Tag: WordPress Plugin Directory

One of the main advantages of building a website using WordPress is that you can quickly enhance your WP website or blog’s functionality using applications called plugins.

What Are WP Plugins?

Like most of us, you probably own a device like a mobile phone. What do you do when you would like to access something new on your device like a new application, game or a new business productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software application that is simple and easy to install and adds new features to your mobile device.

(Just like you will find social sharing apps …)

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

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

Normally, if you need to expand the functionality of a web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the new features or enhancements are, this cost can be significant, particularly if it requires website development.

This is also applicable when setting up a new web site. Companies often spend money for features or options they may simply not need.

To reduce expenses, we suggest a modular strategy to developing your website and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get your website up and running fast, then …

2) As you need new features and functionality, add new applications with just a few clicks of the mouse that integrate with your current website, to give your web site a whole new range of possibilities, and …

3) Cost not one cent more to install on your web site?

Well, this is exactly what plugins allow you to do!

Benefits Of Plugins

I started this article by comparing WP plugins with smartphone apps. Just like some apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, the same is true with plugins.

In fact, thousands of plugins can be installed on your websites.

Plugins that you purchase are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of hiring a professional web developer to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins are generally very inexpensive.

Also, since WordPress makes its code available to everyone, anybody can create, edit and customize any part of the code. This has allowed thousands of professional web development companies to enhance the core software application.

• WP plugins allow you to get started with a simple site and then expand only when required.
• WordPress plugins allow you to add practically unlimited functionality to any web site easily and quite inexpensively.
• WordPress plugins give you practically endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow non-technical website owners to own a web presence that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your website or blog new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more advanced options and require some initial configuring.

Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Often) 100% FREE!

Like WP themes, tens of thousands of WP plugins are available for WP users … and many of these great plugins are 100% FREE!

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find WP plugins that will do just about everything you could possibly need a web site to do.

WP plugin categories cover:

• User Administration
• Content Syndication
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Interactivity
• Social Monitoring
• Adding Media Files – Videos, Graphics & Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Reporting Tools
• Blog Optimization

For example, you can expand your WP site with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Managing ad banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website 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
• Faster page loading
• Event management
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your website
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect visitors from specified pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect post content sections
• Migrate information from different publishing platforms
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert code and code elements into your website’s header or footer
• Add tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add business location maps
• Publicize your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and others
• Display countdown timers (for scarcity offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you virtually endless business scalability. If you are planning to build a website or blog for your business, or your existing website isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider getting a WordPress site or blog built on your domain, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WordPress plugins are, let me show you how you can benefit by simply installing an inexpensive plugin on your website.

For example, if you need to publish content which is only accessible to some users, you can use plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a post inaccessible, or create a complete membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to enhance your web presence in so many different ways. From installing new features that enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to review website metrics …

To increasing your site’s reach and visibility across social sites and search engines …

You can also add complex features to your site using inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate tasks on your site such as user testimonial and event registration management …

And even run a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying software developers to create these functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Share your content with other web visitors on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with other members via forums or even set up a private social network on your site.
• Engage with your support staff using live chats
• Call your business directly from their laptops when browsing your pages
• Open support tickets
• And so much more …

You can also integrate complex enterprise-level solutions using a WP “front end”. This lets you control your business sales and marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technological aspects …

Useful Tips About Plugins

• There are lots of great WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can affect your site’s resources and site loading speed. It also creates more maintenance work for you resulting from possible errors.
• Install only the plugins you really need. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize extra resources.
• Many free plugins often receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid WordPress plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of our WP plugin recommendations for more useful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it on your site. The WordPress application is updated on a frequent basis and outdated WordPress plugins can create errors.
• Ensure that you always update your plugins. Outdated plugin not only can cause errors, they may also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most popular content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add new functionality to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on web development.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

If there is any functionality you want for your website, you can guarantee that a plugin currently exists that will do just what you want it to do, and that it can either be downloaded for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be reasonably inexpensive.

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

And, if by chance such a plugin has not been created yet, then one can probably be coded for you for a reasonable price.

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

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