Tag: What Is A Plugin

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

Understanding WordPress Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is easy to install and adds new features and functionality to a smart phone.

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

A WordPress plugin is very much like an app. You install an application that adds new functionality to your website or blog …

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

Almost always, if you plan to expand the functionality of your website, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, the cost can be fairly significant, especially if website developers need to create new code or edit programs or install programs to integrate into your existing site.

This also applies to starting a new web site. Business owners will often invest money in advance for bells and whistles they probably will never need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we recommend considering a sustainable strategy to growing your digital presence presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a basic, professional business website up and running quickly, then …

2) As you need new features or functionality, simply add new applications with a few clicks of the mouse directly from within your administration area, to give your website an entirely new and expanded range of practical features and capabilities, and also …

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

Well, this is just what a plugin lets you do!

Benefits & Advantages Of Using Plugins

I started this article by comparing WP plugins with apps. Just like some apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little bit of money, the same applies with plugins.

In fact, many plugins are available at no cost to WordPress users.

Plugins that you have to pay for are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of hiring a professional web developer to get similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, because WordPress makes its source code available to everyone, any person can create, edit and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled many third-party software developers to build more plugins that integrate seamlessly with the WordPress platform than you can imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started with just a simple yet professional site and then expand when required.
• WP plugins let you add almost unlimited features to your online business presence quickly and inexpensively.
• WordPress plugins give your digital business presence virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow non-technical website owners to own a website that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your web site with instant new capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins offer more extensive options and may require some configuration.

Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Many Of Them Are) Completely FREE!

Like WP themes, thousands of plugins are currently available for WP users … for FREE!

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find WordPress plugins that can do almost anything you need your web site to do.

Plugin categories cover:

• Blog Administration
• Content Distribution
• Web Traffic Generation
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Media
• Media Utilities Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Monitoring & Reporting
• WordPress Security

For example, you can expand your website with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Display ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User feedback forms
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to Norwegian)
• 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
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your website
• Set appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect users from specified pages to other pages 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.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Migrate information from other CMS applications
• Search and replace content
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Inserting scripts and code elements into your pages
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add business location maps
• Publicize your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and many others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you are planning to build a web site, or your existing website wasn’t built using WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WP plugins, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of installing an inexpensive plugin on your website.

For example, if you want to protect your content, you can install plugins to make an area of a post or page inaccessible, or create a full membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to enhance your website in lots of different ways. From adding functionality that can enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

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

You can also add complex features to your site using relatively inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your pages like user testimonial and event registrations management …

And even run a complete bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to code these applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage more with visitors, clients and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Share your posts with other online users on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other members via online forums or even set up an online community on your own site.
• Engage with your team via live web conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Dial your business from their mobile phones when visiting your pages
• Get help and support via a dedicated user support helpdesk
• And so much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated “back end” applications with a WordPress “front end”. This enables you to control the content that your visitors will see on your site, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical areas …

Plugins – Useful Tips

• There are loads of amazing plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can affect your website’s performance and page loading speed. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of potential errors.
• Install only those plugins that you really plan to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we provide on this site for more expert information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think twice before using it. WordPress changes frequently and out-of-date WP plugins can cause conflicts.
• Ensure to always upgrade your plugins. Outdated plugin not only can cause errors, they could also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, plugins are an important component of WordPress and contribute to making it the most popular CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant features to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing on the topic of plugins:

Whatever functionality you want for your web site, you can be sure that a plugin probably exists that will do what you need it to do, and that it can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that it will be reasonably affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does just what you want it to do can probably be created for your business at a reasonable cost.

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

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