Tag: WordPress 101

One of the most unique advantages of building a website with the WordPress web site management platform is that you can easily expand your WP website’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding WP Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

An app is a software that is very easy to install and integrates new functionality into a smart device.

(Just as there are social sharing apps for mobile phones …)

A WP plugin is like an app. You download and install an application that adds new functionality to your website or blog …

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

Typically, adding new features to an existing site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancement, the cost can be significant, particularly if it involves editing code.

This also applies when creating a new web site. Business owners often fork out money in advance on additional bells and whistles they probably will never need.

For this reason, we suggest using a cost-effective strategy when growing a web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a basic, professional-looking web site up and running fast, then …

2) As the need for new capabilities or functionality becomes apparent, just install new applications with only a few mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your website and blog, giving your website or blog a whole new and expanded range of useful features, and …

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

Well, that’s precisely what a WP plugin lets you do!

Benefits Of Plugins

Earlier, we compared plugins with ’apps’. Just like some apps are free to download and some may cost a little money, the same is true for plugins.

In fact, many plugins can be downloaded to your site for free.

Plugins that you have to buy are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare the price of a Premium plugin to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to get similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, because WordPress is an Open Source application, anybody can create, rewrite and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has enabled many professional software development professionals to enhance the core WP software application.

• WP plugins allow you to start off simply with just a simple web site and add new features and enhancements to your site only as required.
• WordPress plugins allow you to add almost unlimited features to any website quickly, easily and quite cheaply.
• Plugins give your web site practically unlimited expanding capabilities.
• Plugins allow non-technical website owners to own a web presence that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website or blog immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins are slightly more complex and may require some initial configuration.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you will find WP plugins that will do just about anything you need a website to do.

There are WP plugins for:

• Blog Management
• Content Syndication
• Traffic
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Sharing
• Adding Media Files – Videos, Graphics, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales & Advertising Automation
• Improving Sales And Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Analysis
• Optimizing Your WordPress Web Site

You can add features to your business online presence with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Rotating advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to Portuguese)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your site
• Set appointments and appointment reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect users from specified pages to other areas on your site or other websites
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Exclude pages from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Import content from other publishing platforms
• Search and replace content
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Inserting code and code elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add and format tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add location maps
• Publish your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you virtually endless business flexibility. If you plan to build a web site for your business, or your existing site wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

If you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WordPress plugins, let me show you some practical advantages of adding an inexpensive plugin to your site.

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

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to improve your business site in so many different ways. From adding new features that will enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

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

You can also add complex functionality to your site using inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can install plugins that automate tasks on your site like user testimonial and event registrations management …

And even run a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying software developers to create similar applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that can let you engage in various ways with your web visitors, customers and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on social media.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with other users via forums or even set up a private community on your site.
• Engage with your support staff via live video chats
• Dial your business from their cellphones when visiting your site
• Get help and support via a user support helpdesk
• And so much more …

You can even integrate sophisticated enterprise-level solutions within a WordPress “front end”. This allows you to manage your business sales and marketing, while the third-party application handles the technological aspects …

Plugins – Some Useful Information

• There are lots of plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can start to affect your website’s performance and page loading times. It also means more maintenance work for you resulting from possible conflicts.
• Install only those plugins you really need to use. Delete any plugins from your site, as these also consume server resources.
• Many free plugins often receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing premium WordPress plugins, ensure that you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WP plugin recommendations for additional information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it. The WordPress core application updates frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can cause issues.
• Make sure to always keep all plugins up-to-date. Older plugin not only can cause problems, they may also have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most downloaded content management system in the world. 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.

One last thing on the subject of plugins:

Whatever functionality you want for your website, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already created one that will do just what you want it to do, and that it can either be downloaded at no cost, 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 this WP plugin has not been created yet, then a custom plugin that does precisely what you need it to do can probably be developed for you for a very reasonable price.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can help to improve your web site. See our related posts section to learn more about using WordPress plugins.

***

***