Tag: WordPress Plugin

One of the most unique features of the WordPress platform is that you can quickly and easily expand your WP website’s functionality using plugins.

Understanding WordPress Plugins

No doubt, you probably have a cell phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your phone like a new application, software or business productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software that is simple and easy to install and integrates new features into your smart device.

(Just as you will find social sharing apps …)

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

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

Typically, expanding the functionality of an existing website involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the new features or enhancements are, the cost can be quite significant, especially if web developers have to add new code or edit templates or install scripts that integrate into your existing set up.

This is also applicable to setting up a new web site. Companies tend to pay for bells and whistles they probably will never need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we suggest using a modular strategy when growing a web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As the need becomes apparent, just add new applications with just a couple of clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your existing website, to give your site an entirely new range of features and functionality, and …

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

Well, this is exactly what plugins let you do!

Plugins – Benefits And Advantages

Earlier, we compared WP plugins with mobile apps. In the same way that many apps are free to download and some cost a little bit of money, the same is true for plugins.

In fact, loads of fantastic plugins can be installed and activated on your sites.

Plugins that cost money are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to get similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, because WordPress makes its code publicly available, any web developer can create, edit and customize any part of the code. This has allowed thousands of third-party software development professionals to create more applications that plug seamlessly into the WordPress software than you can probably imagine.

• Plugins let you start simply with a basic site and add new features and enhancements to your site only if required.
• Plugins let you add practically endless features to any website quickly, easily and cheaply.
• Plugins give you virtually endless expanding capabilities.
• WP plugins allow anyone to own a web presence that they can manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your site instant new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more advanced features and could require some configuring.

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

Like many themes, loads of WP plugins are available for WordPress users … often at $0 cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find WordPress plugins that will do almost everything you can imagine.

WP plugin categories cover:

• User Management
• Content Syndication
• Increasing Web Visitors
• User Engagement
• Social Sharing
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Tools
• Web Site SEO

For example, you can add features to your WordPress site with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from managing single ordering with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• Instant language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your site from English to Spanish)
• 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 integration
• Faster page loading
• Event management
• Business directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your blog
• Set client appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and email you reports
• Redirect website pages
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Exclude pages from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect post content sections
• Import data from different CMS platforms
• Search and replace content
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Inserting code and code elements into your blog’s header and footer
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add business location maps
• Syndicate your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you practically endless possibilities. If you plan to build a web site, or your existing website wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting one built on your domain, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

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

For example, if you want content protection, you can install plugins to make a section of a page or post inaccessible, or create a professional paid membership site with separate login details for all users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to enhance your business site in so many ways. From adding new features that will improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to analyze website data …

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

You can also add complex features to your website using relatively inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can download plugins that automate processes on your pages like customer feedback and event registration management …

And even set up a complete bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring web developers to code custom applications for you …

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will 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 WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site added exposure).
• Bookmark your content on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other customers through forums or even set up an online social network on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team using live video chats
• Call your business directly from their cellphones while browsing your site
• Open a support ticket
• And much more …

You can even integrate sophisticated enterprise solutions within a WP “front end”. This lets you control the content that your visitors will see on your site, while the third-party application handles the technical areas …

Plugins – Additional Things To Know

• There are lots of WordPress plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can inevitably start to affect your site’s performance and page loading times. It can also create more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible conflicts.
• Only keep the plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins from your site, as these use server resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with little to no support from the plugin author. When considering premium plugins, make sure you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our plugin recommendations for additional helpful 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 using it on your website. The WordPress application updates frequently and out-of-date plugins can cause issues.
• Always maintain your plugins updated. Older plugin not only can cause issues, they may also contain security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most powerful, flexible and scalable content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant functionality to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing on the topic of WordPress plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you need for your website, you can guarantee that a WordPress plugin already exists that will do just what you need it to do, and that this plugin 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 any chance such a plugin has not been created yet, then one can probably be developed for you for a reasonable price.

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

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