Tag: WordPress Plugin Directory

One of the main benefits of building an online business presence with the WordPress platform is that you can quickly and easily increase your WordPress website’s functionality using plugins.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

Like most people, you most likely own a device like a cell phone. What do you do when you would like to access something new on your device like a new application, software or productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is easy to install and instantly integrates new functionality into a smart device.

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

A plugin is very much like an app. You simply download and install an application that adds new functionality to your web site …

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

Generally, expanding the functionality of an already-built website involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new feature or enhancement, things could get quite expensive, particularly if it involves programming code.

This also applies to creating a website. Companies tend to invest in additional features they may probably never need.

To reduce unnecessary expenses, we suggest a sustainable strategy when developing your web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and with minimal expense involved. Get a web presence up and running fast, then …

2) As you need new features, just add new applications with just a few mouse clicks directly from within your administration panel, giving your website a completely new range of practical features and capabilities, and …

3) Cost not a single cent more to add to your web site?

Well, this is exactly what WordPress plugins let you do!

WP Plugins – Benefits

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

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

WordPress plugins that you buy are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of paying for web development services to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress makes its source code available to everyone, anybody can create, rewrite and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has enabled thousands of third-party software developers to create more new plugins that add new features to WordPress than you can imagine.

• Plugins allow you to start simply with just a simple online business presence and expand when necessary.
• Plugins let you add practically endless features to your website quickly, easily and very inexpensively.
• Plugins give you practically unlimited expanding capabilities.
• WP plugins allow business owners to own a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website with new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more advanced options and could require some initial configuring.

WordPress Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Often) Completely FREE!

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

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

As previously mentioned, you will find WordPress plugins that can do just about anything you need a site to do.

There are plugins for:

• Blog Management
• Content Syndication
• Increasing Web Traffic
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Sharing
• Managing Media Files – Videos, Graphics & Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis Applications
• Securing Your

For example, you can enhance your website with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce stores with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website from English to Italian)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Offline storage management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your blog
• Set appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect web links
• Monitor social conversations
• 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 pages and posts
• Migrate content from other CMS platforms
• Perform bulk content edits
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Insert code and script elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced font display formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add business location maps
• Post your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and many others
• Show 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 practically endless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a website or blog, or your existing website isn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting a WP site or blog added to your domain, or you could be missing out on some serious features.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using plugins, let me show you some practical uses of adding a 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 just a couple of paragraphs on your post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with personal login details for all users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to improve your website in so many ways. From installing features that improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to review site data …

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

You can also add complex features to your website using inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that integrate and automate functionality on your pages such as managing customer testimonials and booking events …

And even run a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to create similar 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 easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site added exposure).
• Share your posts with other online visitors on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with other users through online forums or even set up a private online community on your own domain.
• Engage with your support staff through live chats
• Dial your business from their cellphones when browsing your site
• Get help and support via a client support helpdesk
• And much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated enterprise applications with a WordPress “front end”. This allows you to control the content that your visitors will see on your web site, while your 3rd-party application handles the technical functions …

Additional Tips About Plugins

• There are many plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with too many plugins, as this can eventually affect your website’s resources and site loading times. It also creates more maintenance issues for you as a result of potential errors.
• Only keep the plugins you really need to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these use additional resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium plugins, we recommend that you check around a little and understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we provide here for additional information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before installing it. WordPress is updated on a regular basis and out-of-date plugins can create problems.
• Always keep all plugins updated. Older plugin not only can create issues, they may also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important feature 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 expand without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing on the topic of WordPress plugins:

If there is any functionality you want for your web site, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already created one that will do exactly what you need it to do, and that it will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the price to buy it will be minimal.

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

And, if by chance such a WordPress plugin has not been created yet, then a custom plugin that does just what you need it to do can probably be coded for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can improve your business blog. See our related posts to learn about more popular plugins that we recommend using.

***

***