Tag: What Are WordPress Plugins

One of the most unique features of WordPress is that you can quickly enhance your WordPress site’s functionality using plugins.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

Like most people, you probably have a device like a mobile phone. What happens when you want to access something new on your device like a new game or a new business tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is really easy to install and immediately integrates new functionality into any smart phone.

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

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

(… there are also social sharing plugins for WordPress sites!)

Generally, expanding the functionality of an already-built web site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the new features or enhancements are, this cost can be quite significant, especially if web developers have to add new code or edit programs or install programs that integrate with your current site.

This is also applicable to starting a web site. Companies sometimes fork out money in advance on added features they may not ever need.

To minimize costs, we suggest a modular strategy when setting up a website and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get your business web site up and running quickly, then …

2) As more features become necessary, install new applications with only a few clicks of the mouse that integrate with your existing web site, giving your website an entirely new and expanded range of practical functionality, and …

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

Well, this is just what a WP plugin lets you do!

Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared plugins with ’apps’. Just like some apps are free to download and some cost a little bit of money, the same applies with plugins.

In fact, loads of powerful plugins can be installed on your sites.

WP plugins that you purchase are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the cost of paying for web development services to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress makes its source code publicly available, any web developer can create, edit and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has allowed thousands of third-party web developers to enhance the core WordPress software application.

• Plugins allow you to get started simply with only a simple online business presence and add new features and enhancements to your site when necessary.
• WP plugins let you add almost unlimited features to your online business presence easily and cheaply.
• Plugins give your website almost endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow anyone to have a digital presence that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your web site immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins are a little more complex and require some configuration.

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

Like many WP themes, tens of thousands of plugins are available for WP users … and many of these great plugins are 100% FREE!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find plugins that will do almost everything you could think of.

There are plugins for:

• Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Increasing Web Traffic
• User Engagement
• Social Media
• Media Utilities Automation
• Increasing Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Analysis Applications
• Optimizing Your WordPress Website

For example, you can enhance your business online presence with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from managing single sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to Portuguese)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events & bookings
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your site
• Set client appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and email you reports
• Redirect website pages
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Hide pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide page content
• Migrate content from non-WordPress platforms
• Perform bulk data edits
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Insert HTML and code elements into your blog’s header or footer
• Add and format tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add business location maps
• Publish your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and many others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a web site for your business, or your existing site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let me show you how you can benefit by adding an inexpensive plugin to your web site.

For example, if you need to publish content which is only accessible to some users, you can install plugins to make a section of your post or page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with separate login details for each member …

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

To extending your site’s visibility across a number of social media and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated features to your website using relatively inexpensive premium WP plugins. For example, you can download plugins that automate functions on your website like customer feedback and event bookings management …

And also run a complete bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to build the same functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will let you engage in various ways with visitors, customers and registered site users …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your content on social media.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other online users via forums or even set up a private social network on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team using live web conferencing and chatrooms
• Call your business from their laptops while visiting your pages
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate sophisticated 3rd-party applications using a WP “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors will see on your site, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical side of things …

Useful Things To Know About WordPress Plugins

• There are many amazing plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will affect your website’s performance and page loading times. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you resulting from potential conflicts and errors.
• Install only the plugins you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing paid plugins, we recommend that you check around a little and understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we provide here for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think twice before installing it. The WordPress software is updated regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can create problems.
• Always update your plugins to their most recent software version. Outdated plugins not only can create conflicts, they could also have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most popular CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

Whatever functionality you want for your website, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already authored one that will do what you want, and that it will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the price to buy it will be reasonable.

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

And, if by any chance this WP plugin is not available, then one can probably be created for you at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what plugins are and how they can help improve your WP website. See our published posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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