Tag: WP Plugins

One of the most unique features of WordPress is that you can easily increase your WordPress website’s functionality using plugins.

What Are Plugins?

Like most of us, you most likely own a smart phone. What happens when you would like access to something new on your device like a new game or a business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

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

(Just like you can find social sharing apps …)

A plugin is similar to an app. You install an application that provides new functionality to your web site …

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

Almost always, if you decide to expand the functionality of an already-built web site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the features or enhancements, the cost can be quite significant, particularly if web developers need to create new code or edit programs or install scripts that integrate with your current set up.

This also applies when starting a web site. Organizations will often invest money in advance in extra features they probably will never need.

For this reason, we recommend a modular approach to setting up a presence online presence and WordPress plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply with minimal expense involved. Get your business web presence up and running quickly, then …

2) As the need for new features arises, add new software modules with a couple of mouse clicks directly from within your WordPress admin section, to give your web site a completely new and expanded range of practical capabilities, and also …

3) Cost not a single dollar extra to add to your website?

Well, that’s just what a plugin allows you to do!

WP Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared plugins with apps. Just like many apps are free to download and some apps cost a little bit of money, so do plugins.

In fact, thousands of great plugins can be installed on your websites.

Plugins that you buy are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are generally very inexpensive.

Also, since WordPress makes its source code publicly available, any web developer can create, edit and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled many professional software developers to enhance the core WordPress software application.

• WordPress plugins let you get started simply with only a simple yet professional website and add new features and enhancements to your site only when necessary.
• Plugins let you add practically unlimited features to your website quickly and cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give you virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• Plugins allow anyone to own a website that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website instant new capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins are a little more complex and may need some configuring.

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

Like many themes, tens of thousands of great plugins are currently available for WordPress users … and many of these great plugins are 100% FREE!

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

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

There are WP plugins for:

• Blog Management
• Content Management
• Online Traffic Generation
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Monitoring
• Inserting Media Files – Videocasts, Graphics, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Analysis Tools
• Securing Your WP Site

You can enhance a WordPress site with plugins such as:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Social contests
• Rotating banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupons, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User testimonials
• 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 menus
• Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media integration
• Faster page loading
• Managing events & bookings
• Business directories
• Automatically sell and manage advertising on your blog
• Set up client appointments and appointment reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and email you reports
• Redirect website links
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add a site map
• Hide certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content sections
• Migrate data from other publishing platforms
• Search and replace data
• Fight SPAM
• Customize visitor commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert scripts and code elements into your blog’s header and footer
• Add and format tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve your local search listings on Google
• Add location maps
• Post your posts automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon and others
• Show countdown timers (for special offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

As it’s clear to see, WP plugins give you practically limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a web site for your business, or your existing website isn’t powered by WordPress, then consider using it in the future.

In case you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible plugins are, let’s take a look at how you can benefit instantly by installing an inexpensive plugin on your website.

For example, if you want content protection, you can use plugins to make an area of your page or post inaccessible, or create a full membership site with customized login details for users …

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to improve your web presence in so many different ways. From adding new features that enhance your business, your web users’ experience and your ability to analyze site metrics …

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

You can also add complex functionality to your site using inexpensive paid WordPress plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that integrate and automate tasks on your website such as user feedback and event registrations management …

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

Additionally, you can take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that can make your site even more interactive …

For example, your visitors can:

• Post comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Share your content with other web visitors on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other users through forums or even set up an online social network on your own site.
• Engage with your staff via live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Dial your business from their devices when visiting your site
• Get help via a client help desk
• And much more …

You can also integrate sophisticated “back end” applications using a WP “front end”. This enables you to control your business sales and marketing, while your third-party application handles the technological aspects …

Some Useful Things To Know About Plugins

• There are many WordPress plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can invariably start to affect your site’s performance and page loading speed. It also creates more maintenance work for you resulting from potential errors.
• Install only the plugins you really use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize additional server resources.
• Many free plugins normally come with very little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering paid WP plugins, we recommend that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to providing support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of our WP plugin recommendations 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 installing it. The WordPress software is updated on a regular basis and older plugins that have not been updated can cause issues.
• Always keep all plugins updated. Outdated plugins not only can create problems, they could also contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malicious users.

As you can see, WordPress plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most preferred content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add instant features to their website without spending thousands of dollars on web development costs.

One last thing about WP plugins:

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

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

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

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

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