Category: WordPress 101

One of the main features of WordPress is the ability to quickly and easily expand your WP website’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding Plugins

No doubt, you probably own a smart phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your phone like a new application, game or a new productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software that is really easy to install and instantly integrates new features and functionality into a mobile device.

(Just like you will find social sharing apps …)

A WordPress plugin is very much like an app. You simply download and install a software that adds new functionality to your website or blog …

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

Generally, adding a new feature to an already-built site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancement, the cost can be significant, especially if web developers have to add new code or edit templates or install scripts that integrate into your current set up.

This also applies to setting up a new website. Business owners will often spend money for features or options they may never need.

To keep costs down, we suggest a sustainable strategy to setting up your website and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As you need new features, simply install new applications with a couple of mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your web site, and give your site a whole new and expanded range of practical functionality, and …

3) Cost not one dollar extra to install on your site?

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

Benefits And Advantages Of Using Plugins

I began this blog post by comparing plugins with ’apps’. In the same way that many apps are free to download and some may cost a little money, so do plugins.

In fact, thousands of plugins are freely available for WordPress users.

Plugins that you purchase are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are generally quite inexpensive.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any web developer can create, modify and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has allowed thousands of professional software developers to build more plugins that enhance the WordPress software than you can probably imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started with a simple yet professional online business presence and then add new features and enhancements to your site only as necessary.
• WordPress plugins let you add almost unlimited functionality to any web site easily and cheaply.
• WP plugins give your site virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow ”non-techies” to own a website that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your web site with instant new capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins are slightly more complex and may need some configuration.

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

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

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

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

There are WP plugins for:

• User Administration
• Content Distribution
• Online Traffic Generation
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Engagement
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Sales And Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis
• Website Security

You can expand a website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Managing banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupons, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Automatic language translation (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 engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your blog
• Set up appointments and appointment reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect users from specific pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude pages 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 content replacements
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Inserting HTML and code elements into your posts
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced font display formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add business location maps
• Post your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you endless possibilities. If you plan to build a web site for your business, or your existing website isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider using it in the future.

If you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WordPress plugins, let me show you some practical advantages of adding an inexpensive plugin to your web site.

For example, if you want content protection, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete membership site with personal login details for users …

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to enhance your web site in so many different ways. From adding new features that can improve your business, your visitors’ experience and your ability to review website data …

To extending your business reach and visibility across many social sites and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your website using relatively inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can download plugins that automate processes on your pages such as customer testimonial and event registrations management …

And also run a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to code the same applications for you …

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

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave 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 the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Share your posts with other online visitors on social media.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with your team through forums or even set up a private online community on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team using live chats
• Call your business from their mobile phones when browsing your pages
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated enterprise solutions with a WP “front end”. This lets you manage your business sales and marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical functions …

WP Plugins – Additional Information

• There are loads of WordPress plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will start to affect your site’s performance and site loading times. It also means more maintenance work for you resulting from potential conflicts.
• Install only the plugins you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with little to no support from the plugin author. When considering premium WordPress plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WordPress plugin recommendations for more helpful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think twice before using it on your website. WordPress changes frequently and outdated plugins can cause conflicts.
• Always maintain all plugins updated. Outdated plugin not only can create problems, they could also have security 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 popular CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand quickly without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing regarding plugins:

If there is a feature you want for your web presence, you can guarantee that a WordPress plugin probably exists that will do just what you want, and that it can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the price to purchase it will be reasonable.

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

And, if by chance such a plugin has not been created yet, then a custom plugin that does just what you need it to do can certainly be created for you at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of WP plugins – what plugins are and how they can significantly enhance the functionality of your web site. See our related posts section to learn more about using WordPress plugins.

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