Tag: What Is A Plugin

One of the most powerful benefits of the WordPress content management platform is the ability to quickly increase your WordPress website’s functionality using applications called plugins.

About WordPress Plugins

No doubt, you most likely own a smart phone. What happens when you want access to something new on your device like a new software or a new business productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software application that is really simple and easy to install and adds new features and functionality to any smart phone.

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

A plugin is similar to an app. You install and activate a software that adds new functionality to your WP website …

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

Generally, if you want to add new features to your web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancements, this can become fairly expensive, especially if it requires editing code.

This also applies to setting up a new website. Companies will often fork out money in advance on added components they may not need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we recommend using a sustainable approach to setting up a web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal cost involved. Get a professional-looking website up and running fast, then …

2) As the need becomes evident, install new applications with a few clicks of the mouse directly from within your dashboard area, to give your website an entirely new range of practical features and capabilities, and …

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

Well, that’s exactly what plugins let you do!

Benefits & Advantages Of Using Plugins

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

In fact, loads of plugins can be downloaded to your website at no cost.

WordPress plugins that you purchase are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare the price of a Premium plugin to the price of paying for web development services to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, anyone can create, modify and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has enabled thousands of professional software developers to enhance and contribute to the core WordPress software application.

• WordPress plugins allow you to start simply with only a basic online business presence and then expand only as required.
• WP plugins let you add almost unlimited features to any web site easily, quickly and cheaply.
• WP plugins give you almost unlimited expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow business owners to have a site that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website or blog with new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be a little more advanced and may need some initial configuration.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you will find plugins that will do just about anything you could think of.

Plugin categories cover:

• Site Administration
• Content Management
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Interactivity
• Social Engagement
• Managing Media Files – Videocasts, Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Analysis
• Securing Your

For example, you can expand your website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your site from English to French)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your site
• Set up client appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect web pages
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Hide specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your pages and posts
• Import content from non-WordPress applications
• Perform bulk data edits
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Inserting code and script elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Post your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and others
• Display countdown timers (for scarcity offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

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

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let me show you how you can benefit instantly by adding an inexpensive plugin to your site.

For example, if you want to protect your content, you can use plugins to make a section of a page or post inaccessible, or create a complete membership site with personal login details for all users …

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to enhance your site in lots of different ways. From adding new features that improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to analyze website metrics …

To extending your site’s reach across multiple social sites and search engines …

You can also add advanced functionality to your website using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate features on your site like customer feedback and event registrations management …

And even set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to design the same applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that will let you engage more with web visitors, clients and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your content on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other users through forums or even set up an online social network on your domain.
• Engage with your staff through live chats
• Dial your business directly from their smart phones while visiting your pages
• Open a support ticket
• And much more …

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

Useful Tips About Plugins

• There are loads of great WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can eventually affect your site’s performance and page loading times. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible errors.
• Only keep those plugins you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins often receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing premium WP plugins, make sure you check some reviews online and 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 publish on this site for more expert information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before using it on your site. WordPress changes regularly and older WordPress plugins can create conflicts.
• Always update your plugins. Outdated plugins not only can create errors, 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 WordPress the most popular CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing about plugins:

If there is any feature you need for your web site, you can be sure that a plugin probably exists that will do just what you need it to do, and that this plugin will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be surprisingly affordable.

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

And, if by any chance such a WordPress plugin has not been created yet, then one can probably be written for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what plugins are and how they can significantly to improve your blog. See our published posts to learn about more great WP plugins that we recommend using.

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