Tag: What Are Plugins

One of the most unique advantages of using the WordPress platform is that you can easily enhance your WP web site’s functionality using applications called plugins.

About WP Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is very simple and easy to install and instantly integrates new functionality into a mobile phone.

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

A plugin is like an app. You simply install and activate a little piece of software that provides new functionality to your site …

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

Almost always, if you need to expand the functionality of an existing website, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancements, this cost can be fairly significant, especially if web developers need to add new code or modify templates or install scripts to integrate with your current set up.

This also applies when starting a new website or business blog. Business owners sometimes spend money up front on features they may never need.

For this reason, we suggest a modular approach to setting up your website and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As you need more features or functionality, add new applications with a few clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your existing web site, giving your website or blog a completely new and expanded range of features and functionality, and …

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

Well, this is exactly what a WordPress plugin enables you to do!

WordPress Plugins – Benefits

We started this blog post by comparing plugins with mobile apps. In the same way that many apps are free to download and some may cost a little bit of money, the same applies to plugins.

In fact, thousands of wonderful plugins can be downloaded and installed on your sites.

WordPress plugins that you have to buy are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are typically very inexpensive.

Also, as WordPress makes its source code publicly available, anybody can create, rewrite and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has enabled many third-party web developers to create more applications that expand the WordPress software than you can imagine.

• Plugins allow you to start simply with just a basic site and expand only if required.
• Plugins let you add almost unlimited features to any web presence quickly, easily and inexpensively.
• WordPress plugins give your web site practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow non-technical users to own a web presence that they can manage.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your site new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more advanced options and could require some initial configuration.

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

Like many WP themes, tens of thousands of plugins are currently available for WordPress users … and many of these great plugins are 100% FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WordPress plugins that can do almost anything you could think of.

WordPress plugin categories cover:

• Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Driving Web Visitors
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Website SEO

For example, you can enhance a business online presence with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Display advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonial forms
• 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.
• Media integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your site
• Set appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and email you reports
• Redirect web pages
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Exclude certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide post content
• Migrate information from non-WordPress platforms
• Perform bulk content edits
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Inserting code and code elements into your posts
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add business location maps
• Publicize your content automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and many others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you limitless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a web site for your business, or your existing web site wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let’s take a look at how you can benefit by installing an inexpensive plugin on your website.

For example, if you want to protect your content, you can use plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your page inaccessible, or create a complete paid membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to improve your web presence in so many different ways. From adding functionality that improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to review website data …

To extending your site’s visibility across many social media and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated features to your website using inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can install plugins that automate processes on your pages like displaying customer testimonials and booking events …

And even run a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying web developers to code custom applications for you …

You can also take advantage of built-in WordPress commenting features and plugins that can increase your site’s interactivity …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Share your posts with other online visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with your team using online forums or even set up a private social network on your domain.
• Engage with members of your team via live chats
• Dial your business directly from their cellphones while browsing your website
• Open support tickets
• And so much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex enterprise solutions with a WordPress “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors see on your site, while the third-party application handles the technical areas …

WordPress Plugins – Useful Information

• There are loads of WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your server with too many plugins, as this will affect your website’s performance and site loading speed. It also creates more maintenance work for you resulting from possible conflicts.
• Install only the plugins you really use. Delete all unnecessary plugins from your site, as these use extra server resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing paid plugins, make sure you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we publish here for additional helpful 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 updates often and older plugins that have not been updated can cause problems.
• Make sure that you always maintain your plugins updated. Outdated plugins not only can cause issues, they may also have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important component of WordPress and contribute to making it the most powerful, flexible and scalable online open source solution in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant features to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing about WordPress plugins:

If there is any feature or functionality you want for your web presence, you can be sure that a someone has probably already developed one that will do just what you need it to do, and that it will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost to purchase it will be reasonable.

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

And, if by any chance this WordPress plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does exactly what you need it to do can most certainly be created for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of WP plugins – what they are and how they can enhance the functionality of your business blog. See our related posts section to learn about more useful WP plugins that we recommend using.

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