Tag: What Are Plugins

One of the main advantages of choosing WordPress is the ability to quickly and easily expand your WordPress website’s functionality using inexpensive (and often free) applications called ’plugins’.

What Are Plugins?

Like most people, you probably have a smart phone. What do you do when you want to access something new on your device like a new game or a business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is easy to install and integrates new features into your mobile device.

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

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

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

Normally, adding a new feature to your web site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, this could get fairly expensive, particularly if it requires modifying code.

This also applies to creating a new website or business blog. Organizations will often invest in components they may not need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we recommend using a sustainable strategy to developing a web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal expense involved. Get a professional-looking web presence up and running quickly, then …

2) As the need arises, add new software modules with just a couple of mouse clicks that integrate with your website, giving your website a whole new and expanded range of practical functionality, and …

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

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

Benefits Of WP Plugins

Earlier, we compared WordPress plugins with apps. In the same way that many apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, the same applies with plugins.

In fact, loads of powerful plugins can be installed and activated on your sites.

Plugins that you have to buy are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are generally quite inexpensive.

Also, as WordPress makes its code available to everyone, any person can create, rewrite and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has enabled thousands of third-party web development companies to enhance the core software application.

• Plugins let you start off with just a simple web site and then add new features and enhancements to your site only if necessary.
• WP plugins let you add almost unlimited functionality to any online business presence quickly and really cheaply.
• Plugins give your site practically endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow non-technical website owners to have a site that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website with new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more advanced options and require some initial configuring.

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

Just like WP themes, thousands of great WordPress plugins are available for WP users … for FREE!

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find plugins that can do just about everything you could imagine.

Plugin categories cover:

• Blog Management
• Content Distribution
• Increasing Web Traffic
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Engagement
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Monitoring & Reporting
• Blog SEO

You can expand your business online presence with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonial forms
• Instant language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to Norwegian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your blog
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect visitors from missing pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Hide certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Migrate information from different CMS applications
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Inserting HTML and code elements into your content
• Add tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Publicize your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a web site for your business, or your existing web site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting one in the future, or you could be missing out on some serious features.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let me show you how you can benefit by adding a plugin to your website.

For example, if you want content protection, you can install plugins to make an area of your post inaccessible, or create a complete paid membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to improve your web presence in lots of ways. From installing features that enhance your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to analyze visitor data …

To extending your business reach and visibility across various social networks and search engines …

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

And even run a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to code custom functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that can let you engage in various ways with your visitors, customers and registered site members …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Bookmark your content on social media.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with your staff through online forums or even set up a private community on your domain.
• Engage with members of your team through live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Dial your business from their cellphones while visiting your website
• Get help via a dedicated customer support helpdesk
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex enterprise-level solutions within a WP “front end”. This allows you to manage your business sales and marketing, while the third-party application handles the technological aspects …

WP Plugins – Additional Tips

• There are lots of plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will begin to affect your website’s resources and page loading times. It also creates more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of potential errors.
• Install only those plugins you really use. Delete any plugins from your site, as these use extra resources.
• Many free plugins often receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid WP plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of our WordPress plugin reviews for additional useful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it. The WordPress core application changes regularly and older WordPress plugins can create problems.
• Make sure that you always maintain all plugins updated to their most recent software version. Older plugins not only can create problems, they may also have 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 WordPress the most powerful, flexible and scalable web publishing tool available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant functionality to their web presence without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development.

One last thing regarding plugins:

If there is a feature you need for your website, you can guarantee that a WP plugin currently exists that will do what you need it to do, and that it can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be surprisingly inexpensive.

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

And, if by any chance this WordPress plugin has not been created yet, then one can probably be written for you at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WP plugins – what they are and how they can help improve your business blog. See our published posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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