Tag: What Are WordPress Plugins

One of the most unique advantages of building a digital presence with WordPress is that you can quickly and easily increase your WordPress web site’s functionality using inexpensive called ’plugins’.

Understanding Plugins

Like most of us, you probably use a mobile phone. What do you do when you want to access something new on your phone like a new application, game or a new tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

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

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

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

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

Typically, expanding the functionality of a site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancements, things could become quite expensive, particularly if it requires website development.

This also applies to setting up a new website or business blog. Organizations tend to fork out money on features and customizations they probably will never need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we recommend using a sustainable approach to developing your website and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As new features or functionality are needed, add new applications with a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from within your admin area, to give your website an entirely new range of features and functionality, and …

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

Well, that’s precisely what plugins allow you to do!

Benefits And Advantages Of Plugins

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

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

Plugins that cost money are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to add similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are priced quite low.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anybody can create, edit and customize any portion of the code. This has allowed thousands of third-party web developers to enhance the core software application.

• Plugins let you start off simply with a basic web site and add new features and enhancements to your site as necessary.
• Plugins allow you to add practically endless functionality to any website quickly, easily and really cheaply.
• WP plugins give your site virtually endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow non-technical users to have a site that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be slightly more complex and may require some configuration.

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

Like many WordPress themes, thousands of great WP plugins are available to 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 WP plugins that will do just about everything you need your site to do.

WordPress plugin categories cover:

• Website Management
• Content Distribution
• Driving Web Traffic
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Engagement
• Media Utilities Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting
• Blog Optimization

You can enhance a WordPress site with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from managing single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Norwegian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your site
• Set up client appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and email you reports
• Redirect users from certain pages to other areas on your site or other sites
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content
• Migrate data from other publishing platforms
• Perform bulk content edits
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Inserting scripts and code elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add location maps
• Distribute your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a website or blog, or your existing website isn’t built with WordPress, then consider choosing it in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WordPress plugins, let me show you how you can benefit by simply adding a plugin to your site.

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can install plugins to make a section of a post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional paid membership site with customized login details for all users …

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to improve your website in lots of ways. From installing features that improve your business, your website visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

To increasing your business reach across social networks and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated features to your site using relatively inexpensive premium WP plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that integrate and automate tasks on your site like user feedback and event registrations management …

And also set up a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying programmers to build these applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WordPress commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• 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 displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site added exposure).
• Share your posts with other online visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other online users through forums or even set up a private community on your site.
• Engage with members of your team through live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Dial your business directly from their smart phones when visiting your pages
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

You can also integrate complex “back end” solutions with a WordPress “front end”. This allows you to manage your business sales and marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical functions …

WordPress Plugins – Additional Things To Know

• There are loads of great WordPress plugins available. Be careful not to overload your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will start to affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It also creates more maintenance work for you resulting from possible errors.
• Install only those plugins you really plan to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these also use server resources.
• Many free plugins often receive very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium plugins, make sure you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our plugin reviews for additional expert information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it on your website or blog. The WordPress application is updated regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can create errors.
• Always keep your plugins upgraded to their latest software version. Older plugin not only can create errors and conflicts, they could also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most downloaded web open source tool available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant features to their website without spending thousands of dollars on web development.

One last thing about WordPress plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you want for your web presence, you can be sure that a WP plugin currently exists that will do just what you need it to do, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be fairly affordable.

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

And, if by chance such a WP plugin does not exist, then it can certainly be written for your business at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can help to improve your business blog. See our published posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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