Tag: What Is A Plugin

One of the most useful benefits of WordPress is that you can easily enhance your WP web site’s functionality using applications called ’plugins’.

What Are WP Plugins?

Like most people, you most likely use a smart phone. What happens when you would like access to something new on your phone like a new game or tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a software that is easy to install and integrates new features into any smart device.

(Just like you will find social sharing apps …)

A WordPress plugin is very much like an app. You simply install and activate a software application that adds new functionality to your website …

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

Typically, expanding the functionality of an already-built site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancement, things could become quite expensive, especially if it requires editing code.

This also applies when creating a website. Business owners tend to fork out money in advance on features or options they probably will never need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we suggest a cost-effective approach to developing a website and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get your business web presence up and running quickly, then …

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

3) Cost not a single cent more to add to your site?

Well, this is precisely what a WordPress plugin enables you to do!

Plugins – Benefits And Advantages

Earlier, we compared WP plugins with mobile apps. In the same way that some apps are free to download and some may cost a little bit of money, so do plugins.

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

WordPress plugins that cost money are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of paying for web development services to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite low.

Also, because WordPress is an Open Source application, anyone can create, rewrite and customize any part of the code. This has allowed thousands of professional web development companies to create more new applications that “plug into” WordPress than you can imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started with a basic web site and add new features and enhancements to your site only if necessary.
• WordPress plugins let you add almost endless functionality to your web presence quickly, easily and really inexpensively.
• WordPress plugins give your digital business presence practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow non-technical users to own a digital presence that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your site with new capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins offer more extensive options and require some configuring.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you will find plugins that can do just about anything you want done.

There are plugins for:

• Site Administration
• Content Syndication
• Web Traffic Generation
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Sharing
• Media Management Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Applications
• Securing Your WordPress Site

You can add features to a WordPress site with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Managing banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your site’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.
• Offline storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business directories
• Automatically sell spots on your website
• Set up client appointments and appointment reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Hide pages from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Import data from other CMS applications
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Insert scripts and script elements into your posts
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add business location maps
• Post your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

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

In case 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 need to publish private content, you can install plugins to make an area of your page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to enhance your web presence in lots of ways. From installing functionality that enhance your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to analyze visitor data …

To extending your business reach across multiple social networks and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your website using inexpensive premium WP plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate features on your pages like customer testimonial and event bookings management …

And even set up a complete bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying software developers to design the same applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that can let you engage better with web visitors, customers and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site added exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on social networking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with your team members using forums or even set up a private online social network on your site.
• Engage with your support staff through live video chats
• Dial your business directly from their laptops while visiting your site
• Get support via a dedicated customer support helpdesk
• And much more …

You can even integrate sophisticated third-party applications within a WordPress “front end”. This enables you to manage the content that your visitors will see on your website, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical aspects …

Some Useful Things You Should Know About WP Plugins

• There are many amazing plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this can inevitably affect your site’s resources and site loading speed. It also creates more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of possible errors.
• Install only those plugins you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins often receive very little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium plugins, make sure you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we provide on this site for more information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think twice before installing it on your site. The WordPress software changes often and older plugins that have not been updated can create conflicts.
• Always maintain your plugins updated to their most recent software version. Outdated plugin not only can create errors and conflicts, they could also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most used web publishing solution available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant functionality to their website without spending thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you want for your web site, you can be sure that a someone has probably already developed one that will do just what you want it to do, and that this plugin can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost will be reasonable.

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

And, if by any chance this WP plugin is not available, then one can probably be created for your business for a very reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can to improve your blog. See our published posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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