Tag: WordPress Plugin Directory

One of the most useful benefits of the WordPress software is that you can quickly and easily expand your WordPress website’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding Plugins

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

You download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is really easy to install and instantly adds new functionality to a mobile device.

(Just as you can find social sharing apps for mobile devices …)

A plugin is like an app. You download and install a software that provides new functionality to your website or blog …

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

Almost always, if you need to add a new feature to an existing web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancements, this can become fairly expensive, especially if it involves editing code.

This is also applicable when setting up a website or business blog. Many business owners tend to pay money in advance for additional features they may never need.

To reduce expenses, we suggest a sustainable approach to setting up a web site and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get your web site up and running quickly, then …

2) As you need new features and functionality, simply add new applications with a few clicks of the mouse directly from within your admin panel, giving your site a whole new range of practical capabilities, and …

3) Cost not one dollar extra to install on your web site?

Well, this is exactly what a WordPress plugin enables you to do!

Benefits Of Using WordPress Plugins

I started this article by comparing plugins with ’apps’. Just like many apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little bit of money, so do plugins.

In fact, thousands of plugins are freely available for users.

Plugins that cost money are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare the cost of a Premium plugin to the cost of paying for web development services to get similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are typically very inexpensive.

Also, because WordPress makes its code publicly available, any person can create, edit and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has enabled thousands of professional software development companies to enhance the core software application.

• WordPress plugins let you start off with just a simple site and add new features and enhancements to your site if required.
• WP plugins let you add practically unlimited functionality to any web site easily, quickly and cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give your site virtually unlimited expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow anyone to own a site that they can manage.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website or blog new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more extensive features and could require some configuring.

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

Like many WordPress themes, loads of great WP plugins are available for WP users … often at no cost!

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WordPress plugins that can do just about anything you want done.

WordPress plugin categories cover:

• Web Site Management
• Content Distribution
• Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Monitoring
• Adding Media – Videocasts, Graphics, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
• Increasing Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Reporting
• Optimizing Your

For example, you can add features to your website with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Managing advertising banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• 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 menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage management
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events & bookings
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your site
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Hide certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Import data from non-WP platforms
• Perform bulk content edits
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Insert code and script elements into your website’s header and footer
• Add formatted tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Publicize your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and many others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you virtually limitless business scalability. If you plan to build a website for your business, or your existing site wasn’t built using WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let me show you some practical advantages of adding an inexpensive plugin to your website.

For example, if you want to publish content which is only accessible to some but not all users, you can use plugins to make a section of your page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete membership site with separate login details for users …

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to improve your site in lots of ways. From adding new features that improve your business, your visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

To extending your business reach across a number of social media and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your website using relatively inexpensive premium WordPress plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that automate processes on your website like customer feedback and event registration management …

And even set up a complete bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying web developers to create custom applications for you …

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

For example, your web visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with additional exposure).
• Bookmark your content on social media.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other members through online forums or even set up an online community on your domain.
• Engage with members of your team using live chats
• Dial your business from their mobile phones while visiting your website
• Open a support ticket
• And much more …

You can even integrate complex enterprise applications with a WP “front end”. This allows you to manage your business sales and marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical functions …

Useful Things You Should Know About Plugins

• There are many WordPress plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will inevitably affect your website’s resources and site loading times. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible conflicts and errors.
• Only keep those plugins that you really plan to use. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our plugin reviews for more expert information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think carefully before using it on your website. WordPress is updated regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can create conflicts.
• Ensure that you always keep your plugins updated. Older plugin not only can create conflicts, they could also have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WP plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most popular digital content management software available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add new features to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing about plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you want for your web site, you can be sure that a WordPress plugin currently exists that will do just what you need, and that it can either be downloaded at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the price will be quite affordable.

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

And, if by any chance such a WP plugin does not exist, then one can certainly be developed for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what plugins are and how they can help expand your business blog. See our related posts section to learn more about usingplugins.

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