Tag: Plugins

One of the most powerful features of the WordPress platform is that you can quickly and easily expand your WP web site’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding WordPress Plugins

No doubt, you most likely own a mobile phone. What do you do when you would like to access something new on your phone like a new application, game or tool?

You download and install an app!

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

(Just like you can find social sharing apps for smart devices …)

A WP plugin is quite similar to an app. You install a little software application that adds new functionality to your WordPress website …

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

Generally, if you want to add new features to an already-built site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancements, things can get quite expensive, especially if web developers have to add new code or edit templates or develop programs that integrate into your existing site.

This is also applicable to starting a new web site. Business owners tend to spend upfront on bells and whistles they may not ever need.

For this reason, we suggest using a sustainable approach when growing your web presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal expense involved. Get your business website up and running quickly, then …

2) As more features are required, simply install new applications with a few clicks of the mouse that integrate with your current web site, to give your site a completely new range of features and functionality, and also …

3) Cost not one cent more to download and install on your site?

Well, this is just what plugins let you do!

Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared WP plugins with ’apps’. Just like some apps are free to download and some may cost a little bit of money, so do plugins.

In fact, many plugins can be installed and activated on your websites.

WordPress plugins that you have to pay for are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of paying for web development services to add the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are typically very inexpensive.

Also, because WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anyone can create, edit and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has enabled thousands of third-party software development professionals to build more new plugins that work seamlessly with the WordPress software than you can imagine.

• Plugins let you start off simply with just a basic web presence and expand if necessary.
• WordPress plugins let you add practically endless features to any website quickly and really cheaply.
• WP plugins give your website almost endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow non-technical website owners to have a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your site instant new capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins provide more advanced features and require some initial configuring.

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

Like many WordPress themes, thousands of plugins are available for WordPress users … often at no cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find WordPress plugins that can do almost everything you could imagine.

Plugin categories cover:

• User Administration
• Content Syndication
• Web Traffic Generation
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Monitoring
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Analysis Applications
• Site Optimization

You can expand your business online presence with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Automatic language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content 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
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your blog
• Set appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and email you reports
• Redirect visitors from specific pages to other areas on your site or other sites
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Hide pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Migrate content from non-WP platforms
• Perform bulk content edits
• Block SPAM
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Insert HTML and code elements into your content
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced font display formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add a map
• Post your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you practically endless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a web site for your business, or your existing site was not built using WordPress, then consider choosing it in the future.

If you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of adding an inexpensive plugin to your web site.

For example, if you want 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 post inaccessible, or create a complete paid membership site with personal login details for all users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to enhance your website in lots of ways. From installing features that improve your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to review visitor data …

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

You can also add advanced functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your website such as customer feedback and event bookings management …

And even set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to code these applications for you …

You can also take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that will let you engage more with visitors, clients and registered site users …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with additional exposure).
• Share your content with other online visitors on social networks.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with other users via forums or even set up an online social network on your own domain.
• Engage with members of your team through live video chats
• Call your business directly from their laptops when browsing your pages
• Get help and support via a dedicated customer support helpdesk
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate complex third-party applications with a WordPress “front end”. This allows you to manage your business sales and marketing, while your 3rd-party application handles the technical side of things …

Some Useful Things To Know About WordPress Plugins

• There are many WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will affect your website’s resources and site loading times. It also creates more maintenance work for you resulting from possible errors.
• Only keep the plugins you really need. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these use additional server resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to understand 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 provide on this site for additional information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before installing it. WordPress is updated on a frequent basis and older plugins that have not been updated can create errors.
• Always upgrade your plugins to the most recent software version. Older plugins not only can create errors, they may also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most popular CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant functionality to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing on the topic of WordPress plugins:

Whatever feature you want for your web presence, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already created one that will do what you want, and that this plugin can either be accessed for FREE, 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 any chance such a plugin does not exist, then it can probably be created for your business for a very reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can enhance the functionality of your blog. See our published posts to learn about more great WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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