Tag: Plugins

One of the most powerful advantages of using WordPress is the ability to quickly expand your WP website or blog’s functionality using applications called plugins.

About Plugins

Like most of us, you probably use a cell phone. What happens when you would like to access something new on your device like a new game or a productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is very simple and easy to install and integrates new features into any mobile device.

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

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

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

Normally, expanding the functionality of your site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, the cost can be significant, particularly if website developers need to add new code or modify templates or develop programs to integrate into your existing site.

This also applies to developing a new website. Business owners often invest money in advance in bells and whistles they probably will never need.

To keep expenses low, we recommend a sustainable strategy when developing your web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As new features and functionality become necessary, add new software modules with a couple of mouse clicks directly from your WP admin area, to give your website a completely new and expanded range of capabilities and functionality, and …

3) Cost not one dollar extra to install on your website?

Well, that’s precisely what a WordPress plugin allows you to do!

WordPress Plugins – Benefits & Advantages

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

In fact, loads of fantastic plugins can be downloaded to your site at no cost.

Plugins that cost money are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of investing in professional web development services to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, as WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any web developer can create, edit and customize any portion of the WP code. This has allowed thousands of third-party web developers to build more tools that enhance the WordPress software than you can possibly imagine.

• Plugins let you start off with a simple website and then add new features and enhancements to your site if required.
• Plugins let you add almost unlimited functionality to any web site quickly and quite inexpensively.
• WP plugins give your site practically endless expanding capabilities.
• Plugins allow non-technical website owners to own a site that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website or blog immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be slightly more advanced and require some initial configuration.

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

Like themes, loads of WP plugins are made available to WP users … often at $0 cost!

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

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

There are plugins for:

• Web Site Administration
• Content Distribution
• Online Traffic Generation
• User Engagement
• Social Media
• Uploading Media Files – Videocasts, Graphics & Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales & Advertising Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis Tools
• Website SEO

For example, you can add features to your WP site with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Managing ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to French)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your website
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and email you reports
• Redirect users from old pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Exclude specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your posts and pages
• Import data from other publishing platforms
• Perform bulk content edits
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Insert HTML and code elements into your content
• Add tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search listings
• Add business location maps
• Publicize your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you virtually endless business flexibility. If you plan to build a web site, or your existing site wasn’t built using WordPress, then consider using it in the future.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WordPress plugins are, let me show you some practical advantages of adding a plugin to your site.

For example, if you want to publish content which is only accessible to some users, you can use plugins to make a section of your page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to enhance your web site in so many different ways. From adding features that enhance your business, your website visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

To extending your business visibility across social sites and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your website using inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can download plugins that automate tasks on your site such as user feedback and event bookings management …

And also set up a complete bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to create similar applications for you …

You can also take advantage of built-in WordPress commenting features and plugins that can allow you to engage more with your visitors, customers and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the native WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on social media.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with other users using online forums or even set up a private social network on your site.
• Engage with your staff via live video chats
• Dial your business from their laptops when browsing your website
• Get help via a client support helpdesk
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate sophisticated enterprise applications with a WP “front end”. This allows you to control your business sales and marketing, while your third-party application handles the technical aspects …

Plugins – Additional Tips

• There are lots of plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can affect your website’s performance and site loading speed. It can also create more maintenance work for you resulting from potential conflicts and errors.
• Only keep those plugins that you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize additional server resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our WP plugin reviews 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 twice before installing it on your site. The WordPress software updates often and older plugins that have not been updated can cause conflicts.
• Ensure to always maintain your plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugins not only can create errors and conflicts, they could also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making it the most downloaded CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

If there is a functionality you need for your web presence, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do what you want it to do, and that it will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that it will be fairly affordable.

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

And, if by chance this plugin is not available, then one can probably be developed for your business for a reasonable price.

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

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