Tag: WordPress 101

One of the main features of the WordPress platform is the ability to easily expand your WP website or blog’s functionality using applications called plugins.

About Plugins

No doubt, you most likely own a device like a mobile phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your phone like a new application, software or tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little piece of software that is really simple and easy to install and adds new features to any mobile phone.

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

A plugin is similar to an app. You install and activate an application that provides new functionality to your website …

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

Almost always, adding new features to an existing website involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the new features or enhancements are, this cost can be significant, especially if it requires website development.

This also applies when creating a website. Companies will often invest money upfront for extra features they probably will never need.

To minimize your expenses, we recommend considering a sustainable strategy to developing a website and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As you need new features, install new applications with a few clicks of the mouse that integrate with your existing site, giving your website a completely new range of practical capabilities, and …

3) Cost not one dollar more to download and install on your web site?

Well, this is just what plugins allow you to do!

Plugins – Benefits

I began this blog post by comparing plugins with apps. Just like some apps are free to download and some may cost a little money, so do WordPress plugins.

In fact, thousands of wonderful plugins can be downloaded to your website at no cost.

WP plugins that you buy are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of investing in web development services to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, because WordPress makes its source code available to everyone, anybody can create, edit and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has enabled many professional web development professionals to build more plugins that “plug into” WordPress than you can possibly imagine.

• Plugins let you start off with only a simple web site and add new features and enhancements to your site when required.
• Plugins let you add almost endless functionality to any site quickly, easily and very cheaply.
• Plugins give your site practically unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow business owners to own a digital presence that they can manage.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your site with immediate capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins are a little more advanced and could require some initial configuration.

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

Just like WP themes, tens of thousands of plugins are available for WP users … often at no cost!

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

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

There are WordPress plugins for:

• Web Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Increasing Site Traffic
• User Engagement
• Social Sharing
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Tools
• Optimizing Your WordPress Website

You can expand your business online presence with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Display ad banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User 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
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your site
• Set appointments and appointment reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and email you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Hide certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect post content sections
• Import content from non-WP applications
• Search and replace content
• Fight SPAM
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Insert HTML and script elements into your content
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search listings
• Add business location maps
• Post your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you practically endless business scalability. If you plan to build a web site for your business, or your existing website isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider using it in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at some practical uses of adding an inexpensive plugin to your website.

For example, if you want to protect your content, you can install plugins to make a section of your page or post inaccessible, or create a professional membership site with customized login details for each user …

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

To increasing your business reach and visibility across social networks and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated features to your site using relatively inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can install plugins that integrate and automate processes on your website like customer testimonial and event registration management …

And even run a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying web developers to code similar functionality for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with your support team via forums or even set up a private social network on your site.
• Engage with your team through live video chats
• Dial your business from their laptops while visiting your pages
• Open a support ticket
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex enterprise-level solutions within a WP “front end”. This allows you to manage the content that your visitors will see on your web site, while the third-party application handles the technical functions …

Additional Things You Should Know About WP Plugins

• There are so many great WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this can inevitably begin to affect your site’s performance and site loading speed. It also means more maintenance work for you as a consequence of possible conflicts.
• Install only those plugins that you really need. Delete all inactive plugins from your site, as these use server resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive very little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing paid plugins, we recommend that you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we publish here for more useful 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 updates often and older plugins that have not been updated can create issues.
• Make sure that you always upgrade your plugins to their latest software version. Outdated plugin not only can cause problems, they may also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important aspect of WordPress and contribute to making it the most preferred CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant functionality to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing on the subject of WordPress plugins:

Whatever functionality you want for your website, you can guarantee that a plugin currently exists that will do what you want it to do, and that it can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the price will be minimal.

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

And, if by any chance this WP plugin does not exist, then a custom plugin that does exactly what you would like it to do can most certainly be created for you at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can help to improve your business blog. See our related posts section to learn about more popular plugins that we recommend using.

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