Tag: What Are Plugins

One of the most unique benefits of building an online presence with the WordPress platform is that you can quickly enhance your WordPress website’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding WP Plugins

Like most of us, you probably use a cell phone. What happens when you want access to something new on your phone like a new application, software or productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is very easy to install and adds new features and functionality to a smart device.

(Just as you will find social sharing apps for mobile devices …)

A WP plugin is similar to an app. You simply install a little software application that adds new functionality to your web site …

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

Generally, if you need to expand the functionality of a web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancements, things can become quite expensive, particularly if it requires website development.

This is also applicable when developing a new website or business blog. Organizations tend to fork out money for extra bells and whistles they probably will never need.

To save money and keep your business expenses to a minimum, we suggest a cost-effective approach when setting up a web site and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply with minimal expense involved. Get your web site up and running quickly, then …

2) As the need becomes apparent, you can add new software modules with just a few mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your current website and blog, giving your website a completely new range of practical features and capabilities, and …

3) Cost not a single dollar extra to download and install on your website?

Well, that’s exactly what a WP plugin allows you to do!

Benefits Of Using Plugins

I began this blog post by comparing WordPress plugins with ’apps’. Just like many apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, so do WordPress plugins.

In fact, loads of useful plugins can be downloaded and installed on your sites.

WP plugins that you buy are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the cost of investing in web development services to get similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress is an Open Source application, anybody can create, edit and customize any portion of the code. This has allowed thousands of third-party web development companies to create more new applications that expand WordPress than you can possibly imagine.

• WP plugins allow you to get started with only a basic web presence and expand only as required.
• WordPress plugins let you add almost endless functionality to your web site quickly and quite cheaply.
• Plugins give your web site almost unlimited expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow non-technical website owners to own a website that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website instant new capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins are slightly more advanced and may require some configuration.

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

Like WordPress themes, loads of great plugins are available for WordPress users … for FREE!

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find plugins that will do just about everything you want done.

There are WordPress plugins for:

• Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Uploading Media Files – Video, Graphics & Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Securing Your

You can enhance a website with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• 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 site’s content from English to Spanish)
• 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
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your site
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content
• Import information from different CMS platforms
• Search and replace content
• Fight SPAM
• Customize visitor commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Insert scripts and code elements into your site’s header or footer
• Add tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search results
• Add a map of your business location
• Publish your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and many others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you limitless business scalability. If you plan to build a website for your business, or your existing website wasn’t built using WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of installing an inexpensive plugin on your web site.

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

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

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

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your website such as user testimonial and event registrations management …

And also 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 design similar applications for you …

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

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Share your content with other online users on social media.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with other online users using forums or even set up an online community on your own domain.
• Engage with members of your team through live chats
• Dial your business directly from their devices while visiting your site
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

You can even integrate complex enterprise-level solutions with a WordPress “front end”. This allows you to manage your business marketing, while the third-party application handles the technological aspects …

WP Plugins – Some Useful Tips

• There are many plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your server with too many plugins, as this will invariably start to affect your website’s resources and page loading times. It also means more maintenance work for you as a result of possible errors.
• Only keep the plugins that you really plan to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these also use resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid WordPress plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the 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 more information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think twice before using it on your site. WordPress is updated often and outdated WordPress plugins can cause conflicts.
• Ensure that you always maintain all plugins updated. Outdated plugins not only can cause issues, they could also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most used content management system available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

If there is a feature you need for your web site, you can be sure that a WP plugin currently exists that will do what you need, and that it can either be downloaded at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be reasonably affordable.

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

And, if by chance such a WP plugin does not exist, then one can probably be developed for you at a reasonable cost.

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

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