Tag: What Are WordPress Plugins

One of the most unique features of the WordPress software is that you can quickly and easily increase your WordPress website’s functionality using plugins.

About Plugins

Like most of us, you probably use a device like a cell phone. What do you do when you want to access 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 very easy to install and immediately adds new features and functionality to a smart phone.

(Just like you can find social sharing apps for mobile devices …)

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

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

Generally, adding new features to an existing site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancements, this cost can be significant, especially if website developers have to create new code or edit templates or develop scripts that integrate into your current set up.

This is also applicable when setting up a website or business blog. Companies often pay for extra bells and whistles they may simply not need.

For this reason, we recommend considering a sustainable approach to developing your web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As more features or functionality are needed, simply add new applications with a few mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your current website or blog, to give your website a whole new and expanded range of capabilities and functionality, and …

3) Cost not a single cent more to add to your site?

Well, this is exactly what plugins allow you to do!

Benefits And Advantages Of WordPress Plugins

We started this blog post by comparing WordPress plugins with apps. Just like some apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, so do plugins.

In fact, loads of plugins can be downloaded to your site for free.

WP plugins that cost money are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the price of investing in web development services to add the same functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are priced quite low.

Also, since WordPress makes its source code publicly available, any person can create, rewrite and customize any part of the code. This has enabled thousands of third-party web developers to create more new applications that “plug into” WordPress than you can imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started simply with a basic web site and expand only when required.
• WordPress plugins let you add almost unlimited features to your site quickly, easily and cheaply.
• WP plugins give your digital presence almost endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow business owners to have a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your web site instant new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins are slightly more advanced and could require some initial configuring.

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

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

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find plugins that can do almost anything you want done.

Plugin categories cover:

• Web Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Driving Web Visitors
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Sharing
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Tools
• WP SEO

For example, you can expand a website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Managing banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’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 website 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.
• Cloud storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your site
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and email you reports
• Redirect visitors from specified pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude pages from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide post content
• Migrate information from other publishing applications
• Perform bulk data replacements
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Inserting HTML and code elements into your posts, pages and sidebars
• Add tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Post your content automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and others
• Display countdown timers (for scarcity offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you virtually endless business scalability. If you plan to build a web site for your business, or your existing web site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting one 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 how you can benefit instantly by adding a plugin to your site.

For example, if you want to protect your content, you can install plugins to make a section of your post inaccessible, or create a complete membership site with customized login details for each user …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to improve your business site in so many ways. From adding functionality that will enhance your business, your visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

To extending your business visibility across social networks and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your site using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate processes on your website like managing customer testimonials and booking events …

And also set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to create the same applications for you …

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

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on social networks.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with your team members via online forums or even set up a private online social network on your own domain.
• Engage with members of your team using live chats
• Dial your business from their cellphones when visiting your site
• Get help via a dedicated user support helpdesk
• And so much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated enterprise solutions using a WP “front end”. This allows you to control the content that your visitors see on your website, while your 3rd-party application handles the technical areas …

Plugins – Additional Tips

• There are lots of plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this will eventually start to affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It also means more maintenance work for you as a consequence of possible errors.
• Install only those plugins you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these also consume resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with little to no support from the plugin author. When considering premium plugins, make sure you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check our plugin reviews for more helpful information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before using it. The WordPress core application updates regularly and outdated WP plugins can create problems.
• Make sure to always keep your plugins updated. Outdated plugins not only can create issues, they could also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making it the most popular content management system in the world. 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 outsourced web development costs.

One last thing on the topic of plugins:

If there is a feature you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a plugin currently exists that will do what you want it to do, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be fairly affordable.

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

And, if by chance this plugin is not available, then one can probably be developed for your business at a reasonable cost.

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

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