Tag: WordPress Plugin

One of the most unique benefits of using the WordPress content management platform is that you can easily enhance your WordPress website’s functionality using inexpensive (and often free) applications called ’plugins’.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

Like most of us, you most likely have a device like a cell phone. What happens when you want to access something new on your phone like a new application, game or business tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is really easy to install and integrates new features into any mobile device.

(Just like there are social sharing apps …)

A WordPress plugin is very much like an app. You install a software that adds new functionality to your WordPress site …

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

Typically, if you want to add new features to a website, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancement, this can become fairly expensive, especially if web developers need to create new code or modify code or develop scripts to integrate with your existing site.

This also applies to setting up a new web site. Business owners sometimes pay for extra features they probably will never need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we recommend a cost-effective strategy to developing your web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply with minimal expense involved. Get a basic, professional-looking website up and running fast, then …

2) As you need more features or functionality, you can install new applications with a few clicks of the mouse directly from your WordPress dashboard section, and give your website or blog a completely new and expanded range of possibilities, and …

3) Cost not one dollar extra to download and install on your site?

Well, that’s just what WP plugins allow you to do!

Benefits Of Using WordPress Plugins

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

In fact, loads of plugins can be downloaded to your website at no cost.

WP plugins that you have to buy are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare the cost of a Premium plugin to the price of hiring a professional web developer to add similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are typically quite inexpensive.

Also, because WordPress is an Open Source application, any web developer can create, rewrite and customize any part of the WP code. This has enabled many professional web developers to enhance the WordPresssoftware.

• WordPress plugins allow you to start simply with only a basic website and then expand only if required.
• Plugins let you add almost endless features to your site quickly and very inexpensively.
• Plugins give you virtually endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow ”non-techies” to have a website that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to give your site immediate enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be slightly more advanced and require some initial configuring.

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

Like many WP themes, thousands of plugins are currently available for WordPress users … for FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you will find WP plugins that can do almost everything you need done.

Plugin categories cover:

• Web Site Management
• Content Syndication
• Traffic
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Engagement
• Uploading Media – Videocasts, Graphics & Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales And Advertising Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Tools
• WordPress Security

You can add features to a WordPress site with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• User Surveys
• Rotating ad banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer feedback forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website from English to French)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your website
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and email 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 a site map
• Exclude pages from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect post content sections
• Import information from non-WordPress platforms
• Perform bulk content edits
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Insert code and code elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add tables
• Display animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add business location maps
• Distribute your content automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you virtually endless business flexibility. If you are currently planning to build a web site for your business, or your existing web site was not built with WordPress, then consider using it in the future.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WP plugins are, let’s take a look at how you can benefit by simply installing an inexpensive plugin on your site.

For example, if you want to protect your content, you can install plugins to make an area of a post or page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a complete paid membership site with customized login details for each member …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to improve your site in so many ways. From installing functionality that will enhance your business, your visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

To extending your business reach and visibility across social sites and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your site using inexpensive paid WP plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that automate functions on your site like customer feedback and event bookings management …

And also run a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring programmers to create custom applications for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with additional exposure).
• Share your content with other online visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with other customers using forums or even set up a private community on your domain.
• Engage with members of your team through live chats
• Call your business directly from their mobile phones while browsing your pages
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

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

Additional Tips About WP Plugins

• There are loads of great WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will invariably affect your website’s performance and page loading speed. It can also create more maintenance issues for you as a result of possible errors.
• Install only the plugins that you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins often receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing premium plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we provide on this site for additional 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 is updated regularly and out-of-date WordPress plugins can create problems.
• Make sure to always maintain your plugins updated. Older plugin not only can create errors, they could also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making it the most popular CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you need for your website, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already developed one that will do just what you need it to do, and that this plugin can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that it will be surprisingly affordable.

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

And, if by chance this WordPress plugin does not exist, then one can certainly be coded for your business for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can significantly to improve your web site. See our related posts to learn about more popular WP plugins that we recommend using.

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