Category: WordPress Training Manual

One of the most useful advantages of choosing the WordPress content publishing platform is that you can quickly enhance your WordPress site’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding Plugins

No doubt, you probably own a cell phone. What happens when you would like to access something new on your phone like a new application, game or a new business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is easy to install and instantly integrates new functionality into any mobile phone.

(Just as you will find social sharing apps …)

A WP plugin is like an app. You install and activate a little piece of software that provides new functionality to your website …

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

Almost always, if you need to expand the functionality of an existing web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancements, the cost can be quite significant, particularly if it involves website development.

This is also applicable to starting a new website. Businesses often fork out money in advance on components they may never need.

To reduce unnecessary costs, we recommend using a modular approach to developing your web site and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As you need new features, you can add new software modules with only a few clicks of the mouse that integrate with your current website and blog, giving your website or blog an entirely new range of possibilities, and also …

3) Cost not a single dollar more to add to your website?

Well, this is just what a plugin lets you do!

Benefits And Advantages Of WordPress Plugins

Earlier, we compared WordPress plugins with apps. In the same way that some apps are free to download and some cost a little bit of money, the same applies with WordPress plugins.

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

Plugins that you purchase 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 similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are typically quite inexpensive.

Also, because WordPress is an Open Source application, anybody can create, modify and customize any part of the code. This has enabled thousands of professional software developers to enhance the WPsoftware.

• Plugins let you start simply with only a simple web site and then expand only as required.
• Plugins allow you to add practically endless features to any site easily and inexpensively.
• Plugins give you almost endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow business owners to own a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your web site immediate capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins can be slightly more complex and could require some initial configuration.

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

Just like themes, tens of thousands of great plugins are available for WP users … for FREE!

You can download thousands of WordPress plugins from the Free WordPress Plugin Directory …

As mentioned earlier, you can find plugins that can do just about everything you could possibly want your web site to do.

There are WordPress plugins for:

• Site Administration
• Content Distribution
• Online Traffic Generation
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Connectivity
• Media Management Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis Applications
• Optimizing Your WP Blog

For example, you can add features to your website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Managing banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single ordering with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your site from English to Portuguese)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your site
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect URLs
• 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 displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect post content
• Import content from other publishing platforms
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Inserting code and script elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Publish your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website for your business, or your existing site was not built using WordPress, then consider getting a WP site or blog added to your domain, or you will be missing out on some serious features.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WordPress plugins are, let me show you some practical uses of installing an inexpensive plugin on your site.

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can use plugins to make a section of your post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to enhance your site in lots of ways. From installing functionality that improve your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to analyze visitor data …

To increasing your business reach across many social networks and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated features to your site using relatively inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can download plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your pages like managing customer testimonials and event registration details …

And also set up a complete bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying software developers to create the same applications for you …

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

For example, your visitors can:

• Leave comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Share your content with other online users on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with other online users via forums or even set up an online community on your own site.
• Engage with your support staff via live video chats
• Call your business from their cellphones when browsing your pages
• Get help via a customer help desk
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate complex enterprise-level applications within a WordPress “front end”. This allows you to manage your business sales and marketing, while the third-party application handles the technological functions …

Useful Tips About WP Plugins

• There are loads of plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can inevitably start to affect your site’s resources and site loading times. It also means more maintenance issues for you as a result of possible conflicts.
• Install only those plugins you really plan to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins often receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium WP plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WP plugin recommendations for more 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 or blog. WordPress is updated on a regular basis and out-of-date plugins can cause errors.
• Always keep all plugins updated. Outdated plugin not only can cause errors, they could also contain security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important aspect of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most used CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing on the topic of WP plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a WP plugin already exists that will do what you need it to do, and that it will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the price to purchase it will be quite reasonable.

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

And, if by chance such a WordPress plugin does not exist, then a custom plugin that does just what you want it to do can probably be created for you for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can expand your WP site. See our published posts to learn about more popular WP plugins that we recommend using.

***

***