Tag: What Are Plugins

One of the main benefits of using the WordPress platform is that you can easily enhance your WP website’s functionality using plugins.

What Are WP Plugins?

Like most of us, you most likely use a device like a smart phone. What happens when you want access to something new on your phone like a new game or a new productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a software application that is simple and easy to install and immediately adds new features to any mobile device.

(Just like there are social sharing apps for smart phones …)

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

(… you can also find social sharing plugins for WordPress sites!)

Almost always, expanding the functionality of your website involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the features or enhancements are, this can become quite expensive, particularly if it involves website development.

This also applies to starting a new website. Businesses sometimes pay for bells and whistles they may not need.

To minimize business costs, we suggest a sustainable approach to developing a web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply with minimal cost involved. Get a basic, professional business website up and running fast, then …

2) As you need more features, you can install new applications with only a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from within your WP admin area, to give your web site a completely new and expanded range of possibilities, and …

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

Well, this is precisely what plugins allow you to do!

Benefits Of Using WP Plugins

I started this post by comparing WP plugins with mobile apps. In the same way that many apps are free to download and some may cost a little money, so do WordPress plugins.

In fact, many plugins can be installed on your websites.

Plugins that cost money are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of paying for web development services to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress makes its source code publicly available, anybody can create, rewrite and customize any part of the code. This has allowed thousands of professional web developers to enhance the core software application.

• Plugins allow you to start off with only a basic site and expand when required.
• Plugins let you add practically unlimited functionality to any web presence easily and really inexpensively.
• WP plugins give you virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow non-technical users to have a website 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 capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more extensive options and require some initial configuring.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you will find plugins that will do just about anything you need done.

WordPress plugin categories cover:

• Web Site Administration
• Content Distribution
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Interactivity
• Social Media
• Uploading Media – Videocasts, Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales And Marketing Automation
• Increasing Sales And Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis Applications
• Web Site Optimization

You can add features to your website with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Display advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonial forms
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your site from English to Italian)
• 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 integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell spots on your website
• Set client appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect users from certain pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor social conversations
• 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.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Import content from non-WordPress platforms
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Inserting scripts and code elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add a map
• Post your content automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you practically endless business scalability. If you plan to build a web site for your business, or your existing web site isn’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 just how powerful and flexible WP plugins are, let me show you how you can benefit instantly by simply adding a plugin to your website.

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

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to improve your web site in so many ways. From adding features that enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

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

You can also add advanced features to your website using relatively inexpensive premium WP plugins. For example, you can install plugins that automate features on your website such as customer testimonial and event registrations management …

And even set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying web developers to create similar functionality for you …

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

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on social networks.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with your team through online forums or even set up a private online social network on your own site.
• Engage with your support staff using live video chats
• Dial your business from their laptops while browsing your website
• Get help and support via a client support helpdesk
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate complex “back end” applications with a WP “front end”. This allows you to control the content that your visitors will see on your site, while your 3rd-party application handles the technological functions …

Additional Information About WordPress Plugins

• There are loads of amazing plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your server with too many plugins, as this will begin to affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It also creates more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible errors.
• Install only those plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing premium WP plugins, make sure you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we provide here for more expert 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. WordPress is updated regularly and older WordPress plugins can create errors.
• Always update your plugins to their most recent version. Outdated plugins not only can cause problems, they could also have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making it the most powerful, flexible and scalable CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand without spending thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing about WordPress plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you want for your web site, you can guarantee that a plugin probably exists that will do what you want it to do, and that it can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that it will be surprisingly inexpensive.

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

And, if by chance this plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does exactly what you would like it to do can most certainly be coded for you at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can significantly enhance the functionality of your web site. See our related posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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