Tag: Plugins

One of the most powerful benefits of using the WordPress content management software is the ability to easily enhance your WP web site’s functionality using inexpensive called plugins.

What Are Plugins?

Like most of us, you probably have a device like a smart phone. What do you do when you want access to 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 really easy to install and instantly adds new features and functionality to a smart phone.

(Just as you can find social sharing apps for smart phones …)

A plugin is very much like an app. You install a software application that provides new functionality to your WP website …

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

Normally, adding a new feature to an existing web site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancements, this could get fairly expensive, especially if web developers have to create new code or edit programs or develop programs that integrate with your current site.

This also applies when developing a website. Companies will often invest money in advance in components they probably will never need.

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

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a basic, professional web site up and running fast, then …

2) As the need for new capabilities becomes evident, add new software modules with a few clicks of the mouse directly from your admin panel, giving your site a whole new range of possibilities, and …

3) Cost not one dollar extra to download and install on your web site?

Well, that’s exactly what a plugin enables you to do!

Benefits Of WordPress Plugins

I began this blog post by comparing WordPress plugins with ’apps’. In a similar way that many apps are free to download and some cost a little bit of money, so do plugins.

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

WordPress plugins that you purchase are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the price of paying for professional web development services to get similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress makes its source code available to everyone, any web developer can create, modify and customize any part of the code. This has enabled many professional software development companies to enhance and contribute to the WPsoftware.

• WordPress plugins allow you to start off simply with a simple yet professional online business presence and then expand as required.
• Plugins let you add practically endless features to any site quickly and very inexpensively.
• Plugins give your website virtually endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow anyone to own a site that they can manage.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website or blog with instant new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more advanced options and may require some configuring.

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

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

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find plugins that will do just about everything you need a web site to do.

WP plugin categories cover:

• User Management
• Content Syndication
• Increasing Site Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Sharing
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Web Site Security

For example, you can enhance your WP site with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• 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
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your blog
• Set client appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and email you reports
• Redirect web pages
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Exclude certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Import content from other CMS applications
• Perform bulk content edits
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. display Facebook discussions)
• Insert HTML and code elements into your posts and pages
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add a map of your business location
• Post your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you virtually endless business flexibility. If you are currently planning to build a website for your business, or your existing web site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

If you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let’s take a look at how you can benefit by installing a plugin on your website.

For example, if you need content protection, you can use plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a post or page inaccessible, or create a complete paid membership site with customized login details for every member …

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to improve your website in lots of ways. From installing new features that enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

To extending your site’s reach across social media and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your website using inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your site like managing customer testimonials and event bookings …

And also run a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying programmers to code similar applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WordPress commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site added exposure).
• Share your content with other online visitors on social networking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with your team using online forums or even set up a private online community on your domain.
• Engage with members of your team through live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Call your business from their devices while visiting your site
• Get help and support via a customer support helpdesk
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex enterprise-level solutions using a WordPress “front end”. This enables you to manage your business sales and marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical side of things …

Some Useful Information About WordPress Plugins

• There are lots of plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can affect your website’s resources and site loading speed. It also creates more maintenance issues for you as a result of possible errors.
• Only keep the plugins you really need. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium plugins, make sure you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our WordPress plugin recommendations for more helpful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before using it. The WordPress core software updates often and older plugins that have not been updated can cause problems.
• Always keep your plugins upgraded to the latest version. Older plugins not only can cause conflicts, they may also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making it the most powerful, flexible and scalable digital content open source tool in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand without having to spend thousands of dollars on web development.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you want for your web presence, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already authored one that will do exactly what you need, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be fairly inexpensive.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin has not been created yet, then it can probably be developed for your business at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can significantly expand your WP website. See our published posts to learn about more great WP plugins that we recommend using.

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