Tag: What Are WordPress Plugins

One of the most unique benefits of building a website with WordPress is that you can easily expand your WordPress website or blog’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

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

(Just like you will find social sharing apps …)

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

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

Typically, expanding the functionality of your website involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, this could become quite expensive, particularly if web developers have to add new code or edit programs or install programs to integrate with your existing site.

This also applies when creating a new website. Organizations tend to spend money on bells and whistles they may never need.

To reduce business costs, we recommend a cost-effective strategy when setting up a web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine if you could:

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

2) As you need new features and functionality, you can install new applications with a few mouse clicks directly from within your dashboard area, giving your website a whole new and expanded range of possibilities, and also …

3) Cost not one dollar more to add to your website?

Well, this is precisely what a WP plugin allows you to do!

WP Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared plugins with mobile apps. Just like some apps are free to download and some apps cost a little bit of money, the same is true with WP plugins.

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

Plugins that you buy are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of paying for web development services to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are typically quite inexpensive.

Also, since WordPress is an Open Source application, any web developer can create, edit and customize any portion of the WP code. This has allowed many third-party web developers to enhance and contribute to the core software application.

• Plugins allow you to get started with just a basic site and add new features and enhancements to your site only if required.
• WP plugins let you add practically endless functionality to any website quickly and cheaply.
• Plugins give you practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow anyone to have a website that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website with new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins are a little more complex and may require some initial configuring.

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

Like WordPress themes, thousands of great WordPress plugins are available to WP users … often at no cost!

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

As previously mentioned, you can find plugins that will do almost anything you can possibly need a site to do.

WP plugin categories cover:

• Website Administration
• Content Syndication
• Driving Site Traffic
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Sharing
• Uploading Media – Videos, Graphics & Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis Applications
• Blog Optimization

You can add features to a WordPress site with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Rotating advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User feedback forms
• Instant language translation (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
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your site
• Set client appointments and appointment reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and email you reports
• Redirect website pages
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Hide specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your pages and posts
• Import information from non-WordPress platforms
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert code and script elements into your pages
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add a map
• Post your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you limitless business scalability. If you are planning to build a web site, or your existing web site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let’s take a look at how you can benefit by adding an inexpensive plugin to your website.

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can use plugins to make a section of a page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with separate login details for each user …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your web presence in so many ways. From installing new features that enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to analyze visitor metrics …

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

You can also add sophisticated features to your website using inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that automate features on your website like user testimonial and event registration 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 software developers to create similar functionality for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that will enhance your site’s interactivity …

For example, your web visitors can:

• Post comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Bookmark your content on social media.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with your team members using forums or even set up an online social network on your site.
• Engage with your staff through live chats
• Dial your business from their laptops while visiting your site
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

You can even integrate complex “back end” applications within a WordPress “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors see on your web site, while your 3rd-party application handles the technical aspects …

Useful Information About WordPress Plugins

• There are many plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can eventually affect your website’s performance and site loading speed. It also creates more maintenance work for you as a result of potential conflicts and errors.
• Only keep the plugins you really use. Delete any plugins from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing premium plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our 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 twice before using it on your site. The WordPress application updates on a regular basis and outdated WordPress plugins can cause problems.
• Make sure to always update your plugins. Older plugins not only can create problems, they may also have security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important aspect of WordPress and contribute to making it the most preferred CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant features to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

Whatever feature you want for your website, you can be sure that a WP plugin currently exists that will do exactly what you need, and that this plugin can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the price will be reasonable.

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

And, if by chance this WP plugin is not available, then it can probably be coded for your business for a very reasonable price.

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

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