Author: WP Compendium

One of the most powerful benefits of using WordPress is the ability to easily expand your WordPress site’s functionality using applications called plugins.

What Are Plugins?

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

You download and install an app!

An app is a software application that is easy to install and immediately integrates new functionality into your mobile phone.

(Just as you can find social sharing apps …)

A WordPress plugin is very much like an app. You simply install and activate a software that adds new functionality to your site …

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

Normally, if you decide to expand the functionality of your website, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancement, this could get fairly expensive, particularly if website developers need to add new code or modify templates or develop programs to integrate with your existing set up.

This is also applicable when setting up a new web site. Companies often invest up-front for extra bells and whistles they may never need.

For this reason, we recommend a cost-effective strategy when setting up a web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a basic, professional business website up and running quickly, then …

2) As you need more features and functionality, add new applications with only a few clicks of the mouse directly from your dashboard section, giving your web site a whole new range of useful functionality, and also …

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

Well, that’s exactly what a plugin lets you do!

WP Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared plugins with mobile apps. Just like many apps are free to download and some cost a little bit of money, so do plugins.

In fact, loads of plugins can be downloaded to your site for free.

Plugins that you have to pay for are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the price of hiring a professional web developer to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins are generally quite inexpensive.

Also, because WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anybody can create, edit and customize any portion of the WP code. This has enabled thousands of third-party software developers to create more tools that “plug into” the WordPress software than you can probably imagine.

• WP plugins let you start off with just a basic online business presence and expand only as required.
• Plugins allow you to add almost unlimited features to any website easily, quickly and very inexpensively.
• Plugins give you almost unlimited expanding capabilities.
• Plugins allow business owners to have a site that they can manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your site with instant new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins are slightly more advanced and could require some configuring.

Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Many Of Them Are) Completely FREE!

Like many themes, thousands of great WP plugins are available for WordPress users … for FREE!

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

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

There are plugins for:

• Website Management
• Content Syndication
• Online Traffic Generation
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Media
• Inserting Media Files – Videos, Graphics, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales & Marketing Automation
• Increasing Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Reporting
• Site Optimization

You can enhance your website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Managing banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to Portuguese)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your blog
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and email you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Hide specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide page content sections
• Migrate information from other CMS platforms
• Perform bulk data edits
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Inserting HTML and code elements into your posts
• Add tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Post your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WordPress plugins give you practically endless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a website, or your existing site wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting one in the future, or you will be missing out on some serious features.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WP plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of adding a plugin to your website.

For example, if you need content protection, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a page inaccessible, or create a full membership site with customized login details for all users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to enhance your web presence in lots of ways. From installing functionality that improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to review visitor data …

To increasing your business reach across social sites and search engines …

You can also add complex features to your site using inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that integrate and automate functions on your pages such as managing customer testimonials and event registration details …

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

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will enhance user engagement …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your content on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with other users through online forums or even set up a private online community on your own domain.
• Engage with members of your team using live chats
• Dial your business directly from their cellphones when browsing your website
• Open support tickets
• And so much more …

You can even integrate complex “back end” applications using a WP “front end”. This allows you to control your business sales and marketing, while your 3rd-party application handles the technical functions …

Useful Information About WP Plugins

• There are so many plugins available. Be careful not to overload your server with too many plugins, as this can inevitably affect your site’s resources and site loading speed. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible errors.
• Install only those plugins you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these also utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium WordPress plugins, ensure that 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 the plugin reviews we provide here for additional expert information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before installing it. WordPress updates often and older plugins that have not been updated can cause errors.
• Ensure that you always keep your plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugin not only can create conflicts, they may also have security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

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

One last thing about WP plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do just what you need, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost to buy it will be very affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin does not exist, then it can probably be developed for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can expand your website. See our related posts to learn more about usingplugins.

***

***