Tag: What Is A Plugin

One of the main advantages of choosing the WordPress web site management software is that you can quickly and easily enhance your WordPress website’s functionality using plugins.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

No doubt, you probably have a smart phone. What happens when you would like 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 piece of software that is really simple and easy to install and adds new features to a smart device.

(Just as there are social sharing apps for mobile phones …)

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

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

Generally, if you need to expand the functionality of a website, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancements, this could become fairly expensive, particularly if website developers need to create new code or edit templates or develop programs that integrate with your existing set up.

This also applies to starting a new website or business blog. Many companies often invest money up front in extra bells and whistles they may probably never need.

For this reason, we suggest considering a sustainable strategy when developing your website and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a basic, professional web presence up and running fast, then …

2) As you need new features or functionality, add new software modules with just a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from within your WP dashboard area, and give your site an entirely new and expanded range of practical features and capabilities, and …

3) Cost not one cent more to download and install on your site?

Well, that’s just what a WP plugin enables you to do!

Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared plugins with mobile apps. In the same way that some apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little bit of money, the same is true of plugins.

In fact, many plugins can be downloaded to your site at no cost.

WordPress plugins that cost money are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of investing in professional web development services to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any web developer can create, edit and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled thousands of third-party web development companies to enhance the WordPresssoftware.

• WP plugins let you get started with a basic website and then add new features and enhancements to your site if necessary.
• Plugins let you add practically endless features to any site quickly and inexpensively.
• WP plugins give your digital business presence practically endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow ”non-techies” to own a digital presence that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your website with instant new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more extensive options and require some configuration.

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

Just like WP themes, thousands of plugins are available for WP users … for FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you can find plugins that will do almost everything you can think of.

There are plugins for:

• Site Administration
• Content Management
• Web Traffic Generation
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Media
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Securing Your

For example, you can add features to a website with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Display advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website from English to Norwegian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your site
• Set client appointments and appointment reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and email you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Hide specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide post content
• Migrate data from non-WordPress applications
• Perform bulk data edits
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Insert HTML and code elements into your blog’s header and footer
• Add tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Distribute your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and many 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, plugins give you practically limitless business flexibility. If you are currently planning to build a web site, or your existing web site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting one in the future, or you will be missing out on some serious functionality.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WP plugins, let me show you how you can benefit by installing an inexpensive plugin on your web site.

For example, if you want content protection, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your website in so many different ways. From adding new features that improve your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to review website metrics …

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

You can also add complex features to your site using relatively inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that integrate and automate processes on your site such as displaying customer testimonials and event registration details …

And also set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring web developers to build these 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 grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Share your content with other online visitors on social networks.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other users via online forums or even set up a private online social network on your own domain.
• Engage with members of your team via live chats
• Dial your business from their laptops when visiting your pages
• Get support via a customer helpdesk
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate complex enterprise-level solutions using a WordPress “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors will see on your web site, while the third-party application handles the technological aspects …

WP Plugins – Additional Things You Should Know

• There are so many great WordPress plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can affect your website’s resources and page loading times. It can also create more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of potential conflicts.
• Only keep those plugins that you really plan to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid WP plugins, we recommend that you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of our WordPress plugin recommendations for more helpful information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think carefully before installing it on your website or blog. WordPress changes often and older WordPress plugins can create problems.
• Always update your plugins to their latest version. Outdated plugin not only can cause conflicts, they could also have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

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

One last thing on the subject of plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you need for your web presence, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do just what you want, and that it will either be available 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 plugin does not exist, then one can probably be developed for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can help expand your web site. See our related posts to learn about more popular plugins that we recommend using.

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