Tag: WordPress 101

One of the most unique benefits of the WordPress software is that you can quickly increase your WordPress site’s functionality using inexpensive (even completely free) software called plugins.

What Are Plugins?

No doubt, you most likely use a cell phone. What do you do when you would like to access something new on your phone like a new game or business tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software that is easy to install and instantly adds new features to your smart phone.

(Just like there are social sharing apps for smart phones …)

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

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

Typically, if you want to expand the functionality of your web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancements, this cost can be significant, especially if it involves website development.

This is also applicable when starting a new website. Business owners tend to fork out money in advance on additional features they probably will never need.

To minimize expenses, we recommend using a modular approach when growing your website and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As the need becomes apparent, just install new applications with just a few clicks of the mouse directly from within your WP administration section, and give your website a whole new and expanded range of useful functionality, and also …

3) Cost not a single cent more to add to your website?

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

Benefits Of Plugins

Earlier, we compared WP plugins with ’apps’. In a similar way that some apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little bit of money, the same is true for plugins.

In fact, loads of powerful plugins can be downloaded to your site for free.

Plugins that you purchase are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the price of paying for web development services to get similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite low.

Also, as WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anyone can create, rewrite and customize any portion of the code. This has allowed thousands of third-party software development companies to enhance the core WP software application.

• WP plugins let you get started with just a basic yet professional site and then add new features and enhancements to your site if necessary.
• WP plugins let you add almost unlimited functionality to any website quickly, easily and really cheaply.
• Plugins give you virtually unlimited expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow non-technical website owners to have a site that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your web site with immediate capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more extensive features and require some initial configuring.

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

Like WordPress themes, tens of thousands of plugins are made available to WordPress users … often at $0 cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find plugins that will do just about everything you could imagine.

There are WP plugins for:

• Web Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Traffic
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Sharing
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis Applications
• Securing Your WordPress Site

You can enhance a business online presence with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Rotating advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single ordering with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to Norwegian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your site
• Set appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect website links
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your pages and posts
• Import content from other publishing applications
• Search and replace content
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert scripts and code elements into your posts
• Add tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Publish your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and many others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you virtually endless business flexibility. If you are planning to build a website or blog 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 plugins, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of installing an inexpensive plugin on your site.

For example, if you need content protection, you can use plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with separate login details for all users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to improve your web presence in so many ways. From installing new features that can enhance your business, your website visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

To increasing your site’s reach and visibility across a number of social networks and search engines …

You can also add advanced functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive paid WordPress plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that integrate and automate functions on your site such as displaying customer testimonials and event bookings …

And also run a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to design these applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that can enhance visitor engagement …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site increased exposure).
• Share your content with other online users on social networking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other customers via forums or even set up an online social network on your domain.
• Engage with your staff using live video chats
• Dial your business from their devices when browsing your website
• Get help and support via a client help desk
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated enterprise-level applications using a WordPress “front end”. This lets you control the content that your visitors will see on your website, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical functions …

WP Plugins – Useful Information

• There are lots of amazing plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can begin to affect your site’s performance and site loading times. It can also create more maintenance work for you as a result of potential errors.
• Only keep the plugins that you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid WordPress plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of our plugin recommendations for more information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it. The WordPress software updates regularly and out-of-date plugins can create issues.
• Always update your plugins to their most recent software version. Older plugin not only can cause conflicts, they could also have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most preferred content management system available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand quickly without spending thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing on the topic of WP plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you want for your web presence, you can guarantee that a WordPress plugin currently exists that will do what you want it to do, and that it will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be reasonably affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this WP plugin does not exist, then one can probably be coded for your business for a very reasonable price.

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

***

***