Which WordPress Calendar Plugin Should I Use?
Posted on | January 17, 2011 | 11 Comments
I’ve been working with some WordPress sites lately, and I find myself testing out several plugins for the same function before settling on the best one for the particular situation. I thought I’d share some notes about the pros and cons I’m finding about each calendar plugin as I go along to make it easier for other people to pick the best option for their WordPress website. One point to make note of is that these reviews are not exhaustive; once I find the plugin won’t work for my needs, I move on fairly quickly and may leave other features untested.
WP Events Calendar
This is a simple-to-use events calendar that has its own interface on your dashboard to manage events, which is a feature I like. It shows the actual calendar view in the admin, which doesn’t really seem necessary to me, but some people may like. It offers both visibility for a particular post, which seems to be fairly common, as well as access permissions for the plugin itself, which you don’t always see. It offers some basic display options, although the user will need to be comfortable with php dates to adjust the date settings. The major drawback is that there is no option for recurring events or days of the week. An event starts and stops, and that’s it. That’s a feature I’m looking for right now, so this plugin isn’t going to work for my current clients’ needs.
Pros
- Independent ‘Events Calendar’ menu in Admin area
- Plugin permissions option
- Simple options that aren’t too overwhelming for newer WordPress users
- External link option
- Widget calendar or list view available
Cons
- No recurring events or days of the week
- Date options by php dates
- Limited options
CGM Events Calendar
This is a great plugin, except for one little problem. We can’t use it for a class that spans a certain amount of time, but only happens once a week. For example, a teleclass that will happen every Tuesday from 10 to 12 for four weeks. This plugin offers recurring events with a start and stop date, but it looks like the same class is offered four times, rather than it being only one event that is a series over that timespan. We did need to install the ‘Executable PHP Widget’ as well to get the event list to display in the sidebar. Another drawback is that it didn’t have an option for a mini calendar view in the sidebar, and using php for the widgets isn’t too user-friendly for new users.
UPDATE: I’ve played around with this plugin a bit more, and I think we can get it to work for our need of additional meetings within the same ‘event’ (such as for a class). I scheduled the event on the first day with a starting and ending time, then added additional dates through the, “include dates,” option. I had tried to, “exclude dates,” before, but it didn’t seem to work. The, “include dates,” however, seems to address the problem.
Pros
- Independent ‘Events’ Interface
- Good input options, including excluded dates, included dates, categories & recurring events
- Nice out of the box styling (although colors will require css changes if they don’t match your site)
- Completely customizable ‘event list’ widget (by html w/plugin tags)
Cons
- No way to add one event that only happens certain days of the week over a period of time
- No calendar view widget
- You may need ‘Executable PHP Widget’ plugin, depending on your theme
Events Manager Extended
This is another great plugin with its own ‘Events’ interface and LOTS of options. It adds a whole registration component, which can be really useful. The problem is, it still won’t do that single event that repeats the same day for a few weeks. You can add recurring events, and you can extend events over a period of time, but it still doesn’t work for classes.
Pros
- Independent ‘Events’ Interface
- Registration/RSVP Options
- Confirmation Email Customization
- Google Maps Integration
- Calendar or List Widget Options
Cons
- No Weekly Class Option as a Single Event
- No User Option to Toggle Calendar Display by Category, Print View, etc. (may be able to add this, but I didn’t research it that far)
Event Registration
This plugin comes with a wide range of features with its most unique being online payment integration. You can set it up with PayPal, Google Checkout, Monster Payments, Authorize.net, or a custom payment gateway. You can list events, take registration and payment, create categories, and add custom questions to your registration forms. It comes with a nice sidebar widget that displays a calendar along with a list of events scheduled for the selected day. Again, I am running into the issue that an event can be recurring or span over time, but cannot be listed on a certain day of the week over a period of several weeks, and still be the same ‘event’ (or class).
Pros
- Independent Events Management Interface
- Payment Integration for Event Registration
- Supports Coupon Codes
- Nice Multi-Featured Sidebar Widget
- Can Upload Events with Spreadsheet
- Includes User Guide
Cons
- No Weekly Class Option as a Single Event
- Slight CSS Issues in Admin Hide Page Headings
- No List-Only Widget Out of the Box (available w/ shortcodes)
Event Espresso Lite
This plugin seems very much like Event Registration above, except with a much cleaner user interface and a pro upgrade option for additional features. It comes with PayPal integration out of the box, and can add other payment gateways with the Pro version ($59.95). Some other features that you won’t get until you upgrade include the Calendar feature itself, as well as recurring events (separate add-on for $39.95). One annoying aspect was that I needed to set up four configured Pages on the site before it would even let me try to add an event to test the features. I see how this helps get people to set things up correctly, but since I’m just trying to test the event features, it was extra work that I will probably go back and delete.
Pros
- Very Clean, User-Friendly Interface
- Payment Integration for Event Registration
- Includes Events List Widget
- Very Feature-Rich, Especially with Pro Version
- Support Available
Cons
- No Calendar in Free Version
- Fewer Features than Event Registration in Free Version
Event Calendar / Scheduler
This one works a little differently because events are added to the calendar from the front end, right on the calendar, much like you would with Google Calendar. It says it can do a multi-day event, but this does require getting into the code and adding custom settings to enable the feature. One thing I don’t like as much about this system is that, from what I can tell, a unique page is not created for each event. I prefer each event to link to its own page both to allow room for detailed description and/or sales text to get people to sign up, and for SEO benefits.
Pros
- Unique Front-End Interface with One-Click Event Creation
- Drag-and-Drop Features to Move Events
- Somewhat Buggy – some events created did not show up, but showed no error message either; further investigation would be needed to resolve
Cons
- Advanced Features Require Web Developer to Modify Code
- No Individual Pages Created – Drawback for Sales or SEO
The Events Calendar
I had avoided this plugin for awhile because events are entered as Posts, but it was time to give it a try. There are a lot of nice features, and I like the out-of-the-box styling, except that it’s oversized to fit on the site I’m working on and would need to be adjusted through the css. There’s a question on your Post page that asks if you’re entering an event, so the scheduling options only come up when you answer, “yes.” The scheduler is simple with options for all day or start and end times. For multi-day events, even if they’re consecutive, the start and end times don’t really work. This is common in some of the others as well, but the start time goes on the start date, and end time on the end date, as if it was continuous all the way through.
Pros
- Clean User-Friendly Events Input
- Toggles Between Calendar or Events View
- Google Maps Integration
- Includes Venue and Price
- Option for Eventbrite Integration
Cons
- No Recurring or Multi-Day Events
- No Independent Events Interface – Add Through Posts
Booking Calendar
This may be a great plugin, but it’s a bit too ‘salesy’ and distracting to me. There are a lot of options listed, but once you try to use them, it says you need to buy the Premium version. Not to mention the repeated references to the Hotel version which would be confusing to my clients. It may function for events as well, but all the other stuff gets in the way so much that my reaction is to not even bother.
Event Calendar 3
This plugin looked promising at first. The screenshot shows a sidebar calendar with a list down below, and it can handle multi-day events. I’d passed it over earlier due to the Post interface, as well as the long period of time since it’s been updated. So, now as I work with it, it has some options to keep the ‘Events’ posts separate from the ‘blog’ posts, and we can at least keep them off the recent blog posts list. The scheduling interface is really simple, with nothing more than a date and start/end time. The BIG difference here is I can add another date, with its own start and end times, and another, while still in the same ‘Event’. The drawback is in how this information is displayed, listing each date with its corresponding time, almost as part of the first paragraph of the description. Also, the calendar widget is based on the calendar that lists posts, and defaults to displaying the date the event was added, rather than the date it will take place. There is a ‘show schedule’ option, and I could probably edit the display templates in the code, but the fact that this plugin seems to be no longer supported is pushing me to move on.
RS Multi-Day Event
This is another one that uses the blog Post input format. That works OK, but it’s showing up on the calendar based on the ‘published on’ date rather than the event date. It displays this date on the side when looking at the event page as well (the theme I’m currently working with displays the Post date, which I suppose most do). The event dates are displayed in the widget as a range, and I was able to easily customize this to the format I wanted. There’s also a generic field that I adapted to use for the day the event will repeat on.
Image Editing for Your Website
Posted on | April 9, 2010 | No Comments
My customers say the images load slowly on my site, but it works fine for me.
Slow-loading & distorted images.
I’ve heard this from quite a few people before. I just happened upon a site with incredibly slow-loading pictures, and it prompted me to share with you today how to fix it. While there can be many factors contributing to the speed at which your site loads, I’m going to address one of the most common culprits: image size and resolution.
The reason you may not notice so much on your own site is that your browser caches (or remembers) these files. After you’ve visited your own website and loaded the files once, they pop right back up the next time. However, when new visitors arrive, they may not bother to stick around through the first download.
Adding an image to your website is not the same as posting it on Facebook or Flicker. While these sites may re-size images for you, you’re supposed to do it yourself before you display an image on your web page. There is no need to publish high resolution photos on the internet, unless the purpose is for somebody to download and print them. The limiting factor that determines the quality of image we view on our computer screen is the computer screen itself!
The standard recommended resolution for web graphics is 72 dpi. With continued improvements in monitor quality, some people can see a clearer image up to 85 dpi or so. Beyond that, you’re really just wasting the computer’s effort loading a larger document (the file size is larger at higher dpi, not the display size). Since I do e-commerce, and the photos are key to showing off my products, I like to use 80 dpi. Sometimes I’ll go down to 76 dpi, and sometimes up to 85 dpi. Even that jump from 80 dpi to 85 dpi can impact your page load times.
In addition to resolution, you want your images to be set to the same display size you want to see on your web page. If you take an image that’s 1200 x 1200 pixels and insert it into a space that’s 180 x 180 on your site, the web browser is forced to re-size the picture on the fly each time your page is loaded. While browsers can do this, your page load times will suffer, and the image quality is often compromised as well.
I see these same mistakes time and time again as I browse the web. Often, small business owners are trying to build websites themselves or have their son, daughter, or neighbor do it for them. If you’re paying for professional web development, your webmaster should know this stuff. If yours doesn’t, imagine what else he or she doesn’t know.
Yelp: Local Business Reviews
Posted on | March 21, 2010 | 2 Comments
Q: Should I be using Yelp for my business?
If you’re local, yes! You should use Yelp if you target local customers, and it’s REALLY helpful if you have a local physical location. What is Yelp? A place for customers to write reviews of local businesses, and a place for potential customers to find a business based on its reviews. Yelp has become incredibly popular, especially in certain industries. You may already have reviews on Yelp and not even know about it. Have you checked? Visit http://www.yelp.com and search for your business. If you’re on there and haven’t claimed your page, you should create an account and verify that you’re the owner.
The idea of online reviews makes some business owners nervous. If you’re doing a good job serving your customers, reviews are one of the best marketing tools you can use, and you don’t even need to pay for them! The key is to get lots of reviews (and, of course, to provide good service in the first place). If you only have two reviews and one’s good and the other’s bad, people will probably hesitate to do business with you. If you’ve got a bunch of reviews and there are maybe just a couple of so-so one’s mixed in, they tend to be discounted. Yelp has even added a new feature that lets you respond to poor reviews.
So, how do you get more reviews? My natural suggestion would be to contact your customers and invite them to write a review, or possibly give them something at the close of a transaction asking for their review. The folks at Yelp did not agree with me. It turns out that if a reviewer is not a regular Yelp user, their review will drop off the page fairly quickly. Yelp says they do this to avoid the influence of potentially fake reviews. I guess they figure if someone comes to Yelp just to write a review about your business and doesn’t come back, they may be someone you know who just raved about you as a favor.
Yelp wants you to go out and get existing Yelp users to come to your business so they can review it. Yelp gives these reviews more weight and leaves them on your page longer. How do you get Yelpers to come to your business when you don’t have many reviews yet? Why, advertise on Yelp, of course! So, is Yelp’s policy really about protecting visitors from fake reviews, or is it a ploy to get more advertisers? When I looked into this for my online boutique, I didn’t have any reviews yet. (Since I didn’t have a physical local location, my primary target market was not local.) I thought, why would I advertise to bring visitors to a Yelp page with no reviews? What conversion would I get from that?
What’s the answer? If you have a local business, I think you’ll benefit from a little of both – marketing to Yelp users and asking your customers to visit Yelp and post a review. Who knows? If your customers are new to Yelp, they may fall in love with it and become frequent users. Maybe some of them already are. Also, if you receive reviews on a regular basis, old reviews that drop off the page will be replaced by new ones. If you aren’t ready to dive into Yelp’s advertising program, there are other ways to increase your exposure. First, you should claim your business and fill in all the details in your profile. You can also post a special offer on your page (this doesn’t cost anything), and it will show up under your business listing in the search results. Change your offer frequently to attract attention and bring new customers, or test two offers to see which one gives you the best results.
To learn more, here’s a good article to read: http://mashable.com/2010/03/20/yelp-for-business/
Tags: Local Business Marketing > Reviews > social media > web 2.0 > Yelp
