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If you’re a WordPress blogger, like me, then you know that there are certain plugins you need in your life. For those of you who are not too savvy with plugins: they are little tools which, when installed in your blog, help you showcase things from your social networks to set up’s of custom contact forms and even back-up your files safely. Here are some WordPress plugins that I just can’t live without – and I’m sure they will be very helpful to you too:

SOCIAL

• Pinterest “Pin It” Button for Images: there are lots of these types of plugins; but after trying a few, this one is truly the best. It places a “Pin It” button over each of your blog images when your readers hover over them. From there, your readers can pin your images to their Pinterest boards in seconds.
• Alpine PhotoTile for Pinterest: speaking of Pinterest, this plugin retrieves photos from a specific Pinterest board (of your choosing) and displays them in multiple gallery style options. It’s beautiful as well as engaging – since it links from your blog directly to your Pinterest board.
• Pretty Pinterest Pins: place a widget on your sidebar with your most recent pins. Simple, classic, and linked – ready for repinning!
• Instagram for WordPress: share your fun-filled-&-filtered Instagram images on your sidebar. It’s quick and easy with this plugin!
• Shareaholic: at the bottom of every blog post, you can chose which social networks are available to share with. It’s a simple set up with a lot of power.
  

FUNCTIONALITY

• Contact Form 7: although it’s one of the older plugins, it still works like a charm. You need to pay attention to the coding a little in the setup, to be sure not to mess anything up; but, overall it’s simple and to the point. Pretty dummy proof actually!
• Under Construction: working on your blog design but don’t want anyone to see the mess? Then this is the fix for you. This plugin has an easy on/off switch where you can block out your site with a custom under construction message while you’re getting things done. When you’re ready for you live site to show, just turn “off” the plugin and you’re back!
• Login Logo: this plugin gives the back-end of your blog a custom look and feel. With a simple image drop, you replace the WordPress logo in the login screen and place your logo in. This works especially well when building client blogs, as you give them a final product with a fully customized login page.
• All In One SEO Pack: with Google analytics and automatically generating META tags, this plugin is vital to getting your blog on the top rankings for search engines. It’s simple to use and has many features to explore within it.
• WordPress Backup to Dropbox: this plugin may have saved my life already. In the case of WordPress blogs, everything is stored in your FTP space – but let’s say you get hacked or somehow you mess up the code in your theme. There’s nothing to fear if you have a backup set up. I searched for many backup options, but the Dropbox backup was the best choice. I do this for my personal site as well as my client’s sites; I simply set it to automatically back up once a week, and I don’t have to think about it anymore.

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Prezi – The Zooming Presentation Editor
This nifty little tool has been out for over a year now, but I recently ran into the online program and instantly fell in love. Forget the traditional PowerPoint presentation, and say Hello to Prezi. Easy-to-use, Prezi is a quick and animated way to display your presentation content, while keeping your audience engaged!

Why is Prezi pretty awesome?
It’s Free. It’s Simple. It Creates Movement with Elements of Zooming. It Shows Relationships within Content. It has an iPad app. You can import PowerPoint slides, if you’d like. And It’s just all around Cool.

Once your Prezi is started, you have all sorts of options for building, layering, and ordering the objects in your presentation. To use Prezi, you really do have to break the traditional thought process of ‘slides’. Prezi is not based on a series of ‘slides’ or single screens full of data, but is more based on how your presentation delivery is structured.

It’s more like an outline, with related groupings, ordered objects, sequential ideas, and unified thoughts. All of these come together in one ‘whiteboard’ construction area that is, literally, as large as you need it to be – and will expand to fit the needs of your presentation. Once you’re done, you can download your Prezi directly to your computer and present from the hard disk or you can embed it online; whatever works best for you.

Prezi is a great alternative to PowerPoint, but does have it’s drawbacks. I found that the system is fast and is user friendly, but offers only a few options for text and overall styling. Besides that, it’s open to your creativity.

The best tips for creating your Prezi in the most enjoyable-fashion are:

• Start with your big ideas and spread them around the canvas. Then add details to those main ideas.
• Practice with just text to start. Then add pictures to create visual interest.
• If you want a group of objects (text and/or images) to be seen at the same time, use a frame to group them.
• Be careful with how much zooming and movement you use: The right amount creates interest, but too much creates motion-sickness.
• Once your text and images are in place, set up just the first few steps of your path.  Then view the show to see how these elements appear.  You may realize that you want to change the grouping, size, or location of your elements.  If you like how the first few steps appear, continue to set the rest of your path.

Still not sure how to start? Well, their getting started tutorial explains the basics pretty well; I promise you’ll have fun learning it. As for pricing, you can use the Free Version to get to know the program; but those of you who sign up with Student Emails are able to get the upgraded version for Free – where you can insert your Own logo instead of Prezi’s, have extra storage space, and a few other perks too.

Before you go, check out my First Prezi design: I quickly put this together – literally in 10 minutes – to just see how the program works. It’s very user-friendly and I’ll definitely be using it for my future Presentation Projects. Happy Preziing!

EDIT: Here’s a gift for you! Check out my Prezi Tutorial