Category: WordPress Plugins

One of the most unique benefits of using the WordPress web content management platform is the ability to easily increase your WP website’s functionality using plugins.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

No doubt, you most likely use a device like a cell phone. What happens when you want access to something new on your device like a new application, software or productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software application that is really easy to install and instantly adds new features and functionality to your mobile phone.

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

A WordPress plugin is very similar to an app. You install and activate a software that provides new functionality to your site …

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

Normally, if you need to expand the functionality of an already-built site, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, the cost can be significant, especially if it involves website development.

This is also applicable to developing a web site. Companies often invest money upfront in added features they may not ever need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we recommend using a cost-effective strategy when developing a web presence presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal cost involved. Get your web site up and running quickly, then …

2) As you need more features, add new software modules with a few clicks of the mouse directly from within your dashboard section, and give your web site a whole new range of possibilities, and also …

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

Well, this is precisely what a WP plugin lets you do!

Plugins – Benefits And Advantages

Earlier, we compared WordPress plugins with smartphone apps. Just like some apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, so do WordPress plugins.

In fact, thousands of plugins can be downloaded to your site for free.

WP plugins that you have to buy are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the price of investing in web development services to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, anybody can create, modify and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has allowed many third-party web development professionals to create more new applications that integrate seamlessly with the WordPress platform than you can probably imagine.

• WordPress plugins allow you to get started simply with a simple site and expand as required.
• Plugins let you add almost unlimited features to your web presence quickly, easily and inexpensively.
• Plugins give you almost unlimited expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow anyone to own a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins can be slightly more complex and may need some initial configuration.

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

Like many WP themes, loads of great plugins are currently available for WordPress users … for FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you can find plugins that will do just about everything you could think of.

There are WordPress plugins for:

• Web Site Management
• Content Syndication
• Increasing Site Traffic
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Media
• Uploading Media – Videos, Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales And Advertising Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting
• Site SEO

You can enhance a business online presence with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Managing advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Italian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your website
• Set appointments and appointment reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Hide certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide post content sections
• Migrate data from other publishing applications
• Search and replace content
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Insert HTML and script elements into your posts
• Add tables
• Add 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, LinkedIn, Tumblr and many others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website, or your existing website isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting one added to 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 by simply installing an inexpensive plugin on your website.

For example, if you need to publish private content, you can use plugins to make a section of your page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to improve your site in so many different ways. From installing new features that improve your business, your web users’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

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

You can also add advanced features to your website using inexpensive paid WordPress plugins. For example, you can install plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your pages such as managing customer testimonials and event registration details …

And even set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying programmers to design these functionality 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:

• Post comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Share your posts with other web visitors on social networking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with other users through online forums or even set up a private social network on your domain.
• Engage with members of your team via live chats
• Dial your business directly from their devices while browsing your pages
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate complex enterprise-level solutions using a WP “front end”. This lets you manage your business marketing, while your 3rd-party application handles the technical side of things …

Additional Information About Plugins

• There are lots of great WordPress plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this will start to affect your website’s resources and page loading times. It can also create more maintenance work for you as a result of potential conflicts and errors.
• Only keep those plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these use server resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid plugins, make sure you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check our plugin reviews for more useful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think carefully before using it. WordPress is updated regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can cause issues.
• Always upgrade your plugins to their most recent software version. Outdated plugins not only can cause errors, they may also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most used CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development.

One last thing on the topic of plugins:

Whatever functionality you need for your web site, you can be sure that a someone has probably already authored one that will do exactly what you want, and that it will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the price will be very affordable.

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

And, if by chance this WordPress plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does just what you need it to do can probably be coded for you for a very reasonable price.

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of WP plugins – what plugins are and how they can help improve your business blog. See our published posts to learn about more great WP plugins that we recommend using.

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