Tag: Plugins

One of the most unique advantages of using WordPress is that you can easily increase your WP website or blog’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding WordPress Plugins

Like most people, you probably use a cell phone. What happens when you want to access something new on your phone like a new application, game or business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a software that is easy to install and adds new features to a smart device.

(Just as you will find social sharing apps …)

A plugin is very similar to an app. You simply install and activate a little software application that adds new functionality to your WP website …

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

Almost always, adding a new feature to an existing web site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the features or enhancements are, the cost can be quite significant, particularly if website developers have to add new code or edit templates or install programs that integrate with your current set up.

This is also applicable when developing a new website or business blog. Businesses tend to invest money in added features they probably will never need.

To reduce unnecessary expenses, we suggest considering a modular approach when growing a web presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As you need new features or functionality, you can add new applications with a few clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your existing website and blog, and give your website or blog a completely new and expanded range of possibilities, and also …

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

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

WordPress Plugins – Benefits & Advantages

I started this article by comparing 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, thousands of great plugins can be downloaded and installed on your sites.

WP plugins that cost money are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of investing in professional web development services to get similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are generally quite inexpensive.

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

• Plugins allow you to get started simply with a basic yet professional website and add new features and enhancements to your site only when required.
• Plugins allow you to add almost unlimited functionality to any site quickly and really cheaply.
• Plugins give you almost endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow anyone to have a site that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be slightly more complex and require some initial configuration.

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

Just like themes, thousands of great plugins are available to WP users … often at $0 cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find plugins that will do just about anything you could think of.

Plugin categories cover:

• User Management
• Content Distribution
• Driving Web Visitors
• User Engagement
• Social Media
• Media Management Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis
• Web Site SEO

For example, you can add features to a WordPress site with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Spanish)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell spots on your website
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide post content sections
• Migrate content from other CMS platforms
• Search and replace content
• Fight SPAM
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. display Facebook discussions)
• Insert code and code elements into your posts and pages
• Add tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Add 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
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you practically endless possibilities. If you plan to build a web site, or your existing web site was not built with WordPress, then consider getting one added to your domain, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let me show you how you can benefit by simply 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 a section of your post or page inaccessible, or create a professional paid membership site with personal login details for all users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to improve your website in so many ways. From installing new features that will improve your business, your site’s user experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

To increasing your site’s visibility across social media and search engines …

You can also add complex features to your site using relatively inexpensive premium WP plugins. For example, you can download plugins that automate processes on your pages like managing customer testimonials and event registration details …

And also set up a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to code custom functionality for you …

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

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with your team members through forums or even set up a private online social network on your site.
• Engage with your team using live video chats
• Call your business from their mobile phones while browsing your website
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex third-party applications within a WordPress “front end”. This lets you control your business marketing, while your 3rd-party application handles the technical side of things …

Plugins – Some Useful Tips

• There are lots of great WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this can affect your site’s performance and site loading speed. It also means more maintenance work for you as a consequence of potential conflicts.
• Only keep the plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these use additional server resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium plugins, make sure you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we provide on this site for more expert information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it on your site. The WordPress core application updates regularly and out-of-date WP plugins can create errors.
• Always maintain all plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugins not only can create errors and conflicts, they may also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most popular content management system available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing about plugins:

If there is any feature you need for your website, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already developed one that will do what you need it to do, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost to buy it will be quite affordable.

(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 exactly what you want it to do can most certainly be coded for you at a reasonable cost.

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

***

***