Tag: What Are Plugins

One of the most powerful benefits of choosing the WordPress content publishing software is the ability to easily expand your WordPress website’s functionality using plugins.

What Are Plugins?

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

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

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

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

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

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

Almost always, if you need to expand the functionality of a web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, the cost can be significant, particularly if web developers need to add new code or edit code or install programs that integrate into your existing site.

This is also applicable when creating a website or business blog. Many organizations tend to spend money in advance on extra features and customizations they probably will never need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we recommend a sustainable approach to growing a web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As the need becomes apparent, just install new applications with a few mouse clicks directly from within your WordPress admin panel, giving your web site a whole new range of practical features and capabilities, and …

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

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

WordPress Plugins – Benefits

We started this blog post by comparing plugins with smartphone apps. Just like many apps are free to download and some may cost a little money, the same is true of plugins.

In fact, many plugins are available at no cost to WP users.

Plugins that you purchase are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when you compare the price of a Premium WordPress plugin to the price of paying for web development services to add similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress is an Open Source application, any web developer can create, rewrite and customize any part of the WP code. This has enabled many third-party web developers to create more new tools that plug seamlessly into the WordPress software than you can probably imagine.

• Plugins allow you to start off with a basic site and add new features and enhancements to your site only when required.
• Plugins allow you to add practically endless features to your site quickly, easily and cheaply.
• WP plugins give your website practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow ”non-techies” to have a web presence that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website or blog with instant new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more advanced options and may need some configuring.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you can find plugins that will do just about everything you need a site to do.

There are plugins for:

• Blog Administration
• Content Distribution
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Interactivity
• Social Connectivity
• Managing Media Files – Video, Graphics, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Tools
• Securing Your

For example, you can expand a website with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• 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.)
• User testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website 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.
• Offline storage integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business directories
• Automatically sell spots on your site
• Set client appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide post content sections
• Import content from non-WordPress platforms
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Inserting HTML and code elements into your posts
• Add and format tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Post your content automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and many others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you practically limitless business flexibility. If you plan to build a website for your business, or your existing site isn’t built with WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WP plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical uses of adding a plugin to your site.

For example, if you want to publish private content, you can install plugins to make a section of your post or page inaccessible, or create a full paid membership site with separate login details for every member …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your web presence in so many ways. From adding functionality that improve your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to analyze website data …

To extending your site’s visibility across multiple social sites and search engines …

You can also add complex functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that automate functions on your website such as customer feedback and event bookings management …

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

You can also take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that can increase visitor engagement …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site increased exposure).
• Share your posts with other online visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with your team through online forums or even set up a private social network on your site.
• Engage with your support staff using live video chats
• Call your business directly from their mobile phones while browsing your site
• Open support tickets
• And so much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated 3rd-party applications using a WP “front end”. This enables you to manage the content that your visitors see on your site, while the 3rd-party application handles the technological side of things …

Some Useful Tips About WP Plugins

• There are many plugins available. Be careful of overloading your server with too many plugins, as this will affect your website’s resources and page loading times. It also means more maintenance work for you as a consequence of possible conflicts and errors.
• Install only those plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these also utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins often come with little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium WordPress plugins, we recommend that you check around a little and understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we publish on this site 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. The WordPress core application changes on a frequent basis and older plugins that have not been updated can cause conflicts.
• Ensure to always upgrade your plugins to their most recent version. Older plugin not only can cause issues, they may also have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important aspect of WordPress and contribute to making it the most popular content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add new features to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing regarding plugins:

Whatever feature you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a WP plugin already exists that will do just what you need, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost will be reasonable.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin has not been created yet, then one can probably be coded for you for a very reasonable price.

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

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