Tag: WordPress 101

One of the main benefits of building a website using WordPress is the ability to quickly and easily increase your WordPress site’s functionality using plugins.

About WP Plugins

Like most people, you most likely have a device like a mobile phone. What do you do when you want to access something new on your device like a new application, software or a business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is simple and easy to install and integrates new features and functionality into a mobile phone.

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

A WP plugin is similar to an app. You simply download and install an application that adds new functionality to your WordPress web site …

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

Typically, adding a new feature to your site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancements, the cost can be significant, especially if web developers need to add new code or edit templates or develop scripts to integrate into your current site.

This also applies when developing a web site. Companies often invest upfront for bells and whistles they probably will never need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we recommend considering a modular strategy when setting up your digital presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As the need for new capabilities or functionality arises, add new software modules with a couple of clicks of the mouse that integrate with your site, giving your web site a completely new range of useful features, and also …

3) Cost not one cent extra to download and install on your web site?

Well, this is precisely what a plugin allows you to do!

Benefits And Advantages Of Using WordPress Plugins

I began this blog post by comparing plugins with apps. In a similar way that many apps are free to download and some may cost a little money, the same is true for WordPress plugins.

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

Plugins that you purchase are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the cost of paying for professional web development services to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are typically quite inexpensive.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any person can create, modify and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled many third-party web development professionals to build more applications that expand WordPress than you can possibly imagine.

• Plugins let you get started with just a simple yet professional site and add new features and enhancements to your site when necessary.
• Plugins allow you to add practically endless features to your website easily, quickly and inexpensively.
• WP plugins give you practically unlimited expanding capabilities.
• Plugins allow ”non-techies” to own a site that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your website or blog with new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more extensive options and require some initial configuration.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WP plugins that can do just about everything you can imagine.

WP plugin categories cover:

• Blog Administration
• Content Syndication
• Web Traffic Generation
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Sharing
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Analysis Applications
• Site Optimization

For example, you can add features to your website with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Rotating advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private 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
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages 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 site
• Set client appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect users from certain pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• 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. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your posts and pages
• Migrate information from different CMS platforms
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Block SPAM
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Insert code and code elements into your content
• Add tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Publish your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you endless business scalability. If you plan to build a web site for your business, or your existing website isn’t built with WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let me show you some practical advantages of installing an inexpensive plugin on your web site.

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

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

To extending your site’s visibility across social media and search engines …

You can also add complex features to your site using relatively inexpensive premium WordPress plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate functionality on your pages like displaying customer testimonials and event bookings …

And also set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to create the same functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will enhance your site’s interactivity …

For example, your web visitors can:

• 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 are then displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Share your posts with other web visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online with other online users via online forums or even set up a private online social network on your own domain.
• Engage with your staff via live video chats
• Dial your business from their devices while visiting your website
• Get support via a dedicated client helpdesk
• And so much more …

You can also integrate sophisticated enterprise applications with a WP “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors will see on your web site, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical side of things …

Plugins – Additional Things You Should Know

• There are many amazing plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this will start to affect your site’s performance and site loading speed. It also creates more maintenance work for you as a result of possible errors.
• Install only the plugins that you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these also consume resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive very little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing paid WordPress plugins, we recommend that you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check our WordPress plugin recommendations for additional information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think carefully before installing it on your website. The WordPress software changes frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can create issues.
• Always upgrade your plugins. Outdated plugins not only can create issues, they could also contain security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, plugins are an important component of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most popular content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand without spending thousands of dollars on web development.

One last thing on the subject of WordPress plugins:

Whatever feature you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a WordPress plugin currently exists that will do what you need, and that this plugin will either be available at no cost, 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 WP plugin is not available, then one can probably be coded for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can significantly expand your blog. See our published posts to learn more about using WP plugins.

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