Author: WP Compendium

One of the most useful advantages of using WordPress is that you can quickly increase your WP site’s functionality using plugins.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

No doubt, you most likely use a device like a mobile phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your phone like a new application, game or a new tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little piece of software that is easy to install and integrates new functionality into a smart device.

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

A WP plugin is very much like an app. You simply install an application that provides new functionality to your WordPress website or blog …

(… there are also social sharing plugins for WP!)

Generally, adding new features to an already-built web site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the new feature or enhancement is, this could become quite expensive, particularly if web developers need to add new code or modify templates or install programs to integrate into your existing site.

This is also applicable to starting a new web site. Companies often spend money on bells and whistles they probably will never need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we recommend considering a modular strategy when growing your website and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal expense involved. Get a professional web site up and running fast, then …

2) As new features are needed, install new software modules with a few clicks of the mouse directly from within your WP admin panel, giving your web site a whole new and expanded range of features and functionality, and also …

3) Cost not one cent extra to download and install on your web site?

Well, that’s exactly what WordPress plugins let you do!

WordPress Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared plugins with apps. In the same way that some apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, the same is true with WordPress plugins.

In fact, many plugins can be downloaded and installed on your websites.

Plugins that you have to buy are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when you compare the price of a Premium plugin to the cost of paying for web development services to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins are typically quite inexpensive.

Also, as WordPress makes its code available to everyone, any web developer can create, edit and customize any portion of the WP code. This has allowed many third-party web developers to build more new tools that add new functionality to WordPress than you can probably imagine.

• Plugins let you start simply with a basic website and then add new features and enhancements to your site only if required.
• WP plugins let you add almost unlimited features to any website easily and inexpensively.
• WP plugins give you almost unlimited expanding capabilities.
• Plugins allow ”non-techies” to own a website that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your site with new enhancements and features.
• Some plugins provide more extensive options and may need some configuring.

WordPress Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Often) 100% FREE!

Just like WP themes, loads of WordPress plugins are currently available for WordPress users … often at no cost!

You can access thousands of plugins from the Free WordPress Plugin Directory …

As previously mentioned, you will find plugins that can do almost everything you can think of.

There are WordPress plugins for:

• Site Administration
• Content Syndication
• Traffic
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Monitoring
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis
• Web Site SEO

You can enhance a business online presence with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Managing advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single ordering with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User feedback forms
• Automatic language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to Norwegian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your site
• Set up client appointments and appointment reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude pages from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Migrate content from non-WordPress applications
• Perform bulk data edits
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert code and script elements into your content
• Add and format tables
• Add 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 posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a website, or your existing website isn’t built with WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

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

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your post or page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to improve your web presence in lots of different ways. From installing new features that will improve your business, your site’s user experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

To increasing your site’s visibility across many social media and search engines …

You can also add complex features to your site using inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate tasks on your website such as customer feedback and event registrations management …

And also set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to create custom applications for you …

You can also take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that can increase your site’s interactivity …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with other customers via forums or even set up a private social network on your own domain.
• Engage with your staff through live chats
• Dial your business directly from their mobile phones while visiting your pages
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

You can also integrate complex enterprise applications using a WordPress “front end”. This lets you control the content that your visitors see on your web site, while your third-party application handles the technological functions …

Some Useful Tips About WP Plugins

• There are loads of amazing plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this will invariably affect your website’s performance and page loading times. It can also create more maintenance issues for you resulting from potential conflicts and errors.
• Install only those plugins you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins often receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WP plugin reviews for additional information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before using it on your website or blog. The WordPress application is updated frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can create problems.
• Make sure that you always update your plugins to the most recent version. Outdated plugin not only can cause errors, they may also have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most preferred CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant features to their website without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

Whatever functionality you want for your web site, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do what you want, and that it can either be downloaded for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost will be reasonable.

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

And, if by any chance such a WP plugin is not available, then one can probably be created for you at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WP plugins – what plugins are and how they can significantly expand your WP web site. See our related posts section to learn about more great plugins that we recommend using.

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