WordPress Plugins Explained

This tutorial explains what WordPress plugins are, how plugins work and how plugins help WordPress users extend their website’s functionality. 

WordPress Plugins - The Easy Way To Extend Your Web Site's FeaturesOne of the most unique features of WordPress is the ability to easily expand your WordPress website’s functionality using applications called ’plugins’.

What Are Plugins?

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

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is simple and easy to install and integrates new features and functionality into your smart phone.

A Guide To Understanding WP Plugins

(Just as there are social sharing apps for smart phones …)

A plugin is very similar to an app. You simply install a software application that adds new functionality to your WP website or blog …

A Guide To Understanding WP Plugins

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

Typically, if you decide to add new features to an already-built web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the new features or enhancements are, this cost can be fairly significant, particularly if web developers need to create new code or modify templates or develop programs that integrate with your current site.

This also applies to developing a new web site. Organizations sometimes invest money on bells and whistles they probably will never need.

To save money and keep costs to a minimum, we suggest a sustainable strategy to setting up your online presence presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As the need for new capabilities or functionality becomes apparent, just add new applications with a few clicks of the mouse that integrate with your existing site, and give your web site an entirely new range of useful features, and …

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

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

Benefits And Advantages Of Using WP Plugins

We started this post by comparing plugins with ’apps’. In a similar way that many apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, the same applies with WP plugins.

In fact, many great plugins are freely available for WP users.

WordPress plugins that you purchase are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are typically very inexpensive.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anyone can create, edit and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has allowed many professional software developers to create more plugins that add new features to the WordPress platform than you can possibly imagine.

  • WP plugins allow you to get started simply with only a basic web presence and expand only when necessary.
  • WordPress plugins let you add practically endless functionality to your website easily, quickly and inexpensively.
  • WP plugins give your web site virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
  • WP plugins allow business owners to own a site that they can self-manage.
  • Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your site with new capabilities and functionality.
  • Some plugins are slightly more advanced and could require some initial configuring.

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

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

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

A Guide To WordPress Plugins

As mentioned earlier, you can find plugins that can do almost anything you can possibly need your site to do.

There are plugins for:

  • User Management
  • Content Distribution
  • Online Traffic Generation
  • Visitor Interactivity
  • Social Sharing
  • Uploading Media Files – Video, Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
  • e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
  • Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
  • Data Reporting Tools
  • Securing Your WP Blog

For example, you can expand a business online presence with plugins like the following:

  • Contact forms
  • Polls and quizzes
  • Social contests
  • Display banners
  • E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
  • Social sharing buttons
  • Private Membership sites
  • List-building opt-in forms
  • Sales funnels
  • Mobile integration
  • Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
  • Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
  • User testimonials
  • Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to German)
  • Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
  • Custom navigation menus
  • Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
  • Offline storage integration
  • Faster page loading
  • Event management
  • Niche directories
  • Automatically sell advertising on your website
  • Set client appointments and appointment reminders
  • Help customers make reservations and bookings
  • Detect broken links and email you reports
  • Redirect URLs
  • Monitor social signals
  • Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
  • Add a site map
  • Hide certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
  • Hide content on your posts and pages
  • Migrate information from different CMS platforms
  • Perform bulk content edits
  • Fight SPAM commenting
  • Customize visitor discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
  • Inserting HTML and script elements into your content
  • Add and format tables
  • Add animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
  • Create and manage QR codes
  • Improve your local search listings on Google
  • Add a map
  • Publicize your content automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and others
  • Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
  • Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
  • And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you practically endless possibilities. If you plan to build a website or blog, or your existing website was not built using WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of adding an inexpensive plugin to your website.

For example, if you want to publish private content, you can install plugins to make a section of a page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional paid membership site with personal login details for every user …

A Beginner's Guide To WP Plugins

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

A Guide To WP Plugins

To increasing your business reach and visibility across many social sites and search engines …

A Newbie's Guide To Understanding WP Plugins

You can also add advanced functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate tasks on your website like displaying customer testimonials and event registration details …

A Guide To Understanding WordPress Plugins

And also set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying web developers to code similar functionality for you …

A Guide To Understanding WordPress Plugins

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will make your site even more interactive …

A Guide To WP Plugins

For example, your web visitors can:

  • Leave comments on your blog posts (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 added exposure).
  • Bookmark your content on social media.
  • Contact you via contact forms
  • Engage online with your team members through forums or even set up an online community on your domain.
  • Engage with your support team using live video chats
  • Dial your business directly from their laptops when visiting your pages
  • Open support tickets
  • And so much more …

A Beginner's Guide To WP Plugins

You can even integrate sophisticated “back end” solutions with a WordPress “front end”. This lets you control your business sales and marketing, while your 3rd-party application handles the technical areas …

A Guide To WordPress Plugins

WordPress Plugins – Additional Things You Should Know

  • There are so many WordPress plugins available. Be careful of overloading your server with too many plugins, as this can start to affect your site’s performance and page loading speed. It also creates more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of possible conflicts and errors.
  • Install only the plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these also utilize resources.
  • Many free plugins normally receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium plugins, ensure that you check around a little and understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we publish here for additional expert information.
  • If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it on your site. WordPress is updated regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can create problems.
  • Always update your plugins to the latest software version. Older plugin not only can cause problems, they may also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

A Guide To WordPress Plugins

As you can see, plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making it the most used CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand quickly without having to spend thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

Whatever feature you want for your web site, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do what you want, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost to purchase it will be minimal.

Whatever you need done, there's a WordPress plugin for that!

(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 developed for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can help expand your WordPress site. See our published posts to learn about more useful plugins that we recommend using.

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