Tag: What Is A Plugin

One of the main features of WordPress is the ability to quickly enhance your WP site’s functionality using plugins.

What Are WP Plugins?

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

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is easy to install and adds new functionality to your smart phone.

(Just as you will find social sharing apps for smart devices …)

A plugin is similar to an app. You simply install and activate a little piece of software that provides new functionality to your web site …

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

Generally, if you need to expand the functionality of an existing web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancements, this can get quite expensive, especially if web developers have to create new code or modify templates or install programs that integrate into your current set up.

This is also applicable when setting up a website. Companies will often invest up-front for additional features and options they may not need.

For this reason, we recommend a modular approach to setting up a web site and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As you need more features, install new applications with a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from your WP dashboard section, giving your site an entirely new and expanded range of useful capabilities, and also …

3) Cost not one cent more to add to your website?

Well, that’s exactly what plugins allow you to do!

Plugins – Benefits

I started this blog post by comparing WP plugins with apps. Just like some apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little bit of money, the same is true with plugins.

In fact, loads of great plugins can be downloaded and installed on your sites.

WP plugins that you have to pay for 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 cost very little.

Also, as WordPress makes its source code available to everyone, anybody can create, modify and customize any part of the WP code. This has enabled many professional web developers to create more tools that “plug into” the WordPress application than you can probably imagine.

• WP plugins let you start off with only a simple site and expand only if required.
• Plugins let you add practically unlimited features to your website easily and cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give your web site virtually endless expanding capabilities.
• Plugins allow non-technical website owners to own a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your site immediate enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more advanced features and may require some configuration.

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

Just like WP themes, loads of great plugins are available to WP users … often at no cost!

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

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

There are plugins for:

• Web Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Driving Site Traffic
• User Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Inserting Media – Videos, Graphics & Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales & Advertising Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Securing Your

You can add features to a WP site with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Managing banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to Portuguese)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your website
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect visitors from specified pages to other areas on your site or other websites
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• 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. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content
• Import content from non-WordPress applications
• Search and replace content
• Fight SPAM
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Inserting scripts and code elements into your site’s header and footer
• Add and format tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Publicize your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you practically limitless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a website, or your existing website wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider using it 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 simply adding a plugin to your web site.

For example, if you want content protection, you can install plugins to make an area of a post or page inaccessible, or create a full paid membership site with personal login details for every member …

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to enhance your website in lots of different ways. From installing functionality that can enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to analyze website data …

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

You can also add complex functionality to your site using inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can install plugins that integrate and automate processes on your pages like user feedback and event registration management …

And even set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying web developers to code similar applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that can 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 WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with additional exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on social networks.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with other customers using forums or even set up an online community on your own domain.
• Engage with members of your team via live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Call your business directly from their laptops while browsing your website
• Get support via a dedicated customer helpdesk
• And so much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex “back end” solutions within a WordPress “front end”. This allows you to manage the content that your visitors will see on your site, while the third-party application handles the technical aspects …

Plugins – Some Useful Tips

• There are lots of great WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your server with too many plugins, as this can start to affect your website’s resources and site loading times. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of potential conflicts.
• Install only those plugins you really need to use. Delete all inactive plugins from your site, as these use server resources.
• Many free plugins often come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid plugins, make sure you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we provide here for more information.
• If you see that a 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. The WordPress platform is updated frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can cause problems.
• Make sure that you always keep your plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugins not only can create conflicts, they may also have security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most downloaded CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand quickly without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing regarding plugins:

Whatever functionality you want for your website, you can guarantee that a plugin probably exists that will do what you want, and that it can either be downloaded at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost will be reasonable.

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

And, if by any chance such a WP plugin has not been created yet, then it can probably be developed for you at a reasonable cost.

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

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