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One of the main benefits of building a website with WordPress is the ability to quickly expand your WordPress site’s functionality using plugins.

About Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

An app is a little piece of software that is very easy to install and instantly integrates new features and functionality into any smart phone.

(Just as you will find social sharing apps for smart phones …)

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

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

Normally, if you decide to expand the functionality of an already-built web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancements, this cost can be fairly significant, especially if website developers have to add new code or edit templates or install programs that integrate with your current set up.

This is also applicable when starting a website. Business owners often pay upfront for additional features and options they may not ever need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we recommend considering a cost-effective strategy when setting up a web site and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a basic, professional-looking web site up and running quickly, then …

2) As new features or functionality are needed, you can install new software modules with just a couple of clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your existing web site, giving your site a whole new and expanded range of useful functionality, and also …

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

Well, this is just what WordPress plugins let you do!

WP Plugins – Benefits And Advantages

We started this post by comparing plugins with apps. In a similar way that many apps are free to download and some apps cost a little bit of money, so do WP plugins.

In fact, loads of wonderful plugins are available at no cost to users.

WP plugins that cost money are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress is an Open Source application, anyone can create, edit and customize any part of the WP code. This has enabled many third-party web developers to enhance the core WP software application.

• Plugins let you start off with only a simple yet professional site and add new features and enhancements to your site only when required.
• WP plugins allow you to add practically unlimited functionality to your web site easily and quite inexpensively.
• Plugins give you almost endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow anyone to have a site that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your web site with instant new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be slightly more complex and could require some configuring.

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

Like WordPress themes, tens of thousands of great WP plugins are made available to WP users … often at $0 cost!

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

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

Plugin categories cover:

• Site Management
• Content Management
• Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Media
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Applications
• WordPress Security

For example, you can add features to a WP site with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• Automatic language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Norwegian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events & bookings
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your website
• Set up client appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect web pages
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Hide specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide page content sections
• Import information from different CMS platforms
• Search and replace data
• Fight SPAM
• Customize visitor commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Insert scripts and script elements into your pages
• 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 a map of your business location
• Publish your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you endless possibilities. If you plan to build a website or blog, or your existing website wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting a WP site or blog in the future, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WP plugins, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of adding an inexpensive plugin to your web site.

For example, if you need to publish content which is only accessible to some users, you can use plugins to make a section of a post or page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with customized login details for each member …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to improve your business site in so many different ways. From adding features that enhance your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to review visitor metrics …

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

You can also add sophisticated features to your site using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that automate features on your website like displaying customer testimonials and event registration details …

And even run a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to code these applications for you …

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will make your site even more interactive …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site added exposure).
• Share your content with other online users on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with your team via forums or even set up a private online community on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team through live video chats
• Call your business from their mobile phones when visiting your website
• Get help and support via a dedicated user help desk
• And so much more …

You can even integrate complex “back end” applications with a WordPress “front end”. This lets you manage your business sales and marketing, while your 3rd-party application handles the technological aspects …

Plugins – Some Useful Tips

• There are so many WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can affect your site’s resources and site loading speed. It can also create more maintenance work for you as a consequence of potential conflicts and errors.
• Only keep the plugins that you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these also utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid WP plugins, ensure that you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check our plugin recommendations 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 installing it. The WordPress core application changes regularly and outdated plugins can create conflicts.
• Always upgrade your plugins. Outdated plugins not only can create errors and conflicts, they may also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most preferred website publishing platform available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add new features to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development.

One last thing on the topic of plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do exactly what you want it to do, and that it can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost will be quite reasonable.

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

And, if by chance such a plugin is not available, then one can probably be written 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 to improve your website. See our related posts section to learn about more useful WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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