Tag: Plugins

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

What Are Plugins?

No doubt, you probably own a device like a smart phone. What happens when you want to access something new on your phone like a new game or productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software that is easy to install and immediately integrates new functionality into any smart device.

(Just as you can find social sharing apps …)

A WordPress plugin is similar to an app. You simply install a software application that provides new functionality to your website …

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

Almost always, adding new features to an existing site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancements, the cost can be quite significant, especially if it involves modifying code.

This also applies to creating a new website or business blog. Organizations tend to invest money in advance in features they probably will never need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we suggest considering a modular approach to developing a website and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine if you could:

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

2) As the need becomes evident, add new applications with a few clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your current website or blog, and give your website or blog a completely new and expanded range of useful functionality, and also …

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

Well, this is exactly what a WP plugin allows you to do!

WP Plugins – Benefits & Advantages

We began this post by comparing plugins with ’apps’. In a similar way that some apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, so do WP plugins.

In fact, many plugins can be downloaded and installed on your sites.

Plugins that cost money are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of paying for web development services to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, any person can create, edit and customize any part of the WP code. This has allowed thousands of professional web development companies to build more tools that expand WordPress than you can possibly imagine.

• Plugins allow you to start off simply with just a simple website and then add new features and enhancements to your site only as necessary.
• WP plugins allow you to add practically unlimited features to your site easily and inexpensively.
• Plugins give you practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow ”non-techies” to have a site that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website or blog immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more advanced options and may require some configuring.

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

Like WP themes, loads of WordPress plugins are available to WordPress users … and many of these great plugins are 100% FREE!

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

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

There are plugins for:

• Web Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Driving Site Visitors
• User Interactivity
• Social Sharing
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Securing Your

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

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website from English to Spanish)
• 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 & bookings
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your site
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect website pages
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Exclude pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your pages and posts
• Import data from different publishing applications
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Inserting HTML and script elements into your posts, pages and sidebars
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add business location maps
• Publicize your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you plan to build a web site, or your existing site isn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting a WP site or blog built on your domain, or you will be missing out on some serious features.

If you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let me show you how you can benefit by simply installing a plugin on your site.

For example, if you want content protection, you can use plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with personal login details for users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to enhance your site in so many ways. From adding new features that can improve your business, your visitors’ experience and your ability to analyze site data …

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

You can also add sophisticated features to your website using inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that automate functions on your pages like managing customer testimonials and booking events …

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

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will let you engage even more with web visitors, customers and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site increased exposure).
• Share your posts with other online users on social networking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other customers via online forums or even set up a private online social network on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team through live chats
• Call your business from their devices while visiting your pages
• Open support tickets
• And so much more …

Finally you, can even integrate sophisticated 3rd-party solutions using a WordPress “front end”. This lets you control the content that your visitors see on your web site, while the third-party application handles the technological side of things …

Some Useful Things To Know About WordPress Plugins

• There are many terrific plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will begin to affect your site’s performance and page loading speed. It can also create more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of possible conflicts.
• Install only the plugins you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When considering premium WordPress plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check our WP plugin recommendations for additional expert information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think twice before using it on your site. WordPress changes on a regular basis and older plugins that have not been updated can create problems.
• Always update your plugins to their most recent software version. Outdated plugin not only can create errors, they may also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most powerful, flexible and scalable 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 development.

One last thing about plugins:

Whatever feature you need for your website, you can be sure that a plugin probably exists that will do what you need, and that it will either be available at no cost, 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 chance such a WP plugin does not exist, then one can probably be developed for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can significantly to improve your business blog. See our related posts to learn about more useful plugins that we recommend using.

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