Tag: WordPress Plugin

One of the most powerful features of the WordPress platform is the ability to easily increase your WordPress site’s functionality using applications called plugins.

About Plugins

No doubt, you most likely own a mobile phone. What happens when you want access to something new on your device like a new application, software or a tool?

You download and install an app!

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

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

A plugin is very similar to an app. You download and install a little piece of software that provides new functionality to your website …

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

Normally, if you plan to expand the functionality of an existing web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancements, this cost can be quite significant, especially if web developers have to create new code or modify code or install programs to integrate with your current set up.

This is also applicable when setting up a new web site. Companies will often invest money in advance in added components they probably will never need.

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

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply with minimal expense involved. Get a basic, professional business web site up and running fast, then …

2) As you need new features and functionality, just add new software modules with just a couple of mouse clicks directly from your dashboard section, giving your web site a whole new and expanded range of possibilities, and …

3) Cost not a single dollar more to download and install on your web site?

Well, this is just what a WP plugin lets you do!

Plugins – Benefits

We began this blog post by comparing WordPress 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, loads of plugins are freely available for WP users.

WP plugins that cost money 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 get similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, since WordPress is an Open Source application, anyone can create, modify and customize any portion of the code. This has allowed thousands of third-party web developers to create more tools that work seamlessly with the WordPress engine than you can imagine.

• WP plugins allow you to start simply with a basic yet professional site and expand only if necessary.
• WordPress plugins allow you to add almost unlimited functionality to any website easily and cheaply.
• Plugins give your digital presence practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow business owners to own a web presence that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require to be installed and activated to provide your web site with immediate capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins offer more extensive features and require some initial configuring.

Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Many Are) 100% FREE!

Like many themes, tens of thousands of plugins are available to WordPress users … for FREE!

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

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

There are WordPress plugins for:

• Website Management
• Content Management
• Traffic
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Engagement
• Media Utilities Automation
• Increasing Sales And Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting
• Securing Your

You can expand a business online presence with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to Spanish)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events & bookings
• Business directories
• Automatically sell spots on your blog
• Set appointments and appointment reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect web pages
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Exclude specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Import data from non-WordPress applications
• Search and replace content
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. display Facebook comments)
• Insert code and code elements into your posts
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced content formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map of your business location
• Post your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and others
• Display countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website for your business, or your existing site isn’t built with WordPress, then consider choosing WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let’s take a look at some practical uses of installing an inexpensive plugin on your website.

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can use plugins to make a section of a page or post inaccessible, or create a professional membership site with customized login details for each member …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your web presence in lots of ways. From adding features that improve your business, your site’s user experience and your ability to review website data …

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

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

And also set up a complete bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to code similar functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of native WordPress commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the native WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your content on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with your team members using online forums or even set up a private online community on your own site.
• Engage with your staff via live chats
• Dial your business directly from their devices when visiting your site
• Get help via a dedicated customer help desk
• And much more …

You can even integrate sophisticated enterprise-level applications within a WP “front end”. This lets you control your business marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technical areas …

Plugins – Some Useful Tips

• There are so many useful plugins available. Be careful of overloading your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can affect your website’s resources and page loading speed. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you as a result of possible errors.
• Only keep those plugins that you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When considering premium WordPress plugins, make sure you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check our plugin reviews for additional information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think carefully before using it. WordPress is updated frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can cause errors.
• Always upgrade your plugins. Older plugin not only can create issues, they may also contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most used content publishing solution available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant functionality to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development.

One last thing on the topic of plugins:

If there is any functionality you want for your web presence, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already authored one that will do what you want, and that this plugin can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the price will be minimal.

(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 it can probably be written for you at a reasonable cost.

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

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