Tag: WordPress Plugin

One of the main benefits of choosing WordPress is that you can quickly increase your WP website or blog’s functionality using inexpensive called ’plugins’.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

Like most people, you most likely have a cell phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your device like a new application, software or productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a piece of software that is very easy to install and instantly integrates new functionality into any mobile device.

(Just like you will find social sharing apps for smart devices …)

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

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

Normally, expanding the functionality of an existing site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the new feature or enhancement is, things could get fairly expensive, particularly if it requires modifying code.

This also applies when developing a web site. Business owners sometimes fork out money for added bells and whistles they may not ever need.

As part of sound strategic business planning, we suggest a cost-effective approach to developing a online presence presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine if you could:

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

2) As new features are required, simply add new software modules with a couple of clicks of the mouse that integrate seamlessly with your site, to give your website a completely new range of practical features and capabilities, and …

3) Cost not a single cent more to add to your web site?

Well, this is just what a plugin enables you to do!

Plugins – Benefits

I started this article by comparing plugins with smartphone apps. Just like many apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, so do plugins.

In fact, many powerful plugins can be downloaded to your site for free.

WP plugins that you purchase are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of paying for professional web development services to add the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are generally very inexpensive.

Also, as WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, any person can create, modify and customize any portion of the WordPress code. This has enabled many third-party software development companies to enhance and contribute to the WPsoftware.

• Plugins allow you to start off with a basic web site and add new features and enhancements to your site when necessary.
• WP plugins let you add practically unlimited features to any website easily and cheaply.
• Plugins give your digital business presence practically unlimited expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow business owners to have a web presence that they can self-manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your site with immediate capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins can be a little more complex and may require some initial configuration.

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

Just like WordPress themes, thousands of plugins are made available for WP users … often at no cost!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find WordPress plugins that can do just about everything you could imagine.

Plugin categories cover:

• Website Management
• Content Distribution
• Driving Web Visitors
• User Interactivity
• Social Engagement
• Adding Media – Videos, Graphics & Images, Audio, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Biz And Online Sales & Marketing Automation
• Increasing Sales Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Reporting
• Securing Your

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

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Managing banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single sales with PayPal buttons, to full scale e-commerce with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s SEO
• 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 Italian)
• 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
• Business directories
• Automatically sell spots on your website
• Set appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and send you reports
• Redirect affiliate pages
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Import information from non-WordPress platforms
• Search and replace data
• Prevent SPAM commenting
• Customize guest discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook discussions)
• Insert HTML and script elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add a map
• Publish your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and many others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As you can clearly see, plugins give you limitless business scalability. If you are currently planning to build a web site for your business, or your existing site wasn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting a WordPress site or blog built on your domain, or you will be missing out on some serious features.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let me show you how you can benefit instantly by installing an inexpensive plugin on your site.

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can install plugins to make an area of a page or post inaccessible, or create a complete paid membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to improve your business site in lots of different ways. From installing features that improve your business, your website visitors’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

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

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your site using relatively inexpensive paid WordPress plugins. For example, you can install plugins that automate features on your website like managing customer testimonials and event bookings …

And also run a complete bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying software developers to design custom functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that can enhance visitor engagement …

For example, your web visitors can easily:

• Post comments on your site (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 added exposure).
• Share your posts with other web users on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with your team via forums or even set up a private online social network on your own site.
• Engage with your team via live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Call your business from their mobile phones when browsing your pages
• Get help via a dedicated client help desk
• And much more …

You can also integrate sophisticated enterprise-level solutions within a WordPress “front end”. This lets you manage your business sales and marketing, while the third-party application handles the technological functions …

Plugins – Some Useful Information

• There are lots of WordPress plugins available. Be careful of overloading your site with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will begin to affect your website’s performance and site loading times. It also creates more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of potential conflicts.
• Only keep those plugins you really need. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize additional server resources.
• Many free plugins often come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid WordPress plugins, make sure you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we provide on this site for more expert information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think carefully before using it. The WordPress software changes on a regular basis and older plugins that have not been updated can cause conflicts.
• Make sure that you always maintain all plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugins not only can create errors and conflicts, they could also have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an important element of WordPress and contribute to making it the most preferred content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand quickly without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

Whatever functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a someone has probably already authored one that will do just what you need, and that it will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be surprisingly affordable.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin has not been created yet, then one can certainly be developed for your business for a reasonable price.

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

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