Tag: WordPress 101

One of the main benefits of building a website using the WordPress software is the ability to quickly and easily expand your WordPress web site’s functionality using plugins.

What Are Plugins?

No doubt, you probably use a device like a mobile phone. What happens when you would like access to something new on your device like a new application, software or a new productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is easy to install and integrates new features and functionality into a mobile phone.

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

A plugin is really similar to an app. You simply install an application that adds new functionality to your website or blog …

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

Normally, expanding the functionality of an existing web site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancement, the cost can be significant, especially if it involves website development.

This is also applicable to starting a new website. Business owners sometimes spend money in advance on bells and whistles they may not need.

For this reason, we suggest a modular approach when setting up a online presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As you need more features and functionality, simply add new software modules with only a couple of mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your site, to give your website or blog a completely new and expanded range of practical capabilities, and also …

3) Cost not one dollar extra to add to your website?

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

Benefits Of Using WP Plugins

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

In fact, loads of useful plugins are available at no cost to users.

WordPress plugins that you purchase are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of investing in web development services to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are priced quite low.

Also, because WordPress makes its source code publicly available, anybody can create, edit and customize any part of the code. This has enabled thousands of professional software developers to build more new plugins that enhance WordPress than you can probably imagine.

• WP plugins allow you to start simply with a basic website and then expand as required.
• Plugins allow you to add almost endless features to your web presence easily and very cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give your site virtually endless expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow ”non-techies” to own a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your website or blog with immediate enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be a little more complex and require some configuring.

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

Like many WP themes, tens of thousands of great WordPress plugins are available to WordPress users … often at $0 cost!

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

As previously mentioned, you will find WordPress plugins that will do almost anything you could possibly need a web site to do.

There are plugins for:

• Website Management
• Content Distribution
• Traffic
• User Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Media Management Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis Applications
• WordPress SEO

You can expand a website with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from managing single ordering with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to Spanish)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your website
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect visitors from certain pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content
• Import content from non-WP applications
• Perform bulk data replacements
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Inserting code and code elements into your posts, pages and sidebars
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Post your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you endless possibilities. If you are planning to build a web site, or your existing web site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting a WP site or blog in the future, or you will be missing out on some serious features.

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

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

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to improve your web presence in so many ways. From adding functionality that improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to analyze visitor data …

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

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your website using inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that automate features on your pages like managing customer testimonials and booking events …

And also run a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring web developers to code the same applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Bookmark your content on social networking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with your team via online forums or even set up an online community on your own domain.
• Engage with members of your team via live chats
• Dial your business directly from their mobile phones while visiting your site
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate sophisticated enterprise solutions using a WP “front end”. This lets you control your business marketing, while your third-party application handles the technological areas …

WP Plugins – Additional Tips

• There are many plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your server with too many plugins, as this will affect your website’s resources and page loading times. It also creates more maintenance issues for you resulting from potential errors.
• Only keep those plugins you really need. Delete any plugins from your site, as these utilize extra resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium plugins, ensure that you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we publish here for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it. The WordPress platform is updated on a frequent basis and older plugins that have not been updated can cause conflicts.
• Always maintain all plugins updated. Outdated plugins not only can create conflicts, they could also have security 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 popular content management system available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand quickly without spending thousands of dollars on web development.

One last thing on the subject of WP plugins:

Whatever functionality you want for your web site, you can be sure that a plugin already exists that will do just what you need, and that it will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be fairly inexpensive.

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

And, if by chance this WordPress plugin does not exist, then one can probably be developed for your business at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WP plugins – what they are and how they can expand your business blog. See our related posts section to learn about more popular WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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