Tag: What Is A Plugin

One of the most unique advantages of using WordPress is the ability to quickly and easily expand your WordPress web site’s functionality using inexpensive (even 100% free) applications called plugins.

About WP Plugins

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

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

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

(Just as you can find social sharing apps for mobile devices …)

A plugin is like an app. You simply install a software that provides new functionality to your WP website …

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

Almost always, adding a new feature to an existing site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancement, this could become fairly expensive, particularly if it involves website development.

This also applies when developing a new web site. Business owners often invest money in advance for additional bells and whistles they may simply not need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we suggest a modular approach when growing your website and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As the need for new features or functionality becomes apparent, add new applications with just a couple of clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your current website, to give your web site an entirely new range of possibilities, and …

3) Cost not a single cent extra to add to your website?

Well, that’s just what WP plugins allow you to do!

Benefits Of WP Plugins

We started this blog post by comparing WP plugins with ’apps’. In the same way that many apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, the same applies with plugins.

In fact, loads of fantastic plugins can be installed and activated on your websites.

WordPress plugins that you buy are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are generally quite inexpensive.

Also, as WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any web developer can create, modify and customize any part of the code. This has enabled thousands of professional software development professionals to build more tools that plug seamlessly into the WordPress engine than you can imagine.

• WP plugins allow you to start off with a basic website and then expand only if necessary.
• Plugins allow you to add almost endless functionality to your website easily and very cheaply.
• WP plugins give you virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow non-technical users to own a website that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website or blog with immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more advanced features and may require some initial configuring.

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

Like WordPress themes, loads of plugins are available for WP users … often at $0 cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find plugins that can do almost anything you can think of.

WordPress plugin categories cover:

• Blog Administration
• Content Distribution
• Traffic
• User Engagement
• Social Monitoring
• Managing Media – Videos, Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales And Advertising Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Reporting Tools
• WP SEO

For example, you can add features to a business online presence with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Managing advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website from English to Italian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your site
• Set appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect affiliate pages
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Exclude pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Import data from non-WordPress applications
• Perform bulk content edits
• Block SPAM
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. display Facebook discussions)
• Insert code and script elements into your content
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Post your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you practically limitless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a website or blog, or your existing website isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting one built on your domain, or you will be missing out on some serious functionality.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let’s take a look at how you can benefit instantly by installing an inexpensive plugin on your site.

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

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to enhance your web presence in so many ways. From installing features that improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to analyze website metrics …

To increasing your site’s reach across social networks and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your website using inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can install plugins that automate functionality on your site like displaying customer testimonials and event registration details …

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

You can also take advantage of built-in WordPress commenting features and plugins that will let you engage more with your visitors, clients and registered site users …

For example, your web visitors can:

• Post comments on your site (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, giving your site increased exposure).
• Share your posts with other online users on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other users using forums or even set up an online social network on your domain.
• Engage with members of your team via live video chats
• Call your business from their mobile phones when browsing your website
• Open a support ticket
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated third-party solutions with a WP “front end”. This lets you manage your business sales and marketing, while the third-party application handles the technological functions …

WP Plugins – Some Useful Tips

• There are loads of good plugins available. Be careful of overloading your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will affect your site’s resources and page loading speed. It can also create more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of potential conflicts and errors.
• Only keep the plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these use extra server resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing premium plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of our plugin recommendations for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think carefully before using it. The WordPress core software is updated on a frequent basis and older plugins that have not been updated can cause problems.
• Ensure that you always maintain all plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugin not only can create problems, they could also contain security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important aspect of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most popular web open source application in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant features to their web presence without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a WP plugin already exists that will do just what you need, and that it can either be downloaded for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be surprisingly inexpensive.

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

And, if by any chance such a plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does precisely what you would like it to do can probably be created for you at a reasonable cost.

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

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