Tag: WordPress Plugin

One of the most powerful advantages of choosing the WordPress website publishing software is that you can quickly increase your WordPress web site’s functionality using applications called ’plugins’.

What Are Plugins?

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

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a software application that is very simple and easy to install and instantly integrates new functionality into any smart phone.

(Just like there are social sharing apps for smart phones …)

A plugin is similar to an app. You install and activate a software application that adds new functionality to your website …

(… there are also social sharing plugins for WordPress users!)

Almost always, if you need to add a new feature to an already-built web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on how complex the features or enhancements are, things could get quite expensive, particularly if website developers have to add new code or edit programs or install scripts to integrate into your current site.

This is also applicable when starting a website. Businesses sometimes fork out money on added features they may not ever need.

To minimize business expenses, we recommend using a cost-effective strategy when setting up your web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a basic, professional web site up and running quickly, then …

2) As the need for new features arises, simply add new applications with a few mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your existing website and blog, giving your site a whole new and expanded range of features and functionality, and …

3) Cost not one cent extra to install on your site?

Well, this is exactly what plugins let you do!

Benefits And Advantages Of Using Plugins

I 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, the same applies with plugins.

In fact, thousands of powerful plugins can be downloaded to your website for free.

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

Also, since WordPress makes its code publicly available, anyone can create, rewrite and customize any part of the code. This has enabled many third-party web development companies to enhance and contribute to the core software application.

• Plugins let you get started with just a basic web site and expand when necessary.
• Plugins let you add practically unlimited features to any website quickly and inexpensively.
• WordPress plugins give your web site virtually endless expansion capabilities.
• 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 installation and activation to give your website or blog new capabilities and enhancements.
• Some plugins offer more advanced options and require some initial configuration.

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

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

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

As mentioned earlier, you can find WordPress plugins that will do almost everything you can possibly want a website to do.

There are plugins for:

• Site Administration
• Content Syndication
• Traffic
• Visitor Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Adding Media Files – Videos, Graphics, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales & Advertising Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting Tools
• Optimizing Your WordPress Website

You can add features to your WP site with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Surveys
• Display banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with shopping carts, invoicing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Instant language translation (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 integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell spots on your website
• Set appointments and reminders
• Help customers make reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect web links
• Monitor social signals
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content
• Migrate data from non-WP platforms
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert HTML and script elements into your posts and pages
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced text formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Publish your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personalized greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you virtually endless possibilities. If you plan to build a web site, or your existing site wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

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

For example, if you want to publish content which is only accessible to some but not all users, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a full paid membership site with customized login details for each member …

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

To increasing your business reach across many social networks and search engines …

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

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

You can also take advantage of built-in 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 feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Share your content with other web visitors on social media.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with your team through online forums or even set up an online community on your own site.
• Engage with your staff using live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Dial your business directly from their laptops when visiting your site
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

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

Plugins – Some Useful Things You Should Know

• There are loads of great WordPress plugins available. Be careful not to overload your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will inevitably start to affect your site’s resources and site loading times. It also means more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of potential conflicts and errors.
• Only keep the plugins that you really use. Delete all unnecessary plugins from your site, as these utilize resources.
• Many free plugins often receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid plugins, make sure you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we publish here for additional helpful information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before installing it. The WordPress software is updated frequently and older plugins can create conflicts.
• Always maintain all plugins updated to the latest software version. Outdated plugins not only can cause errors and conflicts, they may also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

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

One last thing on the topic of WP plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you want for your web presence, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already authored one that will do just what you need it to do, and that it can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the price will be surprisingly affordable.

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

And, if by chance such a WordPress plugin does not exist, then one can probably be created for you for a reasonable price.

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

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