Tag: What Are Plugins

One of the most unique benefits of the WordPress software is the ability to easily expand your WordPress web site’s functionality using plugins.

What Are WP Plugins?

No doubt, you most likely use a device like a cell phone. What happens when you want access to something new on your phone like a new game or productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

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

(Just as you can find social sharing apps …)

A plugin is very much like an app. You download and install an application that provides new functionality to your WordPress website …

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

Generally, adding new features to an existing site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancement, this cost can be significant, especially if it requires modifying code.

This is also applicable to developing a new website. Business owners tend to invest money upfront for added components they may not need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we suggest a sustainable strategy when setting up a web site and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get your web site up and running quickly, then …

2) As the need arises, just add new software modules with just a few mouse clicks directly from within your WP admin area, giving your web site a whole new and expanded range of possibilities, and …

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

Well, this is just what WordPress plugins let you do!

WordPress Plugins – Benefits & Advantages

We began this article by comparing plugins with smartphone apps. In a similar way that some apps are free to download and some may cost a little bit of money, the same applies with WP plugins.

In fact, thousands of fantastic plugins are available at no cost to WordPress users.

Plugins that you purchase are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the cost of investing in web development services to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are generally quite inexpensive.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, any person can create, modify and customize any part of the code. This has allowed thousands of professional web developers to enhance the core software application.

• WP plugins allow you to get started with a simple web site and add new features and enhancements to your site as required.
• Plugins allow you to add almost endless features to your site easily and inexpensively.
• WordPress plugins give your website practically endless expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow anyone to own a digital presence that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your web site instant new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins are slightly more complex and may require some configuring.

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

Like themes, tens of thousands of plugins are available to WP users … for FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WP plugins that will do just about anything you want done.

Plugin categories cover:

• Site Administration
• Content Management
• Traffic
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Media
• Media Management Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Tools
• Optimizing Your WordPress Website

You can expand your website with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Rotating advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to German)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your website
• Set appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide post content
• Migrate information from non-WordPress applications
• Search and replace content
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Insert scripts and script elements into your posts and pages
• Add tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Post your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and others
• Display 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 virtually endless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a web site, or your existing site was not built using WordPress, then consider using it in the future.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical uses of installing a plugin on your web site.

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

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to improve your website in lots of ways. From adding functionality that will improve your business, your visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

To extending your business visibility across a number of social sites and search engines …

You can also add complex functionality to your site using inexpensive paid WordPress plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that integrate and automate features on your website like user testimonial and event registrations management …

And also run a complete bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to create these applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage better with your web visitors, customers and registered site users …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with your team members using online forums or even set up a private community on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team using live web conferencing and chatrooms
• Call your business directly from their smart phones while browsing your website
• Get help and support via a dedicated customer support helpdesk
• And so much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated 3rd-party applications with a WordPress “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors see on your web site, while the third-party application handles the technological areas …

Additional Tips About WP Plugins

• There are many WordPress plugins available. Be careful not to overload your server with too many plugins, as this will affect your website’s resources and site loading speed. It can also mean more maintenance work for you resulting from possible conflicts.
• Only keep the plugins you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these use additional resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid plugins, make sure you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we provide on this site for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think carefully before using it on your site. WordPress changes often and out-of-date WP plugins can cause problems.
• Make sure to always upgrade your plugins. Outdated plugin not only can cause conflicts, they could also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, plugins are an integral 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 expand without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing about plugins:

Whatever functionality you want for your website, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already developed one that will do just what you need it to do, and that this plugin can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost will be quite affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this WP plugin is not available, then it can probably be written for your business for a very reasonable price.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can to improve your business blog. See our published posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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