Tag: What Is A Plugin

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

About Plugins

No doubt, you probably use a cell phone. What happens when you would like to access something new on your device like a new game or tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is simple and easy to install and integrates new features into a mobile phone.

(Just like you will find social sharing apps …)

A plugin is similar to an app. You download and install a software that adds new functionality to your web site …

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

Typically, if you want to add a new feature to an existing website, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancement, this can become fairly expensive, particularly if website developers have to add new code or modify templates or install scripts that integrate into your existing site.

This is also applicable when starting a new web site. Many companies sometimes spend money on added features they may never need.

For this reason, we suggest considering a modular strategy to developing your website and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal expense involved. Get a basic, professional-looking web site up and running fast, then …

2) As you need new features, add new software modules with only a few clicks of the mouse that integrate with your website or blog, giving your site an entirely new range of possibilities, and …

3) Cost not a single cent extra to install on your site?

Well, that’s precisely what WordPress plugins let you do!

WordPress Plugins – Benefits

I started this article by comparing WordPress plugins with apps. Just like many apps are free to download and some cost a little money, the same applies to WordPress plugins.

In fact, many wonderful plugins are available at no cost to WP users.

Plugins that cost money are referred to as “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 (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anybody can create, rewrite and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has allowed many professional web developers to create more new tools that add new features to the WordPress platform than you can imagine.

• Plugins let you get started with only a basic site and expand as required.
• Plugins let you add practically unlimited functionality to your website quickly and inexpensively.
• Plugins give you virtually endless expanding capabilities.
• WP plugins allow business owners to have a website that they can manage.
• Most plugins will typically 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 can be slightly more complex and may require some initial configuring.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you will find plugins that can do just about anything you need done.

WP plugin categories cover:

• Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Increasing Web Visitors
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Monitoring
• Media Management Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis
• Securing Your WP Site

For example, you can enhance your website with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Rotating advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to Norwegian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your website
• Set up appointments and appointment reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and email you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Hide specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your posts and pages
• Migrate content from different CMS applications
• Search and replace data
• Block SPAM
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Inserting scripts and script elements into your posts
• Add and format tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Publish your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you are planning to build a website for your business, or your existing site wasn’t built using WordPress, then consider getting one in the future, or you will be missing out on some serious functionality.

If you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let me show you some practical uses of adding a plugin to your website.

For example, if you need content protection, you can install plugins to make a section of a page or post inaccessible, or create a professional paid membership site with personal login details for each user …

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

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

You can also add advanced functionality to your website using relatively inexpensive premium WordPress plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that automate functionality on your website such as displaying customer testimonials and booking events …

And also set up a complete bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying programmers to create the same functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your visitors can:

• Leave comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with additional exposure).
• Bookmark your content on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other online users using forums or even set up an online social network on your own domain.
• Engage with your staff through live video chats
• Dial your business from their mobile phones when visiting your website
• Get support via a customer helpdesk
• And so much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex enterprise applications within a WP “front end”. This allows you to control the content that your visitors see on your site, while the 3rd-party application handles the technological side of things …

WordPress Plugins – Additional Information

• There are many amazing plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can inevitably affect your website’s resources and site loading times. It can also mean more maintenance work for you as a consequence of potential errors.
• Only keep the plugins you really need. Delete any plugins from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium plugins, make sure you check around a little and understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WordPress plugin recommendations 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 twice before installing it on your website or blog. The WordPress software changes frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can create errors.
• Always upgrade your plugins to their latest software version. Older plugin not only can create problems, they may also have security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WP plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most preferred CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant functionality to their web presence without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing about plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a WordPress plugin probably exists that will do just what you want it to do, and that it can either be downloaded for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the price will be very affordable.

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

And, if by any chance such a WP plugin does not exist, then one can certainly be developed for you for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can significantly to improve your website. See our related posts section to learn more about using WordPress plugins.

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