Tag: WordPress Plugin Directory

One of the most unique benefits of the WordPress platform is that you can easily enhance your WP web site’s functionality using inexpensive (and often completely free) software called ’plugins’.

What Are WP Plugins?

Like most of us, you probably have a smart phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your device like a new application, software or business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a software that is really easy to install and adds new functionality to any smart phone.

(Just as you can find social sharing apps …)

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

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

Almost always, if you plan to add new features to your web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, this cost can be fairly significant, especially if it involves website development.

This also applies to creating a new website or business blog. Businesses tend to fork out money up front for added components they may simply not need.

To avoid incurring unnecessary expenses, we suggest considering a cost-effective strategy when growing your online presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a professional business web presence up and running fast, then …

2) As you need new features, install new applications with a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from within your WP administration section, giving your website or blog a completely new range of useful features, and …

3) Cost not one dollar more to add to your website?

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

Benefits And Advantages Of Plugins

We started this article by comparing plugins with ’apps’. In the same way that some apps are free to download and some cost a little money, the same is true of plugins.

In fact, many great plugins are available at no cost to users.

Plugins that you purchase are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the price of hiring a professional web developer to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are priced quite low.

Also, since WordPress is an Open Source application, anyone can create, modify and customize any portion of the code. This has allowed many professional software developers to create more new tools that “plug into” WordPress than you can probably imagine.

• WordPress plugins let you start off with only a simple website and expand if required.
• WP plugins let you add almost endless functionality to any website quickly and very cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give your digital business presence almost endless expanding capabilities.
• Plugins allow ”non-techies” to have a site that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your web site immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be a little more advanced and require some initial configuration.

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

Like themes, tens of thousands of plugins are available to WP users … often at no cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find plugins that will do almost anything you could possibly need your site to do.

There are WP plugins for:

• User Management
• Content Management
• Traffic
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Media
• Media Management Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Analysis Tools
• WP Security

You can enhance your WordPress site with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Rotating ad banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• 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
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage management
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your blog
• Set up appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect users from broken pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your posts and pages
• Migrate information from different publishing platforms
• Search and replace content
• Block SPAM
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Insert scripts and script elements into your posts and pages
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add location maps
• Publicize your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you plan to build a website or blog, or your existing site isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical advantages of adding an inexpensive plugin to your site.

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with separate login details for users …

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

To increasing your business reach across social sites and search engines …

You can also add complex features to your website using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can install plugins that automate features on your website such as displaying customer testimonials and booking events …

And even run a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying programmers to create these 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 easily:

• Leave 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 displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with your team members using online forums or even set up a private community on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team through live video chats
• Call your business directly from their devices when browsing your pages
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

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

Plugins – Some Useful Information

• There are loads of WordPress plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can affect your website’s resources and page loading times. It also creates more maintenance work for you as a consequence of possible conflicts and errors.
• Only keep the plugins that you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize server resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium WP plugins, we recommend that you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we provide on this site for additional 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. The WordPress platform changes often and older plugins that have not been updated can create errors.
• Ensure to always upgrade your plugins. Outdated plugin not only can create problems, they may also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most downloaded online management tool available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant features to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing regarding WP plugins:

If there is any feature you need for your web site, you can be sure that a someone has probably already developed one that will do what you need, and that it will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost will be minimal.

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

And, if by chance this plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does just what you need it to do can most certainly be created for you for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can help to improve your website. See our published posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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