Tag: WP Plugins

One of the main benefits of WordPress is that you can quickly expand your WordPress site’s functionality using applications called plugins.

What Are Plugins?

Like most of us, you probably own a device like a mobile phone. What do you do when you would like to access something new on your device like a new application, game or business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a software that is simple and easy to install and immediately integrates new features into any mobile phone.

(Just as you will find social sharing apps for mobile devices …)

A plugin is very much like an app. You simply install and activate a software application that provides new functionality to your web site …

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

Typically, adding a new feature to an already-built website involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancements, this could get quite expensive, especially if web developers need to create new code or modify templates or develop programs to integrate into your current set up.

This is also applicable to developing a website or business blog. Organizations often invest money upfront in added bells and whistles they may not ever need.

For this reason, we recommend a modular approach when growing your web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get your website up and running fast, then …

2) As you need more features or functionality, you can add new software modules with a few clicks of the mouse directly from your admin panel, and give your web site a completely new range of possibilities, and also …

3) Cost not one cent extra to add to your web site?

Well, that’s precisely what WP plugins let you do!

WordPress Plugins – Benefits And Advantages

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

In fact, thousands of plugins are freely available for WP users.

WP plugins that you buy are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of investing in professional web development services to get similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are typically quite inexpensive.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, anyone can create, modify and customize any part of the code. This has enabled many third-party web developers to create more new tools that enhance WordPress than you can possibly imagine.

• WP plugins allow you to start off simply with a simple site and then expand only when required.
• WP plugins allow you to add almost unlimited functionality to any website easily and really cheaply.
• Plugins give your website practically endless expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow ”non-techies” to own 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 web site new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins can be a little more advanced and may need some configuring.

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

Like themes, loads of plugins are currently available for WordPress users … for FREE!

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

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

There are WP plugins for:

• Website Management
• Content Syndication
• Increasing Site Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Monitoring
• Adding Media – Videos, Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales & Advertising Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data And System Analysis Applications
• Optimizing Your WP Web Site

You can add features to a business online presence with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item sales with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Membership sites
• List-building opt-in forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonial forms
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your pages from English to French)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your website
• Set appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect users from missing pages to other pages on your site or other websites
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Hide certain from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Import information from other publishing platforms
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Fight SPAM
• Customize visitor discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Inserting scripts and script elements into your posts, pages and sidebars
• Add and format tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google local search
• Add business location maps
• Distribute your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As you can clearly see, WP plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a website, or your existing website wasn’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’s take a look at how you can benefit instantly by simply installing an inexpensive plugin on your site.

For example, if you want content protection, you can install plugins to make an area of a page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with customized login details for users …

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

To increasing your site’s visibility across social media and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated functionality to your site using inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that automate functionality on your pages such as managing customer testimonials and event registration details …

And also run a custom-branded bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying web developers to build custom 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:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site increased exposure).
• Share your content with other web visitors on various social sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other customers through forums or even set up a private social network on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team via live web conferencing and chatrooms
• Call your business directly from their devices when browsing your website
• Open a support ticket
• And much more …

Finally you, can even integrate complex third-party solutions using a WP “front end”. This lets you control your business sales and marketing, while the third-party application handles the technical side of things …

Some Useful Tips About WordPress Plugins

• There are lots of plugins available. Be careful not to overload your server with too many plugins, as this can begin to affect your website’s resources and page loading times. It can also create more maintenance issues for you resulting from possible errors.
• Install only the plugins that you really plan to use. Delete all unnecessary plugins from your site, as these also use server resources.
• Many free plugins often come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium WP plugins, ensure that you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of the plugin reviews we provide here for more useful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think carefully before using it on your site. WordPress updates frequently and older plugins can cause problems.
• Ensure that you always maintain your plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugins not only can create errors, they may also have security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making it the most downloaded content management system available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add instant functionality to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing about WP plugins:

If there is a feature or functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a someone has probably already developed one that will do exactly what you want it to do, and that this plugin will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the cost will be surprisingly reasonable.

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

And, if by chance such a WP plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does exactly what you need it to do can probably be created for your business at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what plugins are and how they can help improve your business blog. See our published posts to learn more about usingplugins.

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