Tag: What Are WordPress Plugins

One of the most unique features of the WordPress software is the ability to quickly enhance your WP web site’s functionality using inexpensive (even 100% free) applications called plugins.

About Plugins

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

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software that is really easy to install and integrates new functionality into your mobile phone.

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

A plugin is very similar to an app. You download and install a software application that adds new functionality to your website …

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

Typically, expanding the functionality of an existing web site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, this cost can be fairly significant, particularly if it requires modifying code.

This also applies to starting a web site. Companies will often spend upfront on extra features they may simply not need.

For this reason, we recommend using a modular approach to setting up a web presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine if you could:

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

2) As the need becomes evident, install new software modules with a couple of mouse clicks that integrate with your current website, to give your web site a completely new and expanded range of features and functionality, and also …

3) Cost not one dollar extra to install on your website?

Well, that’s just what plugins let you do!

Benefits And Advantages Of WordPress Plugins

Earlier, we compared plugins with ’apps’. Just like some apps are free to download and some may cost a little money, the same applies to WordPress plugins.

In fact, thousands of great plugins are available at no cost to WordPress users.

Plugins that cost money are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when you compare the price of a Premium plugin to the price of paying for professional web development services to add the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite low.

Also, as WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any person can create, rewrite and customize any part of the WP code. This has enabled many third-party software development professionals to build more new plugins that add new features to WordPress than you can probably imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started with just a simple yet professional website and add new features and enhancements to your site if required.
• WordPress plugins let you add practically unlimited features to your web site quickly and very cheaply.
• Plugins give you virtually unlimited expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow ”non-techies” to have a digital presence that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your site with new capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins can be slightly more complex and require some initial configuration.

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

Like many themes, loads of great plugins are currently available for WP users … often at $0 cost!

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

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

WordPress plugin categories cover:

• Web Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Interactivity
• Social Engagement
• Adding Media – Videocasts, Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales And Advertising Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Tools
• WordPress Optimization

You can enhance your WordPress site with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Managing advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private 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 (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website from English to German)
• 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
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your blog
• Set up client appointments and appointment reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect affiliate links
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Hide specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your pages and posts
• Import content from different publishing applications
• Perform bulk content edits
• Block SPAM
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Inserting scripts and code elements into your posts and pages
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Distribute your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you limitless business flexibility. If you plan to build a website or blog for your business, or your existing site wasn’t built using WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WP plugins are, let me show you how you can benefit instantly by simply adding a plugin to your website.

For example, if you want content protection, you can use plugins to make an area of your post or page inaccessible, or create a complete membership site with customized login details for every member …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to enhance your website in lots of different ways. From installing functionality that enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to review site data …

To extending your business reach and visibility across multiple social sites and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your website using inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that integrate and automate features on your site such as displaying customer testimonials and event registration details …

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

You can also take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that can let you engage more with your web visitors, clients and registered site members …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Post 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 a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site added exposure).
• Bookmark your content on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with your support staff using forums or even set up an online community on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team using live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Call your business from their smart phones when visiting your website
• Open a support ticket
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate sophisticated enterprise solutions with a WP “front end”. This lets you control your business marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technological areas …

WP Plugins – Additional Things To Know

• There are so many great WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can affect your site’s resources and site loading times. It can also mean more maintenance work for you resulting from potential errors.
• Install only the plugins you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these also use resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid plugins, we recommend that you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our WordPress plugin reviews for additional 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 installing it on your website or blog. WordPress is updated regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can cause conflicts.
• Make sure that you always upgrade your plugins to the most recent version. Outdated plugin not only can create conflicts, they could also have security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most used content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant functionality to their web presence without having to spend thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing regarding plugins:

Whatever functionality you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already developed one that will do just what you need it to do, and that this plugin can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost to purchase it will be minimal.

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

And, if by chance such a plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does just what you would like it to do can most certainly be written for your business at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can significantly enhance the functionality of your website. See our related posts to learn about more popular plugins that we recommend using.

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