Category: WordPress Basics

One of the main benefits of building a website with the WordPress platform is that you can easily enhance your WordPress website’s functionality using plugins.

About Plugins

Like most people, you most likely own a device like a smart phone. What do you do when you want to access something new on your phone like a new software or a new business tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is very simple and easy to install and adds new functionality to a mobile device.

(Just like you can find social sharing apps …)

A WP plugin is very much like an app. You install and activate an application that adds new functionality to your website or blog …

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

Almost always, adding a new feature to an already-built site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancement, things can become quite expensive, particularly if web developers need to add new code or edit templates or install programs that integrate into your existing set up.

This is also applicable to starting a new web site. Companies sometimes spend up front on bells and whistles they may not need.

For this reason, we suggest a sustainable approach when growing a web presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal cost involved. Get a professional business web presence up and running quickly, then …

2) As the need arises, install new applications with just a few mouse clicks directly from within your admin section, and give your web site an entirely new range of practical functionality, and also …

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

Well, that’s precisely what WordPress plugins let you do!

WP Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared WP plugins with smartphone apps. In a similar way that many apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, so do plugins.

In fact, many plugins can be downloaded to your website at no cost.

Plugins that you purchase are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the cost of paying for professional web development services to add similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anyone can create, rewrite and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled many third-party software developers to enhance and contribute to the WPsoftware.

• WP plugins let you start simply with only a simple site and add new features and enhancements to your site only as required.
• Plugins let you add practically unlimited functionality to your website easily and inexpensively.
• WP plugins give your digital business presence virtually unlimited expanding capabilities.
• Plugins allow anyone to have a web presence that they can manage.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your website with instant new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more extensive options and require some configuring.

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

Just like themes, loads of WordPress plugins are made available to WordPress users … often at no cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find plugins that will do almost everything you want done.

There are plugins for:

• Blog Management
• Content Management
• Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Media
• Uploading Media – Video, Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Analysis Tools
• Securing Your WP Web Site

You can expand a WordPress site with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Automatic language translation (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 interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your blog
• Set client appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect affiliate pages
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Exclude pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your pages and posts
• Migrate content from non-WordPress platforms
• Search and replace content
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor commenting (e.g. display Facebook discussions)
• Inserting HTML and script elements into your site’s header or footer
• Add tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add business location maps
• Post your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WordPress plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you are planning to build a website or blog, or your existing web site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting a WP site or blog built on your domain, or you will be missing out on some serious features.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let me show you how you can benefit instantly by installing a plugin on your web site.

For example, if you want to publish content which is only accessible to some but not all users, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full membership site with customized login details for all users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to improve your business site in so many ways. From installing functionality that can improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to review site metrics …

To increasing your site’s reach across a number of social networks and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your site using inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate functionality on your site such as displaying customer testimonials and event bookings …

And even set up a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying programmers to build custom functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of built-in WordPress commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage in various ways with web visitors, clients and registered site members …

For example, your web visitors can:

• Post 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 shared throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with additional exposure).
• Bookmark your content on social media.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with other members via online forums or even set up a private online community on your own domain.
• Engage with members of your team using live video chats
• Dial your business from their devices when browsing your site
• Get help and support via a client help desk
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate complex enterprise-level solutions within a WP “front end”. This allows you to control the content that your visitors will see on your website, while the third-party application handles the technological aspects …

Some Useful Information About WordPress Plugins

• There are many plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can affect your site’s resources and page loading speed. It also means more maintenance work for you resulting from potential errors.
• Install only those plugins you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins often come with little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, 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 or more years), then think carefully before using it on your website or blog. The WordPress application changes often and out-of-date plugins can cause issues.
• Ensure to always keep all plugins upgraded to their latest version. Older plugins not only can create conflicts, they could also contain security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most popular web open source platform available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add new functionality to their website without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development.

One last thing about WordPress plugins:

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

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

And, if by chance such a WP plugin does not exist, then a custom plugin that does just what you would like it to do can most certainly be created for you at a reasonable cost.

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

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