Tag: What Are Plugins

One of the main benefits of using the WordPress platform is the ability to easily enhance your WP web site’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

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

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

A WP plugin is similar to an app. You simply install and activate a little piece of software that provides new functionality to your WP website or blog …

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

Normally, if you need to add new features to an existing website, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancements, this cost can be quite significant, especially if website developers have to create new code or modify code or develop scripts to integrate into your current set up.

This is also applicable when developing a new website or business blog. Business owners will often invest in additional components they may simply not need.

To reduce unnecessary expenses, we suggest using a cost-effective strategy to growing your digital presence presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As more features and functionality become necessary, add new software modules with a few mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your current website and blog, and give your website or blog a whole new range of features and functionality, and also …

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

Well, that’s precisely what WordPress plugins let you do!

WordPress Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared plugins with ’apps’. In a similar way that many apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, the same is true of plugins.

In fact, many great plugins are freely available for users.

WP plugins that you buy are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to get similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, since WordPress makes its code publicly available, any web developer can create, edit and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled many third-party web development professionals to enhance the WordPresssoftware.

• WordPress plugins let you get started with only a basic online business presence and expand if necessary.
• WP plugins allow you to add almost endless features to any web site easily, quickly and cheaply.
• Plugins give your digital business presence practically endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow business owners to have a web presence that they can manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website with immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be a little more complex and could require some initial configuration.

WordPress Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Many Are) 100% FREE!

Like many WordPress themes, thousands of great WordPress plugins are available for WP users … often at no cost!

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

As previously mentioned, you will find WP plugins that can do just about anything you can possibly want a website to do.

There are WordPress plugins for:

• Blog Administration
• Content Syndication
• Increasing Web Visitors
• User Interactivity
• Social Connectivity
• Managing Media Files – Video, Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales & Marketing Automation
• Increasing Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting
• WordPress Security

You can enhance a business online presence with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Display ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your site 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.
• Offline storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your website
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Hide specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide post content sections
• Migrate content from other publishing applications
• Search and replace data
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Inserting HTML and script elements into your posts
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add business location maps
• Syndicate your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and many others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you practically limitless possibilities. If you are planning to build a website for your business, or your existing website wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting a WordPress site or blog in the future, or you will be missing out on some serious functionality.

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

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can install plugins to make an area of a post or page inaccessible, or create a complete membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your business site in lots of ways. From installing features that can improve your business, your visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

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

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your website using relatively inexpensive paid WordPress plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that integrate and automate features on your website such as managing customer testimonials and event bookings …

And even run a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring web developers to create similar applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that will increase your site’s interactivity …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• 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 your visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site added exposure).
• Share your posts with other online users on social media.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with your team members via online forums or even set up a private social network on your own site.
• Engage with your team using live chats
• Call your business from their laptops while browsing your pages
• Get help and support via a user help desk
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated 3rd-party solutions using a WP “front end”. This enables you to manage your business marketing, while your 3rd-party application handles the technological aspects …

WP Plugins – Some Useful Things You Should Know

• There are many plugins available. Be careful not to overload your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will inevitably affect your site’s performance and page loading speed. It also means more maintenance work for you as a consequence of possible conflicts.
• Install only those plugins you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins often come with little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium plugins, we recommend that you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WordPress plugin recommendations for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think twice before using it. WordPress changes regularly and older WordPress plugins can create issues.
• Make sure that you always update your plugins. Older plugins not only can create errors, they may also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making it the most used web publishing platform available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing regarding plugins:

If there is a functionality you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a WP plugin already exists that will do just what you need it to do, and that this plugin will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost will be minimal.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin is not available, then one can most certainly be developed for you for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can significantly expand your web site. See our related posts section to learn about more useful plugins that we recommend using.

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