Tag: What Is A Plugin

One of the most powerful advantages of using WordPress is that you can quickly increase your WP site’s functionality using applications called ’plugins’.

About Plugins

Like most of us, you most likely own a device like 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 that is very easy to install and instantly integrates new features and functionality into any smart phone.

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

A plugin is like an app. You simply install an application that adds new functionality to your site …

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

Typically, expanding the functionality of your website involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancement, this could get quite expensive, especially if it requires editing code.

This also applies to developing a website. Business owners sometimes invest money upfront in added components they probably will never need.

For this reason, we recommend considering a cost-effective strategy when setting up a web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply and with minimal expense involved. Get a website up and running quickly, then …

2) As you need new features or functionality, install new software modules with a couple of clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your website, giving your website an entirely new and expanded range of useful functionality, and …

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

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

Benefits Of Plugins

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

In fact, thousands of plugins can be downloaded and installed on your websites.

WP plugins that you purchase 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 are priced quite low.

Also, since WordPress is an Open Source application, anyone can create, edit and customize any part of the WP code. This has allowed thousands of third-party software development companies to create more new applications that work seamlessly with the WordPress platform than you can possibly imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started with a simple website and then expand as necessary.
• WordPress plugins allow you to add practically endless features to your web site quickly and very cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give you practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow anyone to have a digital presence that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more extensive options and may require some initial configuring.

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

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

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

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

WP plugin categories cover:

• Web Site Administration
• Content Syndication
• Increasing Site Visitors
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Connectivity
• Managing Media – Video, Graphics, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales And Marketing Automation
• Improving Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Reporting Applications
• Securing Your WP Web Site

You can add features to your business online presence with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Spanish)
• 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
• Event management
• Business directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your site
• Set appointments and appointment reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect visitors from missing pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Hide specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your pages and posts
• Migrate content from other publishing platforms
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Insert HTML and script elements into your pages
• Add tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add a map of your business location
• Publicize your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

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

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let’s take a look at how you can benefit by adding a plugin to your web site.

For example, if you want content protection, you can use plugins to make an area of your page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete membership site with personal login details for users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to improve your website in lots of ways. From adding new features that improve your business, your site’s user experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

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

You can also add sophisticated features to your website using relatively inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can install plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your pages like managing customer testimonials and booking events …

And also set up a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to build similar applications for you …

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

For example, your visitors can:

• Leave comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Share your content with other online visitors on social networking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with other online users through forums or even set up an online social network on your site.
• Engage with your support staff via live video chats
• Call your business from their devices while browsing your website
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

You can even integrate sophisticated enterprise-level applications with a WP “front end”. This allows you to control the content that your visitors will see on your website, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical areas …

Plugins – Useful Information

• There are loads of great WordPress plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this will invariably affect your site’s resources and site loading times. It can also create more maintenance issues for you as a result of possible errors.
• Only keep those plugins that you really need to use. Delete any plugins from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid WP plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we provide on this site for additional useful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think carefully before installing it on your website or blog. The WordPress platform updates regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can cause conflicts.
• Ensure to always upgrade your plugins. Outdated plugin not only can cause issues, they could also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

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

One last thing about WP plugins:

If there is a functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a plugin probably exists that will do just what you need, and that this plugin will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be reasonably affordable.

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

And, if by chance this WordPress plugin does not exist, then one can probably be developed for you at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WP plugins – what they are and how they can improve your website. See our related posts section to learn about more useful plugins that we recommend using.

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