Tag: What Are Plugins

One of the most useful features of the WordPress software is that you can quickly and easily enhance your WordPress website’s functionality using inexpensive (and often completely free) software called plugins.

About WP Plugins

No doubt, you probably own a device like a mobile phone. What happens when you want to access something new on your device like a new application, game or business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a software application that is simple and easy to install and instantly integrates new features into your smart phone.

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

A plugin is really similar to an app. You install and activate a software that adds new functionality to your WordPress website …

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

Typically, if you decide to add a new feature to your website, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancements, this could get quite expensive, particularly if web developers have to create new code or modify templates or install scripts to integrate with your existing set up.

This is also applicable when developing a website or business blog. Businesses tend to invest money in added components they may not ever need.

To reduce expenses, we recommend a sustainable approach when setting up your web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a professional web presence up and running fast, then …

2) As more features become necessary, you can install new applications with a few clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your existing website, and give your website or blog an entirely new range of useful features, and …

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

Well, this is exactly what plugins let you do!

Benefits & Advantages Of Using WordPress Plugins

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

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

Plugins that you have to buy are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the cost of paying for professional web development services to get similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins are priced quite low.

Also, since WordPress makes its source code publicly available, any person can create, modify and customize any part of the WP code. This has allowed thousands of third-party web development companies to create more tools that add new features to the WordPress application than you can imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started simply with a simple web site and then expand if necessary.
• Plugins let you add almost unlimited functionality to any web site quickly, easily and inexpensively.
• Plugins give your site practically endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow non-technical website owners to own a website that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your website or blog with new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more advanced features and require some initial configuring.

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

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

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find WordPress plugins that will do almost everything you could think of.

Plugin categories cover:

• Website Management
• Content Syndication
• Traffic
• User Engagement
• Social Connectivity
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Tools
• Blog SEO

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

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• 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 your website’s content from English to Italian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage management
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your blog
• Set client appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect visitors from specified pages to other areas on your site or other sites
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Hide specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your posts and pages
• Import content from non-WP applications
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert scripts and code elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add and format tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search results
• Add a map
• Syndicate your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you practically limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website or blog for your business, or your existing website isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting one in the future, or you will be missing out on some serious functionality.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at some practical uses of installing an inexpensive plugin on your site.

For example, if you need to publish private content, you can install plugins to make a section of a page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete membership site with separate login details for all users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your web site in so many ways. From adding new features that enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to review site metrics …

To extending your business visibility across social media 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 automate features on your website like managing customer testimonials and event registration details …

And also run a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying programmers to code the same applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage in various ways with web visitors, clients and registered site users …

For example, your web visitors can:

• Post 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 shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Share your content with other online visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with other customers through forums or even set up an online social network on your domain.
• Engage with your support staff through live video chats
• Dial your business from their mobile phones while visiting your site
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex “back end” applications with a WP “front end”. This enables you to manage the content that your visitors will see on your website, while your third-party application handles the technical side of things …

Plugins – Useful Things To Know

• There are so many terrific plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this will invariably affect your website’s resources and site loading speed. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you as a result of possible conflicts and errors.
• Install only the plugins that you really plan to use. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these also use resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid WP plugins, make sure you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WP plugin reviews for additional helpful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before using it. WordPress changes often and older plugins that have not been updated can create conflicts.
• Always upgrade your plugins to the most recent version. Outdated plugin not only can cause errors, they may also have security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most used CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant features to their website without spending thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing regarding plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you want for your web site, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already developed one that will do what you want it to do, and that this plugin can either be downloaded at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be fairly inexpensive.

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

And, if by any chance this WP plugin does not exist, then it can probably be created for you for a reasonable price.

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

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