Tag: WordPress Plugin

One of the most unique advantages of using the WordPress platform is that you can quickly and easily expand your WordPress website’s functionality using inexpensive (and often completely free) software called plugins.

About WP Plugins

No doubt, you probably own a device like a cell phone. What do you do when you want to access something new on your device like a new application, game or a tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is simple and easy to install and instantly adds new features and functionality to a smart device.

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

A WP plugin is quite similar to an app. You simply install a software that provides new functionality to your website …

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

Almost always, if you decide to add a new feature to your web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, this could become fairly expensive, especially if it involves website development.

This is also applicable when developing a new website or business blog. Businesses sometimes fork out money for extra components they probably will never need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we recommend using a modular approach to developing your website and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As you need more features, add new applications with a couple of mouse clicks directly from your admin area, giving your site an entirely new range of practical functionality, and also …

3) Cost not one cent more to install on your website?

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

WP Plugins – Benefits & Advantages

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

In fact, many plugins are freely available for users.

WordPress plugins that you have to buy are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of paying for professional web development services to add similar features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins cost very little.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any web developer can create, modify and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has enabled thousands of professional software development professionals to build more applications that add new features to WordPress than you can imagine.

• Plugins allow you to get started simply with just a basic web site and add new features and enhancements to your site only when necessary.
• WordPress plugins let you add practically unlimited features to any website quickly, easily and really cheaply.
• WP plugins give you practically endless expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow anyone to have a website that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website immediate capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins provide more advanced options and may require some initial configuring.

WP Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Often) Completely FREE!

Just like themes, loads of great plugins are made available for WordPress users … for FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you will find WordPress plugins that can do almost anything you need a site to do.

WP plugin categories cover:

• Website Management
• Content Syndication
• Traffic
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Media
• Inserting Media Files – Videos, Graphics, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Analysis
• WP SEO

For example, you can add features to your business online presence with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to enterprise scale e-commerce with online shopping carts, invoicing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Portuguese)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business directories
• Automatically sell spots on your blog
• Set up appointments and appointment reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect visitors from certain pages to other areas on your site or other sites
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content sections
• Migrate content from non-WP platforms
• Search and replace content
• Prevent SPAM
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. display Facebook discussions)
• Insert code and code elements into your blog’s header or footer
• Add and format tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search listings
• Add a map
• Post your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you practically limitless business scalability. If you are planning to build a website for your business, or your existing site isn’t built with WordPress, then consider choosing it in the future.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WordPress plugins are, let me show you some practical advantages of adding an inexpensive plugin to your web site.

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

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to improve your website in lots of different ways. From installing features that improve your business, your website visitors’ experience and your ability to analyze visitor metrics …

To extending your site’s reach across many social media and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your website using inexpensive premium WP plugins. For example, you can purchase plugins that automate tasks on your site such as user testimonial and event registration management …

And even run a custom bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying programmers to code these applications for you …

You can also take advantage of built-in WordPress commenting features and plugins that will enhance user engagement …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on social networks.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online directly with your support staff via forums or even set up an online community on your site.
• Engage with members of your team using live chats
• Call your business from their cellphones while visiting your site
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate sophisticated third-party solutions with a WP “front end”. This lets you manage your business sales and marketing, while your third-party application handles the technological aspects …

WordPress Plugins – Useful Tips

• There are so many plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can start to affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It can also create more maintenance work for you resulting from potential conflicts and errors.
• Only keep the plugins you really need. Delete all unnecessary plugins from your site, as these use extra resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with little to no support from the plugin author. When considering paid WordPress plugins, we recommend that you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we provide on this site for additional useful information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think carefully before using it. WordPress changes on a regular basis and older plugins that have not been updated can create problems.
• Always keep all plugins updated. Outdated plugin not only can create problems, they may also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

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

One last thing regarding plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you want for your web presence, you can be sure that a someone has probably already authored one that will do what you want, and that it will either be available at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost will be quite affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin does not exist, then it can probably be written for you for a reasonable price.

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can to improve your blog. See our related posts section to learn more about using WP plugins.

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