Category: WordPress Plugins

One of the most unique features of the WordPress content publishing platform is that you can easily increase your WP website’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding Plugins

No doubt, you most likely own a device like a cell phone. What do you do when you would like to access something new on your device like a new software or business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is really easy to install and instantly adds new features and functionality to any smart phone.

(Just as there are social sharing apps for smart phones …)

A WP plugin is very similar to an app. You simply download and install a little piece of software that adds new functionality to your WP site …

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

Normally, expanding the functionality of an existing website involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancements, this cost can be significant, especially if it involves website development.

This is also applicable when setting up a website. Organizations tend to invest up front in features and customizations they probably will never need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we suggest considering a sustainable approach to growing a web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal cost involved. Get a professional-looking website up and running fast, then …

2) As the need arises, just add new applications with only a few clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your website, giving your website or blog an entirely new range of useful capabilities, and …

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

Well, that’s exactly what WordPress plugins allow you to do!

WP Plugins – Benefits

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

In fact, thousands of powerful plugins can be installed on your sites.

Plugins that you purchase are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to add the same functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any person can create, edit and customize any portion of the WP code. This has enabled thousands of third-party software developers to enhance the WPsoftware.

• WordPress plugins let you start off with only a simple yet professional web presence and expand only when required.
• WP plugins allow you to add almost unlimited features to your web presence easily, quickly and very inexpensively.
• Plugins give your online presence virtually endless expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow business owners to own a web presence that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your web site with new enhancements and features.
• Some plugins offer more advanced options and may need some initial configuration.

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

Like many themes, loads of WP plugins are available to WP users … and many of these great plugins are 100% FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you will find plugins that can do just about everything you need done.

WordPress plugin categories cover:

• Website Management
• Content Distribution
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Engagement
• Social Connectivity
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Optimizing Your

You can enhance a business online presence with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Rotating ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• Instant language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to Italian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events
• Business directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your blog
• Set up appointments and appointment reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect affiliate links
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Import data from other CMS applications
• Perform bulk content edits
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Insert HTML and script elements into your content
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Syndicate your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and many others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you limitless business flexibility. If you plan to build a website or blog, or your existing web site isn’t built with WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WP plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of installing a plugin on your site.

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

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to enhance your website in lots of ways. From installing functionality that enhance your business, your visitors’ experience and your ability to review website metrics …

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

You can also add advanced features to your website using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that automate functions on your site such as customer testimonial and event registrations management …

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

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage even more with your web visitors, customers and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the native WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site increased exposure).
• Share your posts with other web visitors on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with your support team through online forums or even set up an online social network on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team through live video chats
• Dial your business directly from their devices while browsing your site
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

You can also integrate complex enterprise solutions within a WP “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors will see on your web site, while the third-party application handles the technological side of things …

WP Plugins – Additional Tips

• There are many WordPress plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will start to affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It can also mean more maintenance work for you as a result of possible conflicts.
• Only keep those plugins you really need. Delete any plugins from your site, as these use additional server resources.
• Many free plugins often receive little to no support from the plugin author. When considering premium plugins, we recommend that you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we publish here for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think carefully before installing it. The WordPress platform updates often and outdated plugins can create problems.
• Ensure that you always keep all plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugins not only can create issues, they could also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most powerful, flexible and scalable CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant functionality to their website without spending thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing on the subject of plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you want for your website, you can guarantee that a plugin currently exists that will do just what you need, and that it can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that it will be reasonably affordable.

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

And, if by any chance such a plugin has not been created yet, then a custom plugin that does exactly what you need it to do can most certainly be coded for your business for a very reasonable price.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can help enhance the functionality of your website. See our published posts to learn about more popular WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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