Tag: Plugins

One of the main benefits of WordPress is that you can quickly increase your WP website’s functionality using inexpensive called plugins.

Understanding WordPress Plugins

No doubt, you probably have a cell phone. What happens when you would like to access something new on your device like a new software or a productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is really easy to install and integrates new features and functionality into a smart device.

(Just as you will find social sharing apps for mobile devices …)

A plugin is very much like an app. You install and activate a software that provides new functionality to your site …

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

Generally, adding new features to a site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancement, the cost can be quite significant, especially if it involves programming code.

This is also applicable to starting a website. Organizations sometimes invest money upfront for features they may not ever need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we suggest using a cost-effective approach when developing your web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a website up and running quickly, then …

2) As more features and functionality are needed, add new software modules with only a couple of clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your existing website or blog, and give your site a whole new and expanded range of useful functionality, and …

3) Cost not a single cent extra to add to your web site?

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

Benefits And Advantages Of Plugins

We began this post by comparing plugins with mobile apps. Just like many apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, the same is true with plugins.

In fact, loads of useful plugins can be installed on your websites.

WordPress plugins that you have to buy are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the cost of paying for professional web development services to add similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, since WordPress makes its code publicly available, anyone can create, rewrite and customize any portion of the code. This has allowed many third-party web developers to build more new plugins that enhance WordPress than you can possibly imagine.

• Plugins allow you to start simply with just a basic yet professional web site and add new features and enhancements to your site only when required.
• WordPress plugins let you add almost endless features to any web site quickly, easily and really cheaply.
• Plugins give you virtually endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow non-technical website owners to have a web presence that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website immediate enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more extensive features and may need some initial configuring.

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

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

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find WP plugins that will do just about anything you can imagine.

WP plugin categories cover:

• Web Site Management
• Content Management
• Web Traffic Generation
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Adding Media Files – Videos, Graphics & Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
• Improving Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Reporting Applications
• Web Site Optimization

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

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single ordering with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’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 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
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your site
• Set up appointments and appointment reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect visitors from specified pages to other pages on your site or other sites
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• 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
• Import content from different publishing platforms
• Search and replace data
• Block SPAM
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Inserting HTML and script elements into your pages
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add location maps
• Post your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and many others
• Display countdown timers (for scarcity offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you practically endless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a website, or your existing website was not built with WordPress, then consider getting a WP site or blog built on your domain, or you could be missing out on some serious features.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WordPress plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of adding an inexpensive plugin to your site.

For example, if you want to protect your content, you can use plugins to make an area of a post or page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete paid membership site with customized login details for users …

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

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

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that integrate and automate functions on your website like displaying customer testimonials and booking events …

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

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

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on social media.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with your team using forums or even set up a private social network on your site.
• Engage with your staff through live chats
• Dial your business directly from their cellphones when visiting your website
• Get help and support via a client support helpdesk
• And so much more …

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

Some Useful Things To Know About Plugins

• There are so many great WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will begin to affect your site’s resources and page loading speed. It can also create more maintenance issues for you resulting from potential conflicts and errors.
• Only keep the plugins that you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing premium WordPress plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we publish here for additional helpful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before using it on your website or blog. WordPress updates regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can cause problems.
• Make sure to always maintain your plugins upgraded to their most recent version. Outdated plugins not only can create issues, they may also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important component of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most downloaded online publishing platform available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant features to their web presence without having to spend thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing on the subject of plugins:

Whatever feature you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already created one that will do what you want it to do, 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 this plugin has not been created yet, then one can most certainly be coded for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can help expand your web site. See our published posts to learn about more popular WP plugins that we recommend using.

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