Tag: WordPress Plugin Directory

One of the most powerful advantages of using the WordPress software is that you can easily enhance your WordPress website or blog’s functionality using plugins.

About WP Plugins

No doubt, you probably own a device like a mobile phone. What happens when you would like access to something new on your phone like a new game or a new productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is really easy to install and integrates new functionality into any mobile device.

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

A plugin is like an app. You install an application that adds new functionality to your WordPress website or blog …

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

Generally, if you want to add a new feature to a site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancement, the cost can be quite significant, particularly if it requires website development.

This also applies to setting up a website or business blog. Many companies often spend money in advance on additional bells and whistles they may never need.

For this reason, we recommend a sustainable approach when growing your web presence presence and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As the need arises, you can add new applications with a few clicks of the mouse that integrate with your existing website or blog, and give your website or blog an entirely new range of possibilities, and also …

3) Cost not one cent extra to add to your site?

Well, that’s precisely what a WP plugin allows you to do!

Benefits And Advantages Of WP Plugins

Earlier, we compared plugins with mobile apps. In a similar way that some apps are free to download and some cost a little money, the same applies with WP plugins.

In fact, loads of great plugins can be downloaded to your site for free.

WP plugins that you purchase are referred to as ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to add the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any person can create, edit and customize any portion of the WP code. This has allowed many professional web developers to build more tools that work with WordPress than you can imagine.

• WP plugins let you get started with a simple yet professional site and expand as required.
• Plugins allow you to add almost endless functionality to your web site easily and quite cheaply.
• Plugins give your web site virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow business owners to own a site that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website or blog with new enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be a little more advanced and require some configuring.

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

Just like WordPress themes, loads of plugins are available for WordPress users … often at no cost!

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

As previously mentioned, you will find plugins that can do just about everything you need your site to do.

WP plugin categories cover:

• Blog Management
• Content Distribution
• Web Traffic Generation
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Inserting Media Files – Videocasts, Graphics & Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales & Marketing Automation
• Increasing Sales And Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• Securing Your

For example, you can enhance a business online presence with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from managing single ordering with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce stores with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website from English to Norwegian)
• 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
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your blog
• Set appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect website pages
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect post content sections
• Import content from non-WordPress applications
• Search and replace content
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Insert scripts and script elements into your posts and pages
• Add and format tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search listings
• Add business location maps
• Publicize your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and many others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website, or your existing web site isn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting one added to your domain, or you could be missing out on some serious features.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WP plugins are, let me show you how you can benefit by adding an inexpensive plugin to your website.

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a page inaccessible, or create a complete membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to improve your web site in so many different ways. From adding features that improve your business, your web users’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

To increasing your business reach and visibility across social media and search engines …

You can also add advanced features to your website using inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can install plugins that integrate and automate processes on your website such as managing customer testimonials and event bookings …

And even set up a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to code these applications for you …

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage even more with your web visitors, customers and registered site users …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Share your posts with other web visitors on social networks.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with other users through online forums or even set up a private social network on your site.
• Engage with members of your team using live webcam conferencing and chatrooms
• Dial your business directly from their cellphones while visiting your website
• Get help and support via a customer support helpdesk
• And much more …

You can even integrate sophisticated “back end” solutions with a WordPress “front end”. This lets you manage the content that your visitors see on your web site, while your third-party application handles the technical side of things …

WordPress Plugins – Some Useful Information

• There are lots of plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your server with too many plugins, as this can affect your website’s resources and site loading times. It can also create more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible conflicts and errors.
• Only keep the plugins you really need to use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid WP plugins, make sure you check around a little and see what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our WordPress plugin recommendations for more helpful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think twice before installing it. The WordPress core software is updated on a frequent basis and older plugins that have not been updated can create errors.
• Always maintain all plugins up-to-date. Older plugins not only can cause conflicts, they may also have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most powerful, flexible and scalable content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand quickly without spending thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

If there is any feature you need for your web presence, you can be sure that a plugin probably exists that will do what you want it to do, and that it can either be downloaded for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the price will be surprisingly affordable.

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

And, if by any chance such a WP plugin is not available, then one can probably be created for your business at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can help improve your web site. See our published posts to learn about more useful plugins that we recommend using.

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