Weekly Links Roundup – Social Sharing, Easy WP Guide, Slider Plugins, SMTP

This week’s top WordPress and web marketing links.

The first post of 2019! And to start us off here’s a roundup of the 10 best WordPress social media plugins. I’m a bit partial to this one right now, but Swifty Bar also looks pretty interesting, I’ll be trying this in my next project.

Easy WP Guide is where I send clients looking for the elusive WordPress manual (that and WP101 videos installed for them in their project sites). They’ve just released a new version for WordPress 5.0.

I’m a big fan of the premium plugin Smart Slider 3. If you’re looking for a flexible premium slider with great support, it’s a perfect choice. But if you want more info before making a decision, here is a head-to-head comparison of Smart Slider 3 and Revolution Slider. This is a very detailed review of both plugins, and it walks through the steps of creating a new slider in both so you can understand how they each work. Well worth some time if you’re looking for a new slider plugin.

And finally… One of the problems I hear most often from clients is ‘my WordPress site won’t send email.’ This is a very common problem, it usually has to do with one of three things:

• Mail services are not set up properly on the server.
• There’s an incompatibility in WordPress preventing mail from being sent.
• Mail service is not available at their host (typical of managed WordPress hosts).

But the good news is, it’s not hard to fix this issue. Here’s a guide to setting up SMTP which handles mail sending using third party mail services, such as Gmail or an email account you have on your domain.

Did you find this information useful? Please share with your friends and colleagues! And comment below with questions or observations.