Recently I wrote about finding freelance work with Twitter. Now that you are are landing freelance jobs you will want assistance in managing your upcoming business. There are a number of WordPress plugins and integrated features that can assist you with that. You might need a payment system, translations, an ecommerce solution or an affordable way to sent newsletters to your clients and potential customers. I have highlighted the 6 of the best ones below.
- MailPress – MailPress allows you to send html or text emails, based on custom templates, to your commenters, as a newletter, as a new post notifier, and for WordPress admin activities. I am intrigued by the newsletter functionality as newsletters are frequently generated by paid solutions, such as AWeber.
- WP-Invoice – This plugin allows you to create invoices from the WordPress admin area. Customer information can be stored in the WordPress database. It also integrates with a credit card payment system as well as paypal. I would like to test this on a new installation rather than on a live site first because I see the potential for security concerns. It would, however, be cool to send invoices right from WordPress.
- Sticky Posts for Announcements – Sticky posts are built into 2.7. Use WP-Sticky for earlier versions. With sticky posts announcements, discounts and specials can he highlighted for a period of time on the front page.
- WordPress e-Commerce Plugin – This is a shopping cart solution that is fully integrated with WordPress. It works with all the major payment systems, such as google checkout and paypal, and features a one page checkout.
- Static Front Page – If you are using WordPress for a business you may want a static front page rather than having your blog on the front page. I tested this when I started freelancing but decided that my blog highlighted my skills more than a services or about page did. That will not be true for all businesses.
- qTranslate – With this plugin you can translate your blog into many different languages, which allows your services to be available to an international audience.
Do you know of other WordPress features or plugins that would assist in managing a freelance business? If so, let me know in the comments.
Pretty nice list Kim. I would have liked to add OIO Publisher to this list but you are talking about ‘free’ resources right? OIO is amazing actually… it’s just not about ad management but has got whole lot of features like selling your own custom products, downloadables, services etc. (Also have paid posts that’s integrated to the plugin)
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Hi Ajith – I was not specifically making a list of resources but I lean toward free solutions. I had not considered OIO as I do next to nothing with ad management. Thanks for the suggestion.
Nice list. Please let us know how WP-invoice works for you.
You know what would be nice, if there was a project management plugin… (Right now, I use a separate open source application: dotProject.)
Also, you might want to add a forms plugin like ‘cforms’ to this list.
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Hi Shirley – I had cforms on the list and them removed it. Maybe I thought it was too obvious but you’re right – it should be on the list.
A project management plugin would be wonderful.
Very nice list indeed. But the static page plugin is no needed. You can setup whether the frontpage will be static or your blog from the WordPress settings…
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Hi Stratos – Gotcha! That is not linking to a plugin. It’s link to an older article of mine with the instructions for manually setting up a static page ;-)
Thanks for the list, Kim!
Is that picture from Peter Shen day?
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Hi Jim – The photo is from around the time of the great
video card disaster. I decided to organize all my computer
software and get rid of stuff that was for older computers. I put everything into a series of organized piles and the kitty
decided she didn’t like things organized. ;-)
Ah, great! Thanks for pointing these out, Kim. I’ve been setting up a few sites on WP for friends and I think these will be useful plugins.
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Hi Mark – Great! I hope they help. I would like to know if you try any of them and how they work out – especially e-commerce and wp-invoice.
Thanks for pointing out “qtranslate”, I have been thinking of making translation of my website with such plugin, but main concern is will it translate nicely as many automatic translation tools does not translate good , native speakers might be annoyed reading robot translation with many grammar errors.
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Hi – I agree that a poor translation can be worse than no translation at all. I have not actually used qTranslate so I’m not sure what the output is like. Raju, in another comment, recommended Global Translator instead.
Thanks for the reply, I came back later to check the reply did not expected such quick reply, thank you very much, I will definitely
check the Global Translator.
Chinese Girl´s last blog post – Train Nanfen-Shenyang 6668
Great! Let us know how it works.
I would suggest Global Translator plugin instead. It has almost tripled my SE traffic since it forms a separate valid permalink for each language and adds itself to the sitemap. This would mean more people will find about you on Google.
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Raju, I was contemplating adding this plugin to my blog… have you noticed any performance issues? ie. Is your website any slower? Have you noticed more errors in your stats? Thanks.
Shirley – Sounds like we are asking so many questions that Raju is going to need to write a post about it ;-)
Raju – How are the translations? How many languages does it do? Thank you so much for letting us know that it has increased your traffic – that’s wonderful!!
I’m interested in the e-commerce plug-in. Do you use it?
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Hi Tom – I haven’t used it but it seems very well regarded for functionality and ease of use.
This review looks at the pros and cons. The free version seems to be good for very simple shops. The Pro version has a lot more features and some may be desired by many users. The comments are also worthwhile to read.
http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tools/wp-e-commerce-wordpress-plugin/
I’d have to agree with Chinese Girl. My girlfriend is a freelance translator (English/Spanish to Swedish) and she can pick out translations done by machine or even by non-native speakers in no time flat. If you’re serious about doing translations, you need to have them at least proofread by a native speaker or else they’ll be full of awkward phrasing and embarassing mistakes.
Hi Dave – Thank you for visiting and commenting. Translations can be worse than no translation at all. The ones I do through Babelfish usually don’t make any sense. I think the draw of the plugin is how many languages it can translate.
Wow,
I had to scroll all the way down to the Fiddlebar to get to the comment post form. Hehe. ;-)
Nice stuff because at the end of the day anything that helps make the business end of things easier allows me more time to write, post comments, read other blogs, etc…
George
Hi George – LOL at fiddlebar ;-)
Very true – and I find it intriguing to be able to use WordPress itself to manage parts of our businesses.
I wasn’t familiar with any of these except for a static front page and sticky posts. Interesting!
Hi Vered – Most of them were new to me too. I keep track
of interesting plugins that I come across and realized that
all of these put together would make an interesting article
about freelancing.
Kim,
Thanks for sharing the free resources. The first one looks to me a really good one. Will check that out.
Hi Nihar – If you try it, let me know how it works. I have not tested it.
Wow! This is a great list. I will definitely be using some of these when I get back into freelancing.
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Hi Carla – Great. Let me know if you use any of them.
Lol the invoice thingy really makes online transaction so physical.
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Hi Ben – I think full time freelancers need invoices for tax purposes.
If you are managing them yourself, it is probably easier. Although
there are programs to do that – it doesn’t have to be integrated with
WordPress.
i am into freelancing years before i launched my blog. i ll give your ideas a try..
Arun | BE Folks´s last blog post – How to avoid get rich scam sites
Hi Arun – Let me know if you use any of these plugins or features.
I’m especially interested in WP-Invoice.
Its sounds nice about wp-invoice. i ll give it a try in my test site and check it functions.
Arun | BE Folks´s last blog post – How to avoid get rich scam sites
I am very curious about the mailpress plugin for newsletters. Using mailchimp now. Have you tried it?
I would also recommend the shopp plugin (http://shopplugin.net). I used it for my last project and it was really nice to work with! It is not free, but well worth the $55.
Had trouble with the wp-ecommerce plugin, but there has been a new version released since I tried it. Hopefully that one is working better.
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Hi Lori – I have not tried it. I should start a newsletter but I haven’t.
Thanks for the shopp recommendation – I’ll have to check it out.