Author: WP Compendium

One of the most powerful features of WordPress is the ability to easily increase your WordPress web site’s functionality using plugins.

What Are Plugins?

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

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software that is easy to install and instantly adds new features to a smart device.

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

A plugin is very much like an app. You download and install a software application that provides new functionality to your website …

(… there are also social sharing plugins for WordPress users!)

Typically, if you plan to add a new feature to your website, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancement, this can become quite expensive, particularly if it requires editing code.

This is also applicable when creating a web site. Companies tend to invest up front for additional features they may never need.

To keep costs low, we suggest using a modular strategy to setting up a web presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As you need more features or functionality, add new applications with a few mouse clicks directly from your WordPress dashboard panel, giving your site a completely new range of practical features and capabilities, and also …

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

Well, that’s exactly what a WordPress plugin enables you to do!

WP Plugins – Benefits & Advantages

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

In fact, many plugins are available at no cost to WordPress users.

WP plugins that you buy are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of investing in professional web development services to get similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, any person can create, rewrite and customize any part of the WP code. This has allowed thousands of professional software developers to enhance and contribute to the core software application.

• WordPress plugins let you get started with a basic website and then add new features and enhancements to your site if required.
• Plugins allow you to add practically endless features to any web presence quickly and really inexpensively.
• Plugins give you virtually unlimited expanding capabilities.
• Plugins allow ”non-techies” to own a web presence that they can manage.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your site instant new enhancements and features.
• Some plugins provide more advanced features and require some configuring.

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

Like themes, thousands of WP plugins are available for WP users … often at $0 cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find WP plugins that can do almost anything you need your site to do.

There are WordPress plugins for:

• User Administration
• Content Distribution
• Increasing Site Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Connectivity
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Tools
• Optimizing Your

For example, you can enhance a WP site with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Managing advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to French)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell spots on your blog
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect web pages
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Migrate information from non-WP platforms
• Search and replace data
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert HTML and script elements into your posts
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add a map of your business location
• Publicize your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and many others
• Display countdown timers (for scarcity offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you are planning to build a website for your business, or your existing site wasn’t built using WordPress, then consider using it in the future.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WP plugins are, let’s take a look at how you can benefit instantly by simply adding an inexpensive plugin to your site.

For example, if you want to protect your content, you can use plugins to make a section of your page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional paid membership site with customized login details for all users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to enhance your site in so many different ways. From adding features that can improve your business, your website visitors’ experience and your ability to review site metrics …

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

You can also add advanced features to your site using inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your site like managing customer testimonials and booking events …

And also run a complete bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to code custom applications for you …

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

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Bookmark your content on social media.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other members through online forums or even set up a private online social network on your site.
• Engage with your team via live chats
• Dial your business directly from their cellphones while visiting your website
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

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

WP Plugins – Additional Information

• There are loads of fantastic plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this can affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It also creates more maintenance issues for you resulting from potential errors.
• Only keep those plugins you really use. Delete all unnecessary plugins from your site, as these use additional server resources.
• Many free plugins often come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid WP plugins, make sure you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we publish here for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think carefully before using it on your website or blog. WordPress is updated on a frequent basis and outdated plugins can cause problems.
• Always keep all plugins updated to the most recent software version. Outdated plugin not only can create conflicts, they may also have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most powerful, flexible and scalable online publishing platform in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand without spending thousands of dollars on web development.

One last thing on the topic of WP plugins:

Whatever feature you want for your web site, you can be sure that a someone has probably already authored one that will do exactly what you need it to do, and that it will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be reasonably affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this WP plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does precisely what you need it to do can probably be coded for your business at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WP plugins – what plugins are and how they can significantly expand your business blog. See our published posts to learn about more useful WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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