Tag: WordPress 101

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

Understanding Plugins

No doubt, you probably have a device like a cell phone. What happens when you want to access something new on your device like a new application, software or business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little piece of software that is really easy to install and instantly integrates new features and functionality into your smart phone.

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

A plugin is very much like an app. You download and install a software application that provides new functionality to your website or blog …

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

Almost always, expanding the functionality of a site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, this cost can be fairly significant, particularly if web developers need to add new code or modify code or install programs that integrate with your current site.

This is also applicable to starting a new website or business blog. Business owners often pay for features they may never need.

To save money and keep expenses low, we recommend a cost-effective approach when growing a web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As more features are required, simply add new applications with only a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from within your administration section, to give your website or blog a whole new and expanded range of features and functionality, and also …

3) Cost not a single dollar extra to add to your site?

Well, that’s just what a WP plugin allows you to do!

Benefits & Advantages Of Plugins

I began this article by comparing plugins with apps. In a similar way that many apps are free to download and some cost a little bit of money, so do plugins.

In fact, thousands of plugins are freely available for WP users.

Plugins that you buy are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare the price of buying a Premium plugin to the price of hiring a professional web developer to add similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, as WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anyone can create, modify and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled thousands of third-party web developers to build more plugins that integrate seamlessly with the WordPress software than you can possibly imagine.

• WordPress plugins let you start off with a simple site and expand only if required.
• WordPress plugins let you add almost unlimited functionality to your website easily, quickly and cheaply.
• Plugins give your digital business presence almost unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow ”non-techies” to have a website that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your web site instant new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more extensive options and could require some configuring.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WordPress plugins that can do almost everything you want done.

WP plugin categories cover:

• User Management
• Content Distribution
• Increasing Web Visitors
• User Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Tools
• Securing Your

You can expand your website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Managing advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single ordering with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to German)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your website
• Set client appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect affiliate pages
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Hide pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content
• Migrate content from non-WP platforms
• Search and replace content
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Inserting HTML and code elements into your posts and pages
• Add tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add location maps
• Distribute your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As you can clearly see, WordPress plugins give you practically limitless business flexibility. If you are currently planning to build a web site for your business, or your existing site was not built using WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WordPress plugins, let me show you how you can benefit instantly by simply installing an inexpensive plugin on your web site.

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

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your business site in lots of different ways. From installing features that can improve your business, your web users’ experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

To increasing your business reach across a number of social media and search engines …

You can also add complex functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive paid WordPress plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate functionality on your website like displaying customer testimonials and booking events …

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

You can also take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that will enhance user engagement …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Share your content with other online visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with your team through online forums or even set up a private online social network on your site.
• Engage with your staff using live web conferencing and chatrooms
• Dial your business directly from their smart phones while visiting your website
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

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

Some Useful Tips About Plugins

• There are lots of great WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can affect your site’s resources and site loading speed. It also means more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of possible conflicts.
• Only keep those plugins you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these also use resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid plugins, we recommend that you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we provide on this site for additional helpful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think twice before using it on your site. WordPress updates frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can cause errors.
• Always update your plugins to the most recent software version. Older plugins not only can create errors, they may also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making it the most powerful, flexible and scalable content management system available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add new functionality to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you want for your website, you can guarantee that a plugin probably exists that will do exactly what you want, and that it will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be surprisingly affordable.

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

And, if by chance such a WordPress plugin has not been created yet, then a custom plugin that does just what you would like it to do can probably be created for your business at a reasonable cost.

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

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