For this new iteration of AlteredPapercraft.com, I added three new plugins. The new plugins I activated and the reasons for each are:
Survey Maker
The Survey Maker plugin allows me to create and post surveys for my visitors that will provide me with specific and directed feedback on the content AlteredPapercraft.com offers them. I’ve already deployed a two-question survey as a sub-page under Contact, called Feedback, that asks visitors what projects they’ve seen on the page that they’d like to see more of and what new projects they’d like to see on the page in the future. I’m looking forward to being able to tailor AlteredPapercraft.com toward more of what my visitors are interested in seeing on the website.
LightStart
The LightStart plugin redirects AlteredPapercraft.com to a maintenance page when activated, so that I can make and publish all my edits to the site and still view it, while keeping the changes hidden from visitors. This plugin offers several free templates that include fields for visitors to include their contact information to be alerted when the site is back up or a simple countdown informing visitors of when the site will be back up, for example. I love the idea of a maintenance page so that customers aren’t seeing what I’m deploying to AlteredPapercraft.com as I’m testing out the look, feel, and functionality of a new customization, theme, or plugin, yet I am still able to see how it will work when it is live in production.
Advanced Order Export For WooCommerce
The Advanced Order Export For WooCommerce plugin gives me the ability to export all my store order details in CSV, XLS, XML, and JSON formats. I look forward to using this functionality to determine which of my store products are the most popular and identifying possible trends.
I searched WordPress.org for several hours before deciding on these three new plugins. During that time, I began to fully appreciate the breadth of plugins available for WordPress. Not only does it seem like there is a plugin for just about any functionality, but there are multiple plugins with similar purposes with slightly different features. This provides WordPress users with the tools to select the plugin that does exactly what they’re looking for in precisely the way they want it done. It’s truly incredible!
