Tag: What Are WordPress Plugins

One of the most useful benefits of using the WordPress software is the ability to easily increase your WP site’s functionality using plugins.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

Like most people, you most likely use a device like a cell phone. What happens when you want access to something new on your device like a new application, game or a new business tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is really simple and easy to install and instantly adds new functionality to your mobile device.

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

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

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

Generally, if you want to add a new feature to an existing site, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, the cost can be significant, particularly if it involves editing code.

This also applies when setting up a website. Businesses tend to invest money upfront in added components they probably will never need.

For this reason, we recommend a sustainable approach when growing your online presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a professional-looking web site up and running fast, then …

2) As you need more features, just install new applications with only a few mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your site, and give your site a completely new range of capabilities and functionality, and …

3) Cost not one cent more to install on your site?

Well, this is just what WordPress plugins allow you to do!

Benefits & Advantages Of Using WordPress Plugins

I started this blog post by comparing plugins with smartphone apps. In the same way that some apps are free to download and some cost a little money, the same applies to WordPress plugins.

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

Plugins that you have to buy are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of paying for web development services to get similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, because WordPress makes its source code publicly available, anybody can create, modify and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has allowed thousands of professional software developers to enhance the core software application.

• WP plugins allow you to get started with only a basic online business presence and expand if necessary.
• WordPress plugins allow you to add practically endless functionality to your website quickly, easily and very inexpensively.
• Plugins give your website virtually endless expanding capabilities.
• WP plugins allow non-technical users to have a site that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website or blog instant new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more advanced options and could require some configuration.

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

Just like WordPress themes, tens of thousands of WP plugins are made available to WP users … often at no cost!

You can view and download thousands of plugins from the Free WP Plugin Repository …

As mentioned earlier, you can find WP plugins that will do just about anything you need your site to do.

There are WP plugins for:

• Web Site Administration
• Content Distribution
• Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Media
• Media Utilities Automation
• Increasing Sales And Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Tools
• Optimizing Your WP Website

For example, you can add features to your business online presence with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Display ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your site from English to German)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your website
• Set appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks 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 certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide page content
• Import information from different publishing applications
• Perform bulk data replacements
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. display Facebook discussions)
• Insert code and code elements into your pages
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add location maps
• Post your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and many others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you plan to build a website for your business, or your existing web site was not built with WordPress, then consider getting one in the future, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

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

For example, if you want content protection, you can use plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your post inaccessible, or create a full membership site with personal login details for users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to enhance your site in so many ways. From adding functionality that will improve your business, your website visitors’ experience and your ability to review website metrics …

To increasing your site’s reach across social networks and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your site using relatively inexpensive premium WP plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that integrate and automate tasks on your pages such as managing customer testimonials and event registration details …

And also set up a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to create custom functionality for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage more with visitors, clients and registered site users …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your content on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with your team using online forums or even set up a private social network on your domain.
• Engage with members of your team using live video chats
• Call your business from their cellphones when browsing your pages
• Get support via a dedicated client help desk
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate sophisticated enterprise applications with a WP “front end”. This allows you to control the content that your visitors see on your site, while the third-party application handles the technical functions …

Useful Tips About WordPress Plugins

• There are lots of WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your server with too many plugins, as this will affect your website’s resources and site loading times. It also means more maintenance work for you as a consequence of potential conflicts.
• Install only those plugins you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these also utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium plugins, we recommend that you check around a little and understand 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 recommendations for more 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 installing it. The WordPress software updates regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can cause issues.
• Ensure that you always upgrade your plugins. Older plugin not only can create issues, they may also contain security vulnerabilities that could 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 preferred content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add new functionality to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing regarding plugins:

If there is any functionality you need for your web site, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already created one that will do what you want it to do, and that this plugin can either be downloaded for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost will be minimal.

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

And, if by any chance this WP plugin has not been created yet, then it can most certainly be created for you for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can enhance the functionality of your website. See our related posts section to learn more about usingplugins.

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