Tag: WordPress Plugin Directory

One of the main advantages of using WordPress is that you can quickly and easily increase your WP website’s functionality using applications called plugins.

What Are WP Plugins?

No doubt, you probably use a smart phone. What do you do when you want to access something new on your phone like a new application, game or a productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a software application that is really easy to install and integrates new features into any smart phone.

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

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

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

Almost always, adding a new feature to your website involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancements, the cost can be significant, particularly if it involves modifying code.

This also applies when setting up a new website. Many companies sometimes invest up front in additional features they probably will never need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we recommend considering a cost-effective approach when growing a web site and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As the need for new features arises, install new software modules with just a few clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your web site, and give your web site a whole new range of possibilities, and also …

3) Cost not one dollar extra to add to your site?

Well, this is precisely what plugins let you do!

Benefits And Advantages Of Using Plugins

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

In fact, loads of wonderful plugins can be downloaded and installed on your websites.

Plugins that cost money are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of investing in web development services to add the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, because WordPress makes its code publicly available, any web developer can create, edit and customize any portion of the code. This has allowed thousands of professional software developers to enhance and contribute to the core software application.

• Plugins let you start off with just a basic yet professional online business presence and then add new features and enhancements to your site only when necessary.
• WordPress plugins let you add practically unlimited features to your web site easily, quickly and inexpensively.
• Plugins give you almost unlimited expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow business owners to own a digital presence that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website or blog immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more extensive options and may need some configuration.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WP plugins that can do almost everything you want done.

There are WP plugins for:

• Blog Administration
• Content Management
• Increasing Site Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Media
• Inserting Media Files – Videos, Graphics & Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Tools
• Website Optimization

You can add features to your WP site with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Rotating ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your site from English to Portuguese)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your blog
• Set client appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect visitors from certain pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content sections
• Migrate data from non-WordPress platforms
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Inserting HTML and script elements into your pages
• 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
• Post your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you practically limitless business scalability. If you are currently planning to build a website or blog for your business, or your existing web site was not built with 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 instantly by installing a plugin on your website.

For example, if you want to publish content which is only accessible to some but not all users, you can install 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 customized login details for users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to improve your web presence in so many different ways. From installing functionality that will enhance your business, your visitors’ experience and your ability to review site data …

To extending your site’s reach across a number of social sites and search engines …

You can also add advanced functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive paid WordPress plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate functionality on your pages like displaying customer testimonials and booking events …

And also set up a complete bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to code similar functionality 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 visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site increased exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on social media.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with other members using online forums or even set up a private social network on your domain.
• Engage with your team using live chats
• Call your business from their cellphones when browsing your site
• Get support via a dedicated customer helpdesk
• And so much more …

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

Plugins – Useful Tips

• There are loads of plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can invariably begin to affect your website’s resources and page loading times. It can also mean more maintenance work for you resulting from potential conflicts and errors.
• Only keep those plugins you really plan to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these use server resources.
• Many free plugins often receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we provide on this site for additional helpful information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before using it. WordPress updates frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can cause problems.
• Make sure to always keep your plugins updated. Older plugin not only can create errors and conflicts, they could also have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most popular web open source application available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add new features to their website without spending thousands of dollars on web development.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you want for your web site, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do what you need, and that this plugin can either be downloaded at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost will be surprisingly reasonable.

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

And, if by chance this plugin does not exist, then it can probably be developed for your business at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can significantly enhance the functionality of your business blog. See our related posts section to learn about more great WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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