Tag: WordPress Plugin

One of the most powerful features of the WordPress website management software is that you can quickly and easily increase your WP web site’s functionality using plugins.

What Are Plugins?

Like most of us, you probably use a device like a mobile phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your device like a new game or a productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is simple and easy to install and immediately integrates new features and functionality into your mobile phone.

(Just as there are social sharing apps for mobile devices …)

A plugin is like an app. You simply download and install a software that adds new functionality to your site …

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

Typically, expanding the functionality of your site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the features or enhancements are, the cost can be fairly significant, especially if it involves modifying code.

This also applies to creating a website or business blog. Business owners will often pay for added features and customizations they may simply not need.

To keep expenses low, we suggest using a modular approach to developing your online presence presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As more features or functionality are required, add new applications with a couple of clicks of the mouse directly from your WordPress dashboard area, giving your website a completely new range of practical capabilities, and …

3) Cost not a single dollar extra to install on your site?

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

Benefits & Advantages Of Using WP Plugins

I started this article by comparing WP plugins with ’apps’. Just like some apps are free to download and some cost a little bit of money, the same applies to WP plugins.

In fact, loads of plugins are available at no cost to users.

Plugins that cost money are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of hiring a professional web developer to add similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, anybody can create, edit and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has allowed many professional web developers to enhance and contribute to the core software application.

• WordPress plugins allow you to start off with a simple site and then expand when required.
• Plugins allow you to add practically unlimited features to your website quickly, easily and really inexpensively.
• WordPress plugins give you almost unlimited expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow business owners to have a website that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins will work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your site with instant new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins can be slightly more advanced and require some initial configuring.

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

Just like WordPress themes, tens of thousands of WP plugins are currently available to WordPress users … for FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you will find WP plugins that will do just about anything you could think of.

There are WordPress plugins for:

• Blog Management
• Content Distribution
• Driving Site Traffic
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Monitoring
• Media Management Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Tools
• Site Optimization

For example, you can enhance your business online presence with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Managing ad banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Italian)
• 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
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your site
• Set appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Hide specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide post content sections
• Migrate data from non-WP applications
• Perform bulk content edits
• Fight SPAM
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Insert scripts and script elements into your posts
• Add tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add a map
• Publish your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you are planning to build a web site, or your existing site wasn’t built using WordPress, then consider getting a WP site or blog in the future, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

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 need to publish content which is only accessible to some users, you can install plugins to make an area of your page or post inaccessible, or create a professional membership site with personal login details for every user …

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

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

You can also add complex functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that integrate and automate processes on your website such as user testimonial and event registrations management …

And also run a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying software developers to code similar applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that can allow you to engage better with your visitors, clients and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with added exposure).
• Share your content with other web visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with your support staff through forums or even set up an online social network on your site.
• Engage with your team via live chats
• Call your business from their devices when visiting your site
• Get help via a dedicated user helpdesk
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex 3rd-party solutions within a WordPress “front end”. This lets you control the content that your visitors see on your web site, while your third-party application handles the technological functions …

WordPress Plugins – Some Useful Information

• There are so many fantastic plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this will begin to affect your site’s performance and page loading speed. It can also create more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible errors.
• Only keep the plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid plugins, ensure that you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check our WP plugin recommendations for more expert information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it. WordPress changes on a frequent basis and outdated WP plugins can create problems.
• Always update your plugins to their most recent version. Older plugin not only can create problems, they could also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most preferred content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing regarding plugins:

Whatever functionality you want 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 can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that it will be reasonably inexpensive.

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

And, if by chance such a WP plugin has not been created yet, then it can most certainly be written for your business for a reasonable price.

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

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