Tag: What Is A Plugin

One of the main benefits of building a digital presence with WordPress is the ability to easily enhance your WordPress website’s functionality using inexpensive (even 100% free) applications called plugins.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

No doubt, you most likely own a mobile phone. What do you do when you would like access to something new on your phone like a new game or a productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is very easy to install and immediately adds new features to any mobile device.

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

A WP plugin is like an app. You simply download and install an application that provides new functionality to your website …

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

Almost always, if you decide to expand the functionality of an existing web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancements, things could get quite expensive, especially if web developers need to create new code or modify code or develop programs to integrate with your current set up.

This also applies when starting a website. Businesses sometimes fork out money upfront for components they may simply not need.

To keep expenses down, we recommend a sustainable strategy when setting up your web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply with minimal cost involved. Get a web site up and running fast, then …

2) As you need new features or functionality, add new applications with just a couple of mouse clicks that integrate with your current website and blog, giving your site a completely new and expanded range of features and functionality, and also …

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

Well, this is just what a plugin allows you to do!

Benefits Of WordPress Plugins

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

In fact, loads of wonderful plugins are freely available for WP users.

WP plugins that you have to buy are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the price of hiring a professional web developer to get similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, any person can create, rewrite and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has allowed thousands of professional software development companies to create more new applications that work with the WordPress engine than you can probably imagine.

• WordPress plugins allow you to get started simply with only a basic yet professional website and then add new features and enhancements to your site when necessary.
• Plugins allow you to add practically endless functionality to any website easily, quickly and cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give you almost unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow anyone to have a site that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your site new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins are slightly more complex and may need some configuring.

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

Just like WordPress themes, tens of thousands of plugins are available for WP users … often at $0 cost!

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

As previously mentioned, you will find plugins that can do almost everything you want done.

There are plugins for:

• User Administration
• Content Management
• Online Traffic Generation
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Uploading Media – Video, Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Reporting Tools
• Securing Your WP Web Site

You can enhance a website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to Italian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage integration
• Faster page loading
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your website
• Set client appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect visitors from broken pages to other areas on your site or other websites
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Hide certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content sections
• Import content from non-WordPress platforms
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Insert HTML and code elements into your blog’s header and footer
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add business location maps
• Syndicate your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WordPress plugins give you practically limitless business flexibility. If you are currently planning to build a website or blog, or your existing web site isn’t built with WordPress, then consider choosing it in the future.

If you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let’s take a look at some practical uses of adding an inexpensive plugin to your website.

For example, if you want content protection, you can use plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your page inaccessible, or create a professional paid membership site with personal login details for users …

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to enhance your site in lots of ways. From adding new features that improve your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to review visitor data …

To extending your site’s visibility across a number of social networks and search engines …

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

And also set up a complete bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to create these functionality for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that will let you engage more with your visitors, clients and registered site members …

For example, your web visitors can:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Share your content with other online visitors on social networking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other online users using forums or even set up a private online social network on your own site.
• Engage with your support staff through live video chats
• Call your business from their devices while visiting your website
• Get help via a dedicated client help desk
• And much more …

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

Plugins – Some Useful Tips

• There are so many WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can begin to affect your site’s resources and page loading times. It also means more maintenance work for you resulting from potential errors.
• Only keep the plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid WordPress plugins, make sure you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we publish here for more expert information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think carefully before installing it. The WordPress core software updates on a regular basis and outdated WP plugins can cause errors.
• Always keep your plugins updated. Outdated plugins not only can create errors and conflicts, they may also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

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

One last thing on the topic of plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you want for your web presence, you can guarantee that a plugin already exists that will do what you want, and that this plugin can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a paid 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 WP plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does just what you want it to do can probably be developed for you for a very reasonable price.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can significantly enhance the functionality of your web site. See our published posts to learn about more popular WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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