Tag: WordPress 101

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

Understanding Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is simple and easy to install and immediately integrates new features into your mobile phone.

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

A plugin is very much like an app. You simply install and activate an application that adds new functionality to your WordPress site …

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

Almost always, if you decide to expand the functionality of a website, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the features or enhancements are, the cost can be fairly significant, particularly if web developers have to create new code or edit code or install programs to integrate into your current set up.

This also applies to creating a website. Business owners tend to invest money on bells and whistles they probably will never need.

For this reason, we recommend a cost-effective strategy when developing your digital presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply with minimal cost involved. Get a basic, professional business web presence up and running quickly, then …

2) As more features are required, add new software modules with only a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from within your admin section, giving your website a completely new and expanded range of features and functionality, and also …

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

Well, this is exactly what plugins let you do!

Benefits & Advantages Of Plugins

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

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

WordPress plugins that you buy are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of paying for professional web development services to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are generally quite inexpensive.

Also, as WordPress makes its source code publicly available, anybody can create, rewrite and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has enabled many third-party software development professionals to enhance the core software application.

• WP plugins allow you to start off simply with only a simple yet professional web site and add new features and enhancements to your site only when required.
• Plugins let you add almost unlimited features to your web site quickly, easily and very inexpensively.
• WP plugins give you almost endless expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow business owners to have a web presence that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins are a little more complex and may need some initial configuration.

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

Like themes, tens of thousands of great plugins are available to WordPress users … often at no cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find plugins that can do just about everything you could possibly need your website to do.

Plugin categories cover:

• Site Administration
• Content Syndication
• Online Traffic Generation
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Connectivity
• Managing Media Files – Video, Graphics & Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales & Marketing Automation
• Improving Sales And Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Securing Your WordPress Blog

For example, you can enhance your business online presence with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Managing advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• Language translation plugins (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 interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your blog
• Set up appointments and appointment reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect web links
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Hide pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Migrate information from non-WP applications
• Search and replace content
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Insert scripts and script elements into your posts and pages
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Post your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and many others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you practically endless possibilities. If you plan to build a web site for your business, or your existing website was not built using WordPress, then consider using it in the future.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let me show you how you can benefit by installing a plugin on your site.

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can install plugins to make an area of a post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with customized login details for users …

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

To extending your business visibility across various social media and search engines …

You can also add complex features to your website using inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can download plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your pages like customer feedback and event registration management …

And also set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring web developers to build similar applications for you …

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

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with additional exposure).
• Share your posts with other web visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other members using forums or even set up a private community on your site.
• Engage with your staff via live video chats
• Dial your business directly from their laptops while visiting your pages
• Open support tickets
• And so much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated third-party applications within a WordPress “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors see on your web site, while the 3rd-party application handles the technological functions …

WP Plugins – Additional Information

• There are many fantastic plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can start to affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It also creates more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible conflicts and errors.
• Only keep those plugins that you really use. 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 author. When considering paid plugins, make sure you check around a little and understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we publish on this site for additional information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think twice before using it on your website or blog. The WordPress core software is updated on a regular basis and older WordPress plugins can cause problems.
• Always keep your plugins updated. Outdated plugins not only can cause problems, they could also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making it the most used online management application available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to expand without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing about plugins:

If there is any feature or functionality you need for your web site, you can guarantee that a WordPress plugin already exists that will do exactly what you want, and that it can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost will be minimal.

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

And, if by any chance such a plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does just what you want it to do can probably be created for your business at a reasonable cost.

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

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