Author: WP Compendium

One of the most powerful benefits of WordPress is that you can easily increase your WP web site’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding WP Plugins

No doubt, you most likely have a cell phone. What happens when you would like to access something new on your device like a new application, game or productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is simple and easy to install and adds new features and functionality to a mobile phone.

(Just like there are social sharing apps for smart devices …)

A plugin is quite similar to an app. You install and activate a little software application that adds new functionality to your WordPress website or blog …

(… you can also find social sharing plugins for WordPress sites!)

Normally, if you want to add new features to your website, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, this can become quite expensive, especially if web developers need to create new code or edit programs or install scripts to integrate into your current set up.

This also applies to creating a new web site. Many organizations tend to invest money in advance in features they may simply not need.

To reduce costs, we suggest a modular approach to growing your web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get your web site up and running fast, then …

2) As the need becomes apparent, add new applications with a couple of mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your existing site, giving your web site a completely new and expanded range of practical features and capabilities, and …

3) Cost not a single dollar extra to add to your site?

Well, that’s precisely what a plugin allows you to do!

WP Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared plugins with apps. In the same way that many apps are free to download and some cost a little money, so do plugins.

In fact, loads of plugins are freely available for WP users.

Plugins that cost money are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are priced quite low.

Also, because WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anybody can create, edit and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has enabled many third-party software development companies to enhance the WordPresssoftware.

• Plugins allow you to get started with just a simple site and then add new features and enhancements to your site when required.
• WordPress plugins let you add practically unlimited features to any website easily, quickly and very cheaply.
• Plugins give you practically unlimited expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow non-technical website owners to own a web presence that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your web site immediate capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more extensive options and may require some configuring.

WP Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Often) Completely FREE!

Like many themes, loads of plugins are available to WordPress users … often at no cost!

You can view and download thousands of WordPress plugins from the Free WordPress Plugin Repository …

As mentioned earlier, you can find plugins that can do just about everything you can imagine.

Plugin categories cover:

• Blog Management
• Content Syndication
• Online Traffic Generation
• User Engagement
• Social Sharing
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Applications
• Optimizing Your

For example, you can add features to your website with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Rotating ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website from English to French)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your site
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect users from broken pages to other pages on your site or other sites
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your pages and posts
• Migrate information from non-WordPress platforms
• Perform bulk data replacements
• Fight SPAM
• Customize visitor commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Inserting scripts and script elements into your site’s header or footer
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add location maps
• Syndicate your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and many others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you virtually limitless business scalability. If you plan to build a website or blog for your business, or your existing web site wasn’t built using WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let me show you how you can benefit by simply installing a plugin on your website.

For example, if you need content protection, you can use plugins to make a section of a post or page inaccessible, or create a professional paid membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to improve your web presence in lots of different ways. From installing new features that enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to analyze website metrics …

To extending your business reach and visibility across multiple social networks and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your site using relatively inexpensive premium WordPress plugins. For example, you can download plugins that integrate and automate functions on your pages such as customer testimonial and event bookings management …

And even run a complete bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring web developers to create the same functionality for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Share your content with other online users on social media.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with other customers through online forums or even set up an online social network on your own site.
• Engage with your team using live video chats
• Call your business directly from their laptops when browsing your website
• Get support via a dedicated client helpdesk
• And much more …

You can even integrate sophisticated “back end” solutions using a WordPress “front end”. This allows you to manage your business marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical areas …

Additional Information About WordPress Plugins

• There are lots of plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this can affect your website’s resources and site loading times. It also means more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible errors.
• Install only the plugins that you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid plugins, make sure you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WP plugin reviews for more information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before using it on your site. WordPress is updated frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can cause problems.
• Always upgrade your plugins to the most recent version. Older plugins not only can create conflicts, they may also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most powerful, flexible and scalable content management system available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant functionality to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

Whatever functionality you need for your web presence, you can be sure that a someone has probably already authored one that will do what you want it to do, and that it can either be downloaded at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the price will be very affordable.

(Whatever you need done, there’s a WordPress plugin for that!)

And, if by chance this plugin has not been created yet, then it can certainly be created for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can significantly improve your blog. See our related posts to learn about more popular plugins that we recommend using.

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