Tag: What Are WordPress Plugins

One of the main benefits of the WordPress website management software is the ability to quickly increase your WP website’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding Plugins

No doubt, you most likely have a device like a smart phone. What happens when you want access to something new on your device like a new application, game or a tool?

You download and install an app!

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

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

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

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

Typically, adding new features to an existing web site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, this could get fairly expensive, particularly if it involves editing code.

This is also applicable when setting up a new website or business blog. Companies often invest money upfront in additional features they may never need.

For this reason, we suggest using a sustainable strategy when developing a web presence presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a web presence up and running fast, then …

2) As new features become necessary, add new applications with a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from within your admin panel, and give your website a completely new range of possibilities, and …

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

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

WP Plugins – Benefits And Advantages

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

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

Plugins that cost money are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of investing in web development services to add the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress makes its source code available to everyone, anybody can create, edit and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has enabled thousands of third-party software development professionals to enhance and contribute to the WPsoftware.

• Plugins let you get started with only a simple web site and then expand if necessary.
• Plugins let you add almost unlimited functionality to any site quickly and quite cheaply.
• WP plugins give you almost unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow non-technical website owners to own a website that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website or blog new capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins provide more extensive options and may need some initial configuring.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WP plugins that can do almost anything you can possibly want your website to do.

WP plugin categories cover:

• Web Site Administration
• Content Management
• Online Traffic Generation
• User Engagement
• Social Connectivity
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Reporting Applications
• Securing Your WP Web Site

You can add features to your business online presence with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Display ad banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• 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 plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to Italian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your blog
• Set appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect affiliate pages
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Hide pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your posts and pages
• Import information from different publishing applications
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Block SPAM
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Insert HTML and script elements into your posts
• Add tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add a map of your business location
• Distribute your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you endless business scalability. If you plan to build a website or blog, or your existing site was not built with WordPress, then consider getting a WordPress site or blog built on your domain, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

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

For example, if you want content protection, you can use plugins to make an area of a page inaccessible, or create a complete paid membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your web presence in lots of ways. From installing new features that will enhance your business, your visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

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

You can also add sophisticated features to your website using relatively inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can download plugins that integrate and automate tasks on your pages such as managing customer testimonials and event bookings …

And even run a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying programmers to build these applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that can enhance your site’s interactivity …

For example, your visitors can:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Share your content with other web users on social networks.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with other members via forums or even set up a private social network on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team via live video chats
• Call your business from their smart phones when visiting your site
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

Finally you, can also integrate complex 3rd-party solutions with a WordPress “front end”. This lets you control the content that your visitors will see on your site, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical functions …

Plugins – Some Useful Information

• There are so many plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can eventually affect your website’s resources and site loading times. It can also create more maintenance work for you resulting from possible errors.
• Only keep those plugins that you really use. Delete all inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid WP plugins, we recommend that you check around a little and 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 recommendations 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 installing it. The WordPress application is updated regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can create issues.
• Always maintain your plugins updated. Older plugins not only can create conflicts, they may also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, plugins are an important part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most preferred content management system available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add new functionality to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on web development.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you need for your web site, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do just what you need, and that it can either be downloaded at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost will be surprisingly affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this WordPress plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does just what you want it to do can probably be created for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can significantly expand your web site. See our related posts to learn about more popular plugins that we recommend using.

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