Tag: WP Plugins

One of the most unique benefits of the WordPress content publishing platform is that you can quickly enhance your WordPress web site’s functionality using applications called plugins.

Understanding WP Plugins

No doubt, you most likely have a smart phone. What do you do when you would like access to something new on your phone like a new application, game or business tool?

You download and install an app!

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

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

A plugin is like an app. You simply install and activate an application that provides new functionality to your WP website or blog …

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

Generally, adding a new feature to an already-built website involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the new features or enhancement, things can get quite expensive, particularly if it requires modifying code.

This also applies when developing a new web site. Organizations will often spend money in advance on added bells and whistles they probably will never need.

To reduce your business costs, we recommend considering a modular strategy when setting up your web site and WordPress plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As more features are needed, add new applications with a couple of mouse clicks that integrate with your site, giving your web site an entirely new range of useful features, and also …

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

Well, that’s just what WordPress plugins let you do!

Plugins – Benefits

Earlier, we compared WP plugins with ’apps’. Just like many apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, the same is true with plugins.

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

WP 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 add the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. paid) plugins are priced quite low.

Also, as WordPress is an Open Source application, anyone can create, modify and customize any portion of the code. This has enabled many third-party software development companies to enhance the core WP software application.

• WordPress plugins allow you to get started with just a basic website and then expand only as necessary.
• WP plugins let you add practically unlimited features to any web site easily and really inexpensively.
• Plugins give your site almost endless expanding capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow anyone to have a digital presence that they can manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your web site immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more extensive features and may need some configuring.

Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Many Are) 100% FREE!

Like themes, tens of thousands of great plugins are made available to WordPress users … for FREE!

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

As previously mentioned, you can find plugins that will do just about everything you could think of.

WP plugin categories cover:

• Blog Management
• Content Distribution
• Driving Web Visitors
• User Engagement
• Social Engagement
• Media Management Automation
• Improving Sales & Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Reporting Applications
• Optimizing Your WP Site

For example, you can expand your business online presence with plugins like the following:

• Contact forms
• Quizzes and polls
• Social contests
• Managing ad banners
• E-commerce (from managing single sales with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonials
• Instant language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your website’s content from English to French)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation menus
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Media management
• Faster page loading
• Event management
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your website
• Set appointments and reminders
• Manage reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and email you reports
• Redirect affiliate pages
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude specific from displaying on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide content on your posts and pages
• Migrate content from non-WordPress platforms
• Perform bulk data replacements
• Fight SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Insert scripts and script elements into your pages
• Add tables
• Display animated graphic elements and advanced font display formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add a map
• Post your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and many others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

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

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WP plugins, let me show you some practical advantages of installing a plugin on your site.

For example, if you want content protection, you can install plugins to make a section of your page inaccessible, or create a professional paid membership site with personal login details for each member …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your website in lots of different ways. From adding functionality that will improve your business, your web users’ experience and your understanding of what is happening on your site …

To extending your site’s visibility across many social networks and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated features to your site using relatively inexpensive premium WordPress plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that integrate and automate functions on your website like managing customer testimonials and booking events …

And also run a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of paying web developers to code these functionality for you …

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

For example, your visitors can easily:

• Leave comments on your site (which can turn into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Share your posts with other online users on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other customers using online forums or even set up a private social network on your site.
• Engage with your staff through live web conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Dial your business directly from their cellphones when visiting your site
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

You can also integrate complex enterprise solutions using a WP “front end”. This lets you control your business marketing, while the third-party application handles the technical functions …

Some Useful Things You Should Know About WP Plugins

• There are loads of terrific plugins available. Be careful not to overload your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this will affect your site’s resources and page loading times. It also creates more maintenance work for you as a consequence of possible conflicts and errors.
• Only keep the plugins you really plan to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these utilize extra server resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive very little to no support from the plugin developer. When choosing paid WordPress plugins, ensure that you check some reviews online and understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check our WordPress plugin recommendations for additional information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two years), then think twice before using it on your site. WordPress changes regularly and older plugins that have not been updated can create issues.
• Always keep all plugins updated. Older plugin not only can cause conflicts, they could also have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

As you can see, WP plugins are an important aspect of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most powerful, flexible and scalable content management system in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to add new functionality to their website without having to spend thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing on the subject of WordPress plugins:

Whatever feature you need for your website, you can be sure that a plugin currently exists that will do what you want, and that it can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost to buy it will be reasonable.

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

And, if by any chance such a plugin has not been created yet, then a custom plugin that does exactly what you would like it to do can probably be coded for you at a reasonable cost.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what they are and how they can help enhance the functionality of your website. See our published posts to learn about more great WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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