Tag: WordPress 101

One of the main benefits of using WordPress is the ability to quickly expand your WP site’s functionality using applications called ’plugins’.

About WP Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

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

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

A plugin is really similar to an app. You simply install and activate a software that adds new functionality to your WordPress web site …

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

Generally, expanding the functionality of an existing website involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the new features or enhancements are, this cost can be significant, particularly if it requires website development.

This is also applicable to starting a new web site. Many business owners tend to fork out money in advance on additional features they may not ever need.

To reduce costs, we suggest a cost-effective approach to developing a online presence presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As you need more features or functionality, just add new applications with just a couple of mouse clicks directly from within your WordPress admin section, giving your site a completely new and expanded range of capabilities and functionality, and also …

3) Cost not a single dollar extra to install on your web site?

Well, this is precisely what WordPress plugins let you do!

Benefits And Advantages Of Using WordPress Plugins

Earlier, we compared plugins with ’apps’. In a similar way that some apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, so do plugins.

In fact, thousands of plugins can be downloaded and installed on your sites.

WP plugins that you buy are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of investing in professional web development services to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, because WordPress makes its source code available to everyone, anyone can create, modify and customize any portion of the WP code. This has allowed many professional web developers to enhance and contribute to the core software application.

• WP plugins let you get started with a basic website and then expand only when required.
• Plugins let you add almost endless features to your web presence easily, quickly and quite inexpensively.
• Plugins give you virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow business owners to have a web presence that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website or blog immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more extensive features and may require some configuring.

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

Just like WordPress themes, thousands of plugins are available for WP users … often at $0 cost!

You can view and download thousands of plugins from the Free WordPress Plugin Repository …

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

There are plugins for:

• Web Site Administration
• Content Management
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Interactivity
• Social Engagement
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Analysis
• WP SEO

For example, you can expand a website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Managing banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Automatic language translation (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 menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage management
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your website
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your posts and pages
• Migrate information from different publishing applications
• Search and replace data
• Block SPAM
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert code and code elements into your posts
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced font display formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Post your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a website for your business, or your existing site isn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting one built on your domain, or you could be missing out on some serious features.

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

For example, if you need content protection, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to improve your web site in lots of ways. From adding new features that can improve your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to analyze website data …

To increasing your business visibility across a number of social sites and search engines …

You can also add advanced functionality to your website using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that automate tasks on your site such as customer feedback and event bookings management …

And also set up a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying programmers to create custom functionality for you …

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

For example, your web visitors can:

• Post comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site added exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other users through online forums or even set up an online community on your own site.
• Engage with your support staff via live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Dial your business directly from their devices when visiting your site
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

You can even integrate sophisticated “back end” applications with a WordPress “front end”. This enables you to control your business sales and marketing, while the third-party application handles the technical aspects …

WordPress Plugins – Useful Tips

• There are so many plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this will inevitably begin to affect your website’s performance and site loading speed. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you as a result of potential errors.
• Install only those plugins you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize extra resources.
• Many free plugins often receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid plugins, make sure you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WordPress plugin reviews for more useful information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before installing it on your website or blog. The WordPress software changes often and out-of-date WordPress plugins can create errors.
• Always upgrade your plugins to the latest version. Outdated plugins not only can cause issues, they could also have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important aspect of WordPress and contribute to making it the most downloaded website open source solution available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand quickly without having to spend thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing about WP plugins:

If there is any functionality you need for your website, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already developed one that will do exactly what you want, and that it can either be downloaded for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that it will be fairly affordable.

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

And, if by any chance such a plugin does not exist, then it can certainly be created for your business for a very reasonable price.

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

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