Tag: What Are WordPress Plugins

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

What Are Plugins?

Like most of us, you probably own a device like a cell phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your phone like a new software or business tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

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

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

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

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

Almost always, if you want to expand the functionality of an existing web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancement, this cost can be fairly significant, especially if web developers have to add new code or modify code or install programs that integrate into your current set up.

This also applies to starting a new website or business blog. Business owners sometimes spend up front on added bells and whistles they may not ever need.

For this reason, we recommend a sustainable strategy when setting up a web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal expense involved. Get your web presence up and running quickly, then …

2) As you need more features and functionality, you can add new software modules with a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from your WP dashboard section, to give your site an entirely new range of useful functionality, and …

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

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

Plugins – Benefits And Advantages

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

In fact, thousands of plugins can be downloaded to your website for free.

WP plugins that cost money are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of hiring a professional web developer to add the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, any web developer can create, edit and customize any part of the WP code. This has enabled many professional web developers to enhance the WPsoftware.

• Plugins let you start off with only a basic yet professional web site and then expand only when necessary.
• WordPress plugins let you add almost unlimited functionality to any online business presence quickly, easily and quite cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give you virtually endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow non-technical users to own a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your web site immediate capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more advanced features and could require some configuring.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WP plugins that will do just about anything you can imagine.

There are WordPress plugins for:

• Web Site Administration
• Content Distribution
• Online Traffic Generation
• User Engagement
• Social Monitoring
• Adding Media – Videos, Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales & Advertising Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Tools
• WP Optimization

For example, you can expand your WP site with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Display ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to German)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your blog
• Set appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect website pages
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Import data from different CMS applications
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor commenting (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Insert scripts and script elements into your posts and pages
• Add tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Publish your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal 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 web site for your business, or your existing site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let’s take a look at how you can benefit by simply adding a plugin to your web site.

For example, if you need to publish private content, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to improve your business site in lots of ways. From installing functionality that improve your business, your visitors’ experience and your ability to review site metrics …

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

You can also add sophisticated features to your website using inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that integrate and automate features on your pages such as displaying customer testimonials and event registration details …

And even set up a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring web developers to code similar functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that will let you engage even more with your web visitors, clients and registered site members …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the native WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your content on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other online users through online forums or even set up a private online social network on your own site.
• Engage with your staff using live chats
• Call your business from their mobile phones while visiting your pages
• Get help via a customer support helpdesk
• And so much more …

You can also integrate sophisticated enterprise applications with a WP “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors will see on your website, while the 3rd-party application handles the technological side of things …

Additional Things You Should Know About Plugins

• There are many plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this will inevitably affect your site’s resources and site loading speed. It also creates more maintenance issues for you resulting from potential conflicts.
• Only keep those plugins that you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these use extra resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium WP plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we provide on this site for additional 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 twice before using it on your site. WordPress changes frequently and older plugins can create errors.
• Ensure that you always keep all plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugin not only can cause issues, they could also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WP plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most preferred content management system 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 development costs.

One last thing regarding plugins:

Whatever feature you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already created one that will do exactly what you want it to do, and that this plugin will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost to buy it will be minimal.

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

And, if by chance this plugin does not exist, then a custom plugin that does just what you would like it to do can probably be written for you for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can to improve your blog. See our related posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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