Tag: WordPress 101

One of the main benefits of the WordPress web content management software is the ability to easily enhance your WordPress site’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding WP Plugins

Like most people, you most likely use a mobile phone. What happens when you would like to access something new on your device like a new application, game or a new business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is simple and easy to install and instantly adds new features and functionality to a smart device.

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

A plugin is like an app. You simply install and activate a little software application that adds new functionality to your website …

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

Almost always, adding new features to a site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the new features or enhancements are, the cost can be significant, particularly if it involves programming code.

This also applies when setting up a new website. Businesses sometimes pay money in advance for added features they probably will never need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we suggest a cost-effective approach when setting up a website and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As more features and functionality become necessary, just install new applications with only a couple of mouse clicks that integrate with your current website, giving your web site a whole new range of practical functionality, and …

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

Well, that’s just what WP plugins let you do!

Plugins – Benefits

We started this blog post by comparing WordPress plugins with ’apps’. In a similar way that some apps are free to download and some cost a little bit of money, the same applies to plugins.

In fact, thousands of wonderful plugins are available at no cost to WP users.

Plugins that cost money are called Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the price of hiring a professional web developer to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, since WordPress makes its code publicly available, anyone can create, rewrite and customize any part of the code. This has enabled thousands of third-party software developers to create more plugins that expand WordPress than you can probably imagine.

• WordPress plugins allow you to start off with just a basic yet professional web presence and add new features and enhancements to your site only when necessary.
• Plugins allow you to add almost unlimited features to your web presence easily and very cheaply.
• Plugins give you virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow anyone to have a digital presence that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website with new enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be slightly more complex and may require some configuration.

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

Like many themes, loads of great WordPress plugins are available to WordPress users … for FREE!

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find WordPress plugins that will do almost everything you want done.

Plugin categories cover:

• Site Management
• Content Syndication
• Online Traffic Generation
• User Interactivity
• Social Sharing
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Analysis
• Web Site SEO

You can enhance your WP site with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Managing advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Automatic language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your site from English to German)
• 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
• Managing events & bookings
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your site
• Set up client appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect visitors from broken pages to other areas on your site or other sites
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Exclude certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Migrate information from different publishing platforms
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Fight SPAM
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Inserting HTML and script elements into your posts
• Add tables
• Add 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 networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As you can clearly see, WordPress plugins give you endless business scalability. If you are currently planning to build a website or blog, or your existing website isn’t built with WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

If you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WP plugins, let me show you some practical advantages of installing an inexpensive plugin on your website.

For example, if you need to publish private content, you can install plugins to make a section of a page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete paid membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to enhance your site in so many different ways. From installing features that will improve your business, your website visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

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

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your website using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can download plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your website such as customer feedback and event registrations management …

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

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

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Bookmark your content on social media.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with your team through online forums or even set up an online social network on your domain.
• Engage with members of your team via live chats
• Dial your business from their cellphones when browsing your website
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

You can also integrate sophisticated enterprise applications using a WP “front end”. This allows you to manage your business marketing, while the third-party application handles the technological functions …

Plugins – Some Useful Things To Know

• There are so many plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will eventually affect your site’s performance and site loading times. It can also mean more maintenance work for you resulting from possible conflicts and errors.
• Only keep those plugins you really use. Delete all deactivated plugins from your site, as these use server resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing premium WordPress plugins, make sure you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check our plugin reviews for additional information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think carefully before installing it on your website. The WordPress software updates often and older plugins that have not been updated can cause problems.
• Always keep your plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugins not only can create issues, they could also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important aspect of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most preferred CMS in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add new functionality to their web presence without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing about plugins:

If there is any functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a someone has probably already developed one that will do just what you want, and that this plugin can either be downloaded 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 chance this plugin does not exist, then one can probably be coded for you at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can expand your website. See our related posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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