.

From here, you can select whichever user you want to edit with the edit selection under their user name. This will take you to their profile page where you can adjust the name settings to whatever you like and change the “Display name publicly as” setting.

When you have more than one author on your blog it’s important to make sure they have the correct name assigned to their posts. Visitors may want to search your site for all the posts they have created by typing their name into the search box. If the name is correct, they will be able to easily find all of the posts by the specific author instead of searching through all the other posts to find them.

Along with making it easier to find the posts by each author, changing this setting to give you a real name for each author means there will be no username exposed for hackers to steal and try to use to gain access to your website.

It’s important to use a real name for all of the authors on your WordPress website. It will give you a better chance of building a personal brand and it will make your site look far more professional.

FTP clients play a big role in many tasks for your WordPress website. Whether you are moving your site from one host to another or just uploading files, you will likely use an FTP client at some point. There are plenty of choices you can use free of charge, but they are not all the same. Here are some of the best FTP clients to choose from for WordPress Users.

Defining FTP

Before we get into the best choices for your FTP client, it’s important to know what FTP is all about. It stands for File Transfer Protocol, which is a special internet protocol for downloading and uploading files from or to your web hosting server.

When you choose an FTP client, you are choosing a specific software, which provides a user interface for the transfer.

Best FTP Clients for Windows

Some FTP clients don’t work with Windows, while others do. If you are running Windows on your computer, you will need a free or paid FTP software compatible with your operating system. Here are three excellent choices.

FileZilla (https://filezilla-project.org/)

Known as one of the most popular FTP clients for windows, FileZilla provides a free choice for your specific needs. It’s a very user-friendly option, but does have one annoyance. When you go through the FileZilla downloads there are adware and spyware packages in the downloads. However, you can opt-out of these when you download the software.

FileZilla can easily be installed from their official website. Once it’s installed, you will be able to easily upload and download files.

WinSCP (http://winscp.net/eng/index.php)

A very powerful FTP client for Windows Users, WinSCP provides an easy-to-use program without much of a learning curve. You can easily find the files from your computer and your server once they are connected through the FTP client.

If you are an advanced user, this FTP client provides even more with support for SSH and SFTP.

FireFTP (http://fireftp.net/)

For those using Mozilla Firefox, FireFTP is a free add-on you can install. It provides a flawless experience because it works with the web browser. This FTP client can be used for Windows, MAC or Linux operating systems.

Best FTP Clients for MAC

With more and more people switching to MAC it’s important to list the top FTP clients for MAC computers. Both FIleZilla and FireFTP above will work for MAC users, but they may not be the best choice. Here are a few better choices for those using a MAC computer.

CyberDuck (https://cyberduck.io/)

CyberDuck provides a free option for both MAC and Windows users. It’s an open source FTP client with easy integration for MAC users. The features you enjoy from MAC are all supported by CyberDuck and it may be the best option for you.

Transmit (https://panic.com/transmit/)

Transmit is a very popular FTP choice for MAC. It’s well-known among web developers and provides plenty of features. You get very high speeds with this FTP client, but you will spend about $34 for a single license.

Best FTP Client for Linux

When it comes to Linux, there are several choices above that will work. However, the best FTP client for Linux is gFTP.

gFTP (http://gftp.seul.org/)

This FTP client is very easy to use and it’s an open source choice perfect for Linux users. It has a very clean interface and supports FTPS, HTTP, SSH, FSP, HTTPS and FTP.

These are the top choice for your FTP client needs if you are using WordPress. Whether you use Windows, MAC or Linux you can choose an FTP client from this list and easily upload and download files quickly.

Many photographers use WordPress for their websites because it’s so easy to use and provides a great way to display their work. If you’re a photographer and you use WordPress, you need the right plugins to make your site function the way you want. Here’s a look at some of the top plugins you can use for WordPress website, if you’re a photographer.

Easy Watermark (https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-watermark/)

Every photographer should use a watermark with their images, especially online. This allows you to protect your images from misuse. The Easy Watermark plugin makes it simple to add your watermark to any image when you upload it to your WordPress website. You can easily set the transparency, position and the image you want to use. The plugin will even allow you to add a watermark to all your previous images.

Imsanity (https://wordpress.org/plugins/imsanity/)

Transferring high resolution images from your camera or mobile device to your WordPress site can take up a ton of rom. However, with the Imsanity plugin, you can define a smaller size for your images when they upload to WordPress. This will make your site load faster and will help save you bandwidth.

EnviraGallery (https://enviragallery.com/)

Maybe the best gallery plugin for WordPress, EnviraGallery provides an easy way to create a mobile-friendly image gallery. The gallery will look great on any screen size and will allow your site to load faster. It’s very search engine friendly and provides just what you need for a great gallery and better SEO.

Image Widget (https://wordpress.org/plugins/image-widget/)

You get a text widget you can add to the sidebar with the default installation of WordPress. However, you don’t get an image widget, which means you have to use HTML code to add images through the text widget.

With the Image Widget plugin, you can add a widget specifically for images. This will allow you to drag and drop images directly into the widget area and display them in your sidebar.

Pinterest Pin It Button for Images (https://wordpress.org/plugins/pinterest-pin-it-button-for-images/)

Pinterest is very image driven and people on Pinterest love to share images. If you want to make it easy for Pinterest users to share your images, you can add the Pinterest Pin It Button for Images to your WordPress website. This plugin will add a button, which will show up when a user scrolls over your image. This button will make it easy to share the image and it will link back to your site.

Simply Instagram (https://wordpress.org/plugins/simply-instagram/)

Another very image driven social media site is Instagram. If you want to allow your pictures to be shared on Instagram, the Simply Instagram plugin will give you just what you need. You can add recent upload streams, share photos or even show popular images from your Instagram network. This is all done with an easy shortcode, which you can use on pages, posts or in your sidebar.

WP Media Tagger (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-mediatagger/)

Sorting your images and media files in WordPress isn’t exactly easy. However, the WP Media Tagger plugin makes it easier by letting you add tags to each of your medial files and images. You can sort using these tags within your site, as well.

Soliloquy (http://soliloquywp.com/)

Most photographers want to use a slider to show their most recent or most popular work. The Soliloquy slider is one of the best and most attractive you will find. It’s fully responsive and provides you with a great option for high speeds on your site.

Post Thumbnail Editor (https://wordpress.org/plugins/post-thumbnail-editor/)

Editing your pictures to create thumbnails may be important. With the Post Thumbnail Editor, you can edit any featured image and crop it to the right size. You don’t have to just crop from the middle, either. You can crop from any part of the image for your thumbnail.

Other plugins photographers may want to consider include:

• BirchPress Scheduler (https://www.birchpress.com) – A great choice for easy online appointment setting.
• WP-Invoice (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-invoice/) – Makes it easy to invoice clients online.
• W3 Total Cache (https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/) – Helps keep your site running faster.
• WordPress SEO by Yoast (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/) – Maybe the best SEO plugin made for WordPress

WordPress provides a great platform for ecommerce and other types of websites. If you plan to use PayPal to accept payments, it can be a bit time consuming to integrate manually. However, with the right WordPress plugins, you can save some time and make the integration seamless. Here are some of the top PayPal plugins for accepting payments in WordPress.

PayPal Responder (https://wordpress.org/plugins/paypal-responder/)

The PayPal Responder plugin provides an easy way to sell individual products on your site. You can set up an autoresponder with it and allow a link for download for digital products. The plugin makes it easy to integrate your products and works best for single product websites.

PayPal Payment Shortcode (https://wordpress.org/plugins/paypal-payments-shortcode/)

This plugin uses WordPress shortcodes to make it very easy to add in PayPal payment acceptance. The PayPal Payment Shortcode plugin is very easy to configure and will allow you to add in parameters and instructions for payments. It’s an easy plugin to use and provides just what you want if you don’t have a ton of products.

PayPal Donations (https://wordpress.org/plugins/paypal-donations/)

For non-profits, the PayPal donations plugin is a great choice. This plugin will make it easy to take donations. You can use the PayPal WordPress widget with this plugin to add the donation button to your sidebar. You can also choose a custom thank you page to redirect users after they donate to your cause.

PayPal for WooCommerce (https://wordpress.org/plugins/paypal-for-woocommerce/)

PayPalForWooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the top choices for eCommerce websites. It has support built-in for PayPal with the API and express checkouts. However, this plugin will add a PayPal Payments Pro tab to your checkout settings. This is a great option to help you integrate PayPal if you are already using WooCommerce or plan to use it.

Easy PayPal Shopping Cart (https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-paypal-shopping-cart/)

The Easy PayPal Shopping Cart provides you with the ability to sell on your site and take payments through PayPal. You can easily put up an “add to cart” button on any WordPress page. This plugin will make it easier to integrate PayPal and works for single products and multiple products.

WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-simple-paypal-shopping-cart/)

One of the best plugins for selling multiple products or services on your site, WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart provides a great choice for your shopping cart system. You can easily add the payment option on checkout to an existing shopping cart, as well.

PayPal Pro and PayPal Express (https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/paypal-pro-express/)

A premium plugin from Easy Digital Downloads, PayPal Pro/Express allows you to easily add PayPal to your website. You can use the PayPal Pro API to make the process very easy. This allows customers to enter their payment information without leaving your website. PayPal Pro is available only in the UK, USA, Australia and Canada, however.

Quick PayPal Payments (https://wordpress.org/plugins/quick-paypal-payments/)

Maye the easiest plugin to use on the entire list, Quick PayPal Payments is a very powerful option. It allows you to set up a payment form very easily and use a shortcode to add it to your website. You will also get an easy interface to make it possible to customize the payment form.

PayPal Payments for Gravity Forms (http://www.gravityforms.com/add-ons/paypal/)

If you already have Gravity Forms, this plugin is a great choice for you. The PayPal Payments for Gravity Forms add-on provides you with the ability to use order forms, product purchase forms and donation forms. You can integrate recurring payments and so much more with this add-on, as well.

These are the top choices if you want to accept PayPal payments on your website. You will be able to use all of these plugins with most WordPress themes and easily accept payments on your site.

Multi-author WordPress blogs have become very popular. However, they can be difficult to manage if you don’t have the right tools in place. With so many benefits of this type of blog, it’s important to know how to manage your blog.

Benefits of a Multi-Author Blog

A multi-author blog can really help your business grow and get out on social media. Each author provides you with different benefits. Some of the major benefits of this type of blog include:

• Larger Social Reach – Each of your authors should be sharing their posts on their Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and other social accounts. With multiple authors, you will be able to reach a larger audience.
• Fresh Content All the Time – If you have five or more authors, you will always have fresh content. Even when one author falls behind or goes on vacation, you have others to pick up the slack.
• More Content – Multiple authors have the ability to provide you with more content. If you are in a competitive industry, this can be a huge benefit.
• Multiple Experts – Maybe you run a company that covers an entire industry. If this is the case, you may have authors providing expert advice in smaller niches within the industry.

There are many other benefits, as well, but these are the most powerful.

Tools to Make Managing your Multi-Author WordPress Blog Easier

The right tools will make managing your multi-author blog easier. If you decide to use WordPress, you will have one of the most powerful CMS choices for your blog. Here’s a list of some of the best plugins to make managing your multi-author blog so much easier.

Co-Authors Plus (https://wordpress.org/plugins/co-authors-plus/)

  With a multiple author blog, you may have more than one person contributing to an article. The Co-Author Plus plugin allows you to display anybody that contributed to the post instead of the default of showing it was written by the Editorial Staff. This allows for linking to all contributing author’s profiles, too.

Restrict Author Posting (https://wordpress.org/plugins/restrict-author-posting/)

Certain topics may be best suited for certain authors. With the Restrict Author Posting, you can assign certain categories to certain bloggers. For example, if you run a sports blog, you can assign each individual sport to your expert on that specific sport.

Edit Flow (https://wordpress.org/plugins/edit-flow/)

The Edit Flow plugin makes it easier to manage your editorial workflow. It’s a complete system making it easy for the editor to leave comments on drafts and add reminders. This plugin also helps by displaying an editorial calendar to keep everybody on task.

Author Spotlight (Widget) (https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile)

Anytime you want to add an author to the spotlight, this plugin comes in handy. The Author Spotlight plugin will add a widget to the sidebar, which will help you display the author bio for posts they have written.

Other plugins to help with managing a multi-author WordPress blog include:

• Capability Manager Enhanced – https://wordpress.org/plugins/capability-manager-enhanced/
• Revisionary – https://wordpress.org/plugins/revisionary/
• Author Avatars List – https://wordpress.org/plugins/author-avatars/
• Post Forking – https://wordpress.org/plugins/post-forking/
• Require Featured Image – https://wordpress.org/plugins/require-featured-image/
• TinyMCE Spellcheck – https://wordpress.org/plugins/tinymce-spellcheck/
• Email Users – https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-users/
• WP User Frontend – https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-user-frontend/
• Content Progress – https://wordpress.org/plugins/content-progress/
• And More!

When you set up your multi-author blog, make sure you get plenty of great tools to help you manage your writers. This is a very powerful way to really build your blog and drive traffic to your website. However, without the right tools, it can be a nightmare to manage. Use the above plugins and you will be able to run and manage your new multi-author blog.

Starting a forum with WordPress doesn’t have to be difficult. With the right plugin for your forum, you can make this a very easy process. Here are some of the benefits of setting up a forum and a few great plugins to make it easy with WordPress.

Benefits of a Forum

Adding a forum to your website provides many benefits including:

• Higher Sales Volume – You will be able to advertise in your forum, which can lead to more sales.
• More Content – Forums often have threads listed very high in Google because of the large amount of content. With a forum, you will have plenty contributors posting questions, answering questions and providing useful information.
• Your own Community – A community of users in a forum can be very powerful.
• Easy Market Research – You can ask your forum users questions and find out what they do or don’t want.
• More Return Visitors – With a forum, you give your visitors a good reason to return.

There are several other benefits of a forum, but these are the main benefits.

Best Forum Plugins for WordPress

With the right plugin, you can easily add a forum to your WordPress website. Here are a few of the top choices.

CM Answers (https://wordpress.org/plugins/cm-answers/)

A Q&A type of format, CM Answers provides a great choice for your forum. You can easily integrate this plugin with most WordPress themes and users can vote on both answers and questions. The premium version provides more features, such as social media login, profiles, best answers and more. If you don’t mind limiting your forum to the Q&A format, this is a great choice. Upgrading to the premium version will give you the best features, however.

BuddyPress (https://buddypress.org/)

An easy-to-use plugin that works with most WordPress Themes, BuddyPress is a top choice for your forum. You can create activity streams, social connections, user profiles, groups and much more. You can even add a points system to your forum to help with user engagement. The only real issue with this plugin is the challenge of moving a BuddyPress site from one platform to another.

WP Symposium (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-symposium/)

With the WP Symposium forum plugin, you will get plenty of features. This is a bit more like a social network than a forum, however. With the premium membership, you gain access to premium support. You can also use features, such as alerts, gallery, events and Facebook integration.

bbPress (https://bbpress.org/)

Maybe the best-known and the top forum plugin for WordPress, bbPress provides an easy way to set up your forum. It’s built for WordPress and will use some of the core to provide an easy to integrate plugin without huge modifications. There are about 100+ plugins you can use with bbPress to make it even better.

The best part about using this plugin is that it’s fast and lightweight. This means you won’t lose site load speed because of the forum. If you don’t plan on using vbulletin, PHPBB or Vanilla Forums for your forum website, bbPress is a great alternative.

DW Question & Answer (https://wordpress.org/plugins/dw-question-answer/)

DW Question & Answer provides a Q&A type of forum with plenty of benefits. You can use tags and categories for better SEO, along with the ability to vote on answers. Users can comment on answers and you will have good CAPTCHA support to keep spam to a minimum. This plugin works well as a support forum, as well.

Choosing