Tag: WordPress Plugin Directory

One of the most unique benefits of the WordPress platform is that you can quickly enhance your WP site’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding Plugins

Like most of us, you most likely use a device like a mobile phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your phone like a new application, software or a business tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software that is easy to install and immediately adds new features and functionality to a smart device.

(Just as you can find social sharing apps …)

A plugin is very similar to an app. You simply install and activate an application that provides new functionality to your web site …

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

Generally, expanding the functionality of a web site involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancements, this cost can be fairly significant, especially if website developers have to create new code or modify code or install scripts to integrate with your current site.

This is also applicable when setting up a new website. Organizations will often invest up front in components they may not ever need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we recommend considering a cost-effective strategy when setting up your website and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply with minimal cost involved. Get a website up and running fast, then …

2) As the need for new capabilities arises, simply add new software modules with a few mouse clicks directly from within your administration section, giving your site a whole new range of possibilities, and …

3) Cost not one cent extra to install on your website?

Well, this is precisely what a WordPress plugin allows you to do!

WordPress Plugins – Benefits And Advantages

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

In fact, many useful plugins can be downloaded to your website for free.

WordPress plugins that you have to buy are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of hiring a professional web developer to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any web developer can create, edit and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled many professional web development professionals to build more new applications that add new functionality to the WordPress platform than you can probably imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started with just a simple web site and expand only when required.
• WP plugins let you add practically endless functionality to your website quickly, easily and cheaply.
• Plugins give your website practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow business owners to have a site that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your web site with immediate capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins are a little more advanced and may need some initial configuring.

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

Just like WP themes, tens of thousands of WordPress plugins are available to WordPress users … and many of these great plugins are 100% FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you can find plugins that will do almost anything you could imagine.

Plugin categories cover:

• Web Site Administration
• Content Syndication
• Increasing Web Traffic
• User Engagement
• Social Monitoring
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Reporting
• Optimizing Your

You can enhance a business online presence with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Display advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to French)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell spots on your website
• Set appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect web pages
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Hide pages from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your pages and posts
• Import information from different CMS applications
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Insert code and code elements into your posts and pages
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add a map of your business location
• Post your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you practically limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website or blog for your business, or your existing site isn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting one built on your domain, or you will be missing out on some serious functionality.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WP plugins are, let me show you some practical advantages of adding a plugin to your web site.

For example, if you need to publish content which is only accessible to some users, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with personal login details for all users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to enhance your business site in lots of different ways. From installing new features that will enhance your business, your website visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

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

You can also add advanced functionality to your site using inexpensive premium WordPress plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that automate functionality on your pages like user testimonial and event bookings management …

And even run a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying software developers to build these functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that can increase your site’s interactivity …

For example, your web visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Share your content with other web users on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with your team via online forums or even set up an online community on your own site.
• Engage with your staff through live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Dial your business directly from their devices when browsing your website
• Get help via a dedicated customer helpdesk
• And so much more …

You can also integrate sophisticated enterprise-level applications with a WP “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors will see on your site, while your 3rd-party application handles the technological areas …

WordPress Plugins – Useful Information

• There are many great plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can affect your site’s performance and page loading speed. It also creates more maintenance issues for you as a result of possible errors.
• Install only those plugins you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these also utilize resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium plugins, ensure that you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we provide here for more information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before installing it on your website. The WordPress software updates often and older WP plugins can create issues.
• Always maintain all plugins up-to-date. Older plugin not only can create errors and conflicts, they could also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most used CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant functionality to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing regarding plugins:

If there is a functionality you want for your web site, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already developed one that will do exactly what you need, and that it can either be downloaded for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be surprisingly affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin has not been created yet, then a custom plugin that does just what you need it to do can certainly be coded for your business at a reasonable cost.

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

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