Tag: What Is A Plugin

One of the main features of WordPress is that you can quickly and easily enhance your WordPress site’s functionality using applications called plugins.

What Are Plugins?

No doubt, you most likely use a device like a mobile phone. What do you do when you want to access something new on your phone like a new application, software or productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little piece of software that is simple and easy to install and integrates new features and functionality into your mobile device.

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

A plugin is similar to an app. You simply download and install a little software application that adds new functionality to your web site …

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

Almost always, expanding the functionality of an already-built site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancement, the cost can be fairly significant, particularly if website developers need to add new code or modify programs or develop programs to integrate with your current site.

This also applies when starting a website or business blog. Business owners sometimes spend money in advance on added components they may simply not need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we recommend a modular strategy when setting up your web presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get your web site up and running fast, then …

2) As new features and functionality are required, just add new software modules with a couple of clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your website, to give your site an entirely new and expanded range of useful functionality, and also …

3) Cost not a single dollar more to add to your website?

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

Benefits & Advantages Of Plugins

I started this post by comparing plugins with ’apps’. In the same way that many apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, so do plugins.

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

WP plugins that you purchase are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of investing in web development services to add the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins are generally very inexpensive.

Also, as WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anybody can create, edit and customize any part of the WP code. This has allowed thousands of third-party software development companies to create more plugins that enhance WordPress than you can possibly imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started with a basic yet professional website and then expand when required.
• WordPress plugins allow you to add practically unlimited features to any website quickly and cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give your website almost endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow ”non-techies” to have a web presence that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website or blog new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more advanced options and may need some initial configuration.

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

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

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find plugins that can do almost everything you can possibly want a web site to do.

Plugin categories cover:

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

For example, you can enhance a WP site with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonial forms
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to Norwegian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell spots on your blog
• Set client appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect visitors from old pages to other areas on your site or other sites
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Hide certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content
• Import content from different publishing platforms
• Perform bulk data edits
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Inserting HTML and script elements into your posts, pages and sidebars
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search results
• Add a map
• Distribute your content automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and many others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website or blog for your business, or your existing website wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting one added to your domain, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let me show you some practical uses of adding an inexpensive plugin to your website.

For example, if you want content protection, you can install plugins to make a section of your page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete membership site with customized login details for every user …

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

To extending your site’s reach and visibility across various social media and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your website using relatively inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that automate functions on your pages like managing customer testimonials and booking events …

And also set up a complete bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to build custom applications for you …

You can also take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage more with your web visitors, customers and registered site users …

For example, your visitors can:

• Leave comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with additional exposure).
• Share your content with other online users on social networking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other customers through online forums or even set up an online social network on your own site.
• Engage with your staff using live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Call your business directly from their devices when browsing your pages
• Get support via a dedicated user helpdesk
• And much more …

You can even integrate complex enterprise-level applications using a WP “front end”. This enables you to control the content that your visitors will see on your website, while your third-party application handles the technological functions …

Additional Information About Plugins

• There are lots of plugins available. Be careful of overloading your server with too many plugins, as this can eventually affect your site’s performance and page loading times. It can also mean more maintenance work for you resulting from potential conflicts.
• Install only the plugins you really plan to use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins often come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid plugins, make sure 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 some of the plugin reviews we publish on this site for more helpful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it. The WordPress core software updates frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can cause errors.
• Always keep your plugins upgraded to the most recent software version. Older 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, plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most used CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant functionality to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

If there is any feature or functionality you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a plugin already exists that will do what you want, and that it will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be fairly affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin does not exist, then a custom plugin that does exactly what you would like it to do can most certainly be created for you for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WP plugins – what plugins are and how they can help improve your WP site. See our related posts to learn more about using WP plugins.

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