1. Written by Tom Ewer on March 12th, 2013

2. Spring is just around the corner -- the birds are singing and the
flowers will soon be blossoming. At least, that's how it should be --
here in the UK it is currently snowing. Go figure.
But weather doesn't affect hardy plugin developer types -- with a
roof over their heads and a reliable Internet connection they can
get on with their work no matter the conditions outside. And that
brings me to yet another stellar selection of plugins this month
-- with one in particular that I have been a long time fan of (and yet
only has around 1,000 downloads at the time of writing). Enjoy!

3. 10. Drop Shadow Boxes
Who doesn't like a bit of clever CSS to spice up their site? It is truly amazing what you can do with CSS
these days and the Drop Shadow Boxes plugin is a demonstration of the possibilities:
Wrapping your content is a piece of cake with this plugin and you have complete control over the
effect. Although the possible applications of Drop Shadow Boxes are numerous, one great idea
would be to use the drop shadow effect to highlight Calls to Action.
Download Drop Shadow Boxes.

4. 9. Signature Watermark
This plugin does as you would expect -- it enables you to overlay your images with a digital watermark
to protect them from theft. You can actually see exactly how Signature Watermark operates by watching
the following video:
As you can see, the plugin is feature-packed and gives you a great deal of control over the appearance
of the watermark.
Download Signature Watermark.

5. 8. Ditty News Ticker
To quote directly from this plugin's WordPress.org page:
Ditty News Ticker is a multi-functional data display plugin.
That's a pretty unsexy way to promote the functionality of a plugin so I'll give it a go myself. Ditty News
Ticker performs as you would expect it to: it enables you to create dynamic scrolling and rotating
blocks of text that you can embed within your WordPress site.
A still screenshot doesn't really do this plugin justice so check out a demo here if you like the look of it.
Download Ditty News Ticker.

6. 7. Related Posts by Zemanta
There are plenty of related posts plugins out there but I like to keep abreast of the latest developments
and this is actually a pretty good effort. Zemanta claims that related posts are produced using its "world-
class semantic service." Now I don't know about that but I do know that the plugin looks pretty good:
You can actually include
related posts from other
sites (although I'm not sure
why you would want to do
that) and you get analytics
data. It's certainly an
interesting alternative to the
likes of Yet Another Related
Posts Plugin.
Download Related Posts by Zemanta.

7. 6. WD Twitter Feed
As with related posts plugins, Twitter feed plugins are a dime a dozen. However, WD Twitter
Feed sets itself apart with a pretty funky AJAXified display:
This means that the tweets are loaded in the
background without interrupting the load
time of the rest of the page. This is great news
considering that many social media plugins are a
real drain on the resources and can significantly
increase the load time of your site.
Download WD Twitter Feed.

8. 5. RDFa Breadcrumb
If you're into SEO then you'll know that optimizing how your site is displayed in the search engine results
can make a big difference to click through rates. By making your site seem more attractive when
compared to other results you can actually increase search engine traffic to your site without increasing
your rankings.
RDFa Breadcrumb can help with this by inserting navigational "breadcrumbs" into your site that also
show up in Google search results pages:
Download RDFa Breadcrumb.

9. 4. Flare
Most bloggers have a
preferred social sharing plugin
but every now and then
something comes along that
potential disturbs what is a
well-established group of
popular plugins. Flare could
be just that.
This plugin has a slick
interface and a bunch of
different options including
the placement of social
sharing buttons as well as
the display:
If you're on the fence as to which
social sharing plugin is right for
you, Flare may well be worth a
look.
Download Flare.

10. 3. Fancier Author Box
Author Boxes are underrated; even on single author blogs. Having a little reminder of the face and
personality behind the words is always a good thing. Engagement more often than not comes from a
reader feeling like they know the author.
That's where Fancier Author Box comes in -- a plugin that offers a lot in terms of increasing reader
engagement. It enables you to place a box at the bottom of posts that can contain everything from a
photo, to a bio, to social media links, to your latest posts:
Brought to you by the fine folks over at ThematoSoup, Fancier Author Box is definitely worth a look.
Download Fancier Author Box.

11. 2. WP Social Stats
Social media is seemingly becoming more important with each passing day which means that we should
study our sites' social performance in the same way that we pay so much attention to search engine
traffic. WP Social Stats lets you do just that by giving you a simple display of how many times each of
your posts has been shared across a number of social networks:
With this plugin you can figure out which of your posts performed the best in terms of social sharing
and by extension figure out how to replicate that success.
Download WP Social Stats.

12. 1. What The File
Finally we have a plugin that has been on my radar for a long time. I'm delighted to feature it here
today. What The File is a very simple yet very helpful plugin -- it adds an extra field to your
WordPress toolbar that informs you what PHP file is being used to display the current page:
For anyone who has been left frustrated and confused by what PHP file is serving up what page
on your site, this is an instant remedy. It's been a lifesaver for me on more than one occasion and
I refer to it often.
Download What The File.
https://managewp.com/