Tag: WordPress Plugin

One of the main benefits of the WordPress web content publishing software is that you can quickly expand your WP website’s functionality using plugins.

What Are Plugins?

No doubt, you most likely use a device like a smart phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your phone like a new software or business tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is really simple and easy to install and adds new features to any mobile phone.

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

A WP plugin is similar to an app. You simply install an application that provides new functionality to your WordPress website …

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

Generally, if you plan to expand the functionality of a site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancement, the cost can be fairly significant, particularly if website developers need to add new code or modify templates or install programs to integrate into your current set up.

This is also applicable to developing a web site. Many businesses sometimes invest money up-front in added bells and whistles they may probably never need.

To save money and keep expenses to a minimum, we suggest considering a modular strategy to developing a website and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

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

2) As more features or functionality are needed, just add new applications with only a couple of mouse clicks directly from within your administration section, giving your website a whole new range of practical features and capabilities, and …

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

Well, that’s precisely what a WordPress plugin lets you do!

WordPress Plugins – Benefits And Advantages

Earlier, we compared WP plugins with apps. In the same way that many apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little bit of money, so do WordPress plugins.

In fact, thousands of great plugins can be installed and activated on your websites.

Plugins that you have to buy 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 get the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress is an Open Source application, anybody can create, modify and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled thousands of professional web development companies to create more plugins that enhance the WordPress software than you can possibly imagine.

• WordPress plugins allow you to get started with only a simple web site and then expand only as required.
• Plugins let you add practically unlimited functionality to any web site quickly, easily and quite cheaply.
• Plugins give your online business presence practically unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow ”non-techies” to have a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your website with instant new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins can be slightly more advanced and may need some initial configuration.

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

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

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find plugins that can do just about anything you need done.

There are WordPress plugins for:

• User Administration
• Content Management
• Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Connectivity
• Uploading Media Files – Videocasts, Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales & Marketing Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Analysis
• Optimizing Your WP Blog

You can expand a WP site with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to Spanish)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your website
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Migrate data from different publishing applications
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Insert code and code elements into your posts, pages and sidebars
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add a map of your business location
• Post your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

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

If you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WP plugins, let me show you how you can benefit instantly by installing a plugin on your website.

For example, if you need content protection, you can use plugins to make an area of your page or post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete paid membership site with personal login details for users …

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

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

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that automate tasks on your site such as customer feedback and event registration management …

And also set up a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to create custom functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage more with visitors, clients and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Bookmark your content on social networks.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with your team members using forums or even set up a private community on your domain.
• Engage with your support staff via live webcam conferencing and chatrooms
• Dial your business from their cellphones while visiting your website
• Open a support ticket
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate sophisticated enterprise solutions within a WordPress “front end”. This enables you to manage the content that your visitors see on your web site, while your third-party application handles the technical areas …

Additional Tips About WP Plugins

• There are loads of WordPress plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this will begin to affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It also means more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of possible conflicts.
• Install only those plugins you really need to use. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize additional resources.
• Many free plugins often receive little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid plugins, make sure you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we publish on this site for additional information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before using it. WordPress changes on a frequent basis and older plugins that have not been updated can cause errors.
• Always update your plugins to their most recent software version. Older plugin not only can create errors, they may also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making it the most downloaded content management system available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add new functionality to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing on the subject of WP plugins:

Whatever feature you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already developed one that will do exactly what you want it to do, and that this plugin can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that it will be fairly affordable.

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

And, if by chance such a plugin does not exist, then a custom plugin that does precisely what you would like it to do can certainly be developed for your business for a very reasonable price.

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

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