Tag: WordPress 101

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

Understanding Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

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

(Just like you can find social sharing apps …)

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

(… you can also find social sharing plugins for WordPress users!)

Generally, adding new features to an already-built web site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancements, this can get quite expensive, especially if it requires editing code.

This is also applicable to starting a web site. Businesses often fork out money in advance on added features they probably will never need.

To reduce costs, we recommend using a sustainable approach when developing a website and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As you need more features, you can add new software modules with only a few mouse clicks directly from within your admin area, to give your website or blog a completely new range of practical capabilities, and …

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

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

Benefits Of Using Plugins

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

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

WP plugins that you buy are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare the cost of purchasing a Premium plugin to the price of investing in professional web development services to add similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, because WordPress makes its code publicly available, anyone can create, rewrite and customize any part of the WP code. This has enabled thousands of third-party web developers to create more new tools that expand WordPress than you can probably imagine.

• WordPress plugins allow you to get started with just a basic web presence and then expand only as required.
• WP plugins allow you to add practically endless functionality to your website quickly and quite cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give you virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow non-technical users to own a site that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your web site new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more extensive features and may require some configuring.

WordPress Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Often) Completely FREE!

Like WordPress themes, loads of plugins are available to WP users … often at no cost!

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WordPress plugins that can do just about anything you can possibly want a site to do.

WP plugin categories cover:

• User Management
• Content Syndication
• Web Traffic Generation
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Media
• Media Utilities Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Securing Your WP Blog

You can expand your WordPress site with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Display ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Spanish)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your site
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and email you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Migrate data from non-WordPress applications
• Search and replace data
• Fight SPAM
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Inserting HTML and code elements into your website’s header and footer
• Add tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add a map
• Post your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you practically endless possibilities. If you plan to build a website or blog for your business, or your existing site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting a WP site or blog in the future, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WordPress plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of installing an inexpensive plugin on your website.

For example, if you want content protection, you can use plugins to make an area of your post inaccessible, or create a professional paid membership site with separate login details for each member …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to improve your site in lots of different ways. From adding new features that enhance your business, your visitors’ experience and your ability to analyze website metrics …

To increasing your site’s visibility across various social networks and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your site using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can download plugins that integrate and automate functions on your site such as displaying customer testimonials and booking events …

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

You can also take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that will make your site even more interactive …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Bookmark your content on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with your team members via forums or even set up an online community on your own site.
• Engage with your staff using live video chats
• Call your business from their laptops when browsing your pages
• Get help via a customer helpdesk
• And much more …

You can also integrate complex third-party applications using a WP “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors will see on your website, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical functions …

Plugins – Some Useful Things To Know

• There are many useful plugins available. Be careful not to overload your server with too many plugins, as this will affect your website’s performance and page loading speed. It can also create more maintenance work for you as a result of potential conflicts.
• Only keep the plugins you really plan to use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize extra server resources.
• Many free plugins often receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing paid WordPress plugins, ensure that you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of our WP plugin reviews for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think twice before installing it. WordPress changes on a frequent basis and outdated WP plugins can create errors.
• Always update your plugins. Outdated plugin not only can cause problems, they could also contain security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most powerful, flexible and scalable CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add new functionality to their website without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

If there is any feature or functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a WP plugin probably exists that will do what you need, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost will be minimal.

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

And, if by any chance such a plugin has not been created yet, then one can probably be developed for you at a reasonable cost.

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

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