Tag: What Are WordPress Plugins

One of the main advantages of using WordPress is that you can quickly and easily enhance your WordPress website or blog’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding WP Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

An app is a software application that is very easy to install and immediately integrates new functionality into a smart phone.

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

A WordPress plugin is really similar to an app. You simply download and install an application that adds new functionality to your website or blog …

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

Typically, if you need to expand the functionality of your site, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the features or enhancements are, this could become fairly expensive, particularly if it requires editing code.

This is also applicable to creating a new website. Companies tend to spend upfront on added features they probably will never need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we suggest considering a modular strategy to developing a web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine if you could:

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

2) As you need new features, install new software modules with just a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from within your administration area, and give your website or blog a whole new range of possibilities, and …

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

Well, this is exactly what a plugin enables you to do!

Plugins – Benefits & Advantages

Earlier, we compared plugins with ’apps’. In the same way that some apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, so do plugins.

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

WP plugins that you have to pay for are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of investing in professional web development services to add the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress makes its code available to everyone, any web developer can create, rewrite and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled many professional web development companies to enhance and contribute to the WordPresssoftware.

• WordPress plugins let you start off with just a basic web presence and expand only when necessary.
• WP plugins allow you to add practically unlimited features to your web site easily, quickly and really cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give you practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow non-technical website owners to have a site that they can manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website or blog immediate capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins are a little more advanced and could require some initial configuring.

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

Like many WordPress themes, loads of WP plugins are made available for WP users … often at no cost!

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

As previously mentioned, you will find plugins that will do just about everything you can possibly want your web site to do.

Plugin categories cover:

• Website Management
• Content Management
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Engagement
• Social Connectivity
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Tools
• WordPress SEO

You can enhance your website with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Rotating advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single sales with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce stores with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Instant language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Portuguese)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your blog
• Set client appointments and appointment reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Exclude certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect post content sections
• Import information from non-WordPress applications
• Search and replace content
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. display Facebook discussions)
• Insert scripts and code elements into your posts and pages
• Add tables
• Display 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
• Post your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and many others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website or blog, or your existing web site was not built with WordPress, then consider choosing it in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WP plugins, let me show you some practical uses of adding a plugin to your website.

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with personal login details for all users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your business site in lots of ways. From installing features that will improve your business, your website visitors’ experience and your ability to analyze website data …

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

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that automate processes on your site such as displaying customer testimonials and event bookings …

And also set up 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 WP commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your web visitors can:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Bookmark your content on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other members through online forums or even set up a private community on your own domain.
• Engage with your support staff using live chats
• Call your business from their mobile phones when browsing your site
• Get support via a dedicated client helpdesk
• And much more …

You can also integrate sophisticated “back end” solutions with a WP “front end”. This allows you to control your business sales and marketing, while your third-party application handles the technological functions …

WordPress Plugins – Useful Information

• There are many awesome plugins available. Be careful not to overload your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can start to affect your site’s resources and page loading times. It can also mean more maintenance work for you as a result of possible errors.
• Install only the plugins you really need to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these also utilize resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we publish on this site for additional expert information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think twice before installing it. The WordPress core application is updated frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can cause conflicts.
• Always maintain all plugins updated. Outdated plugin not only can create issues, they may also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most powerful, flexible and scalable CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add new functionality to their website without spending thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing regarding plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you want for your website, you can guarantee that a plugin already exists that will do what you need, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be surprisingly inexpensive.

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

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

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

***

***