Category: WordPress 101

One of the main benefits of using the WordPress content publishing software is the ability to easily expand your WP site’s functionality using inexpensive called plugins.

What Are WP Plugins?

Like most of us, you probably have a device like a smart phone. What happens when you want to access something new on your phone like a new software or tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is really simple and easy to install and instantly integrates new features into your mobile phone.

(Just like you will find social sharing apps …)

A WordPress plugin is similar to an app. You simply install a software that provides new functionality to your website …

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

Almost always, adding a new feature to a website involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the new feature or enhancement is, this can become fairly expensive, especially if it involves editing code.

This also applies when developing a new web site. Companies tend to spend money in advance on additional components they may not ever need.

For this reason, we recommend using a cost-effective strategy to setting up your web site and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get your business web presence up and running quickly, then …

2) As the need arises, add new software modules with a few mouse clicks that integrate with your existing site, giving your website a whole new range of possibilities, and …

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

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

Benefits And Advantages Of Plugins

Earlier, we compared plugins with apps. Just like many apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, the same is true with WP plugins.

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

Plugins that you purchase are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of hiring a professional web developer to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, any web developer can create, modify and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has enabled many professional software development companies to build more new plugins that plug seamlessly into WordPress than you can imagine.

• WordPress plugins allow you to start off simply with a basic site and add new features and enhancements to your site only as required.
• Plugins allow you to add almost endless functionality to any web site quickly and really cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give you practically unlimited expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow anyone to own a website that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your site with immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins are a little more advanced and could require some configuration.

WordPress Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Many Of Them Are) 100% FREE!

Just like WP themes, loads of plugins are made available for WordPress users … for FREE!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find WP plugins that will do almost anything you need done.

WP plugin categories cover:

• Website Management
• Content Syndication
• Web Traffic Generation
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Connectivity
• Managing Media – Videos, Graphics, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Analysis
• Optimizing Your

For example, you can enhance your website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce stores with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• 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 menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage management
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your website
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect affiliate pages
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Hide pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Migrate information from other CMS applications
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Inserting HTML and code elements into your content
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add location maps
• Post your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website or blog, or your existing website was not built with WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let’s take a look at how you can benefit instantly by simply installing a plugin on your website.

For example, if you want content protection, you can install plugins to make an area of your page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with separate login details for every member …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your web site in so many ways. From installing features that can improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to review website data …

To increasing your site’s reach and visibility across social sites and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your website using inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that automate features on your site such as displaying customer testimonials and event bookings …

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

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

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Share your content with other web users on social networks.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with other users via forums or even set up a private community on your site.
• Engage with your support staff through live video chats
• Call your business from their cellphones when browsing your site
• Open a support ticket
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex enterprise-level applications using a WordPress “front end”. This allows you to control your business marketing, while your 3rd-party application handles the technical functions …

Plugins – Some Useful Things To Know

• There are so many plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can inevitably affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you resulting from potential conflicts.
• Install only those plugins you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize additional server resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive little to no support from the plugin author. When considering premium WordPress plugins, we recommend that you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our plugin reviews for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before using it on your site. The WordPress software updates regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can create conflicts.
• Make sure that you always upgrade your plugins. Outdated plugin not only can cause conflicts, they may also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most downloaded CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add new features to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing on the subject of WP plugins:

Whatever functionality you need for your web site, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already developed one that will do just what you need it to do, and that it can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost 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 most certainly be created for your business for a reasonable price.

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

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