Tag: WP Plugins

One of the main benefits of using WordPress is the ability to quickly and easily expand your WordPress website’s functionality using applications called plugins.

What Are Plugins?

Like most people, you probably own a mobile phone. What do you do when you want access to something new on your device like a new application, software or a new business tool?

You download and install an app!

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

(Just as there are social sharing apps …)

A WP plugin is very much like an app. You simply download and install an application that adds new functionality to your website …

(… there are also social sharing plugins for WP sites!)

Almost always, if you plan to expand the functionality of an existing site, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancement, this could get quite expensive, especially if website developers have to add new code or modify templates or install programs that integrate with your existing site.

This is also applicable when developing a new web site. Business owners sometimes fork out money up front on features they may probably never need.

To save money and keep expenses low, we recommend a cost-effective approach when setting up a website and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine being able to:

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

2) As the need for new features becomes evident, you can install new software modules with a few clicks of the mouse directly from your WP dashboard area, giving your website or blog an entirely new range of possibilities, and …

3) Cost not a single dollar more to install on your website?

Well, this is just what plugins allow you to do!

Benefits Of WordPress Plugins

We started this post by comparing WP plugins with ’apps’. Just like many apps are free to download and some apps cost a little money, the same applies to plugins.

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

WP plugins that you have to buy are referred to as Premium plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the cost of hiring a professional web developer to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium (i.e. ”paid”) plugins are priced quite cheaply.

Also, as WordPress makes its code available to everyone, anyone can create, edit and customize any part of the code. This has enabled thousands of professional web development companies to build more new plugins that plug seamlessly into WordPress than you can possibly imagine.

• Plugins allow you to start off with just a simple yet professional web presence and then add new features and enhancements to your site when necessary.
• Plugins let you add almost endless functionality to your web site quickly, easily and inexpensively.
• WP plugins give your site virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WordPress plugins allow ”non-techies” to own a site that they can fully manage.
• Most plugins normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your site instant new enhancements and features.
• Some plugins offer more advanced features and require some configuration.

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

Like many themes, loads of WP plugins are currently available to WP users … for FREE!

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

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

WP plugin categories cover:

• User Management
• Content Syndication
• Increasing Web Visitors
• Visitor Interactivity
• Social Sharing
• Uploading Media Files – Videos, Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
• e-Commerce And Online Sales & Advertising Automation
• Improving Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data Monitoring & Reporting Tools
• Securing Your

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

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Managing banners
• E-commerce (from managing single ordering with PayPal buttons, to full e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, discount codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Private Membership sites
• Newsletter opt-in forms
• Sales workflow
• Mobile conversion
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• Customer testimonial forms
• Language translation plugins (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website 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 management
• Making pages load faster
• Managing events
• Niche directories
• Automatically sell advertising on your blog
• Set up client appointments and reminders
• Automate reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks and send you reports
• Redirect visitors from missing pages to other areas on your site or other websites
• Monitor what social media users are posting about your business
• Make your pages available for printing or downloading as PDF
• Add sitemaps
• Exclude certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect page content
• Migrate information from non-WordPress platforms
• Perform bulk content replacements
• Block SPAM
• Customize guest commenting (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
• Inserting code and code elements into your posts, pages and sidebar menus
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced content formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add a map of your business location
• Syndicate your posts automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and many others
• Display countdown timers (for expiring offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And hundreds of other features!

As it’s clear to see, WordPress plugins give you limitless possibilities. If you are currently planning to build a web site, or your existing site was not built with WordPress, then consider using WordPress in the future.

In case you’re still wondering about the power and flexibility of using WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how you can benefit by simply adding a plugin to your site.

For example, if you need to publish content which is only accessible to some but not all users, you can install plugins to make an area of your post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with separate login details for all users …

As mentioned before, you can use free plugins to enhance your web presence in lots of ways. From installing features that can enhance your business, your visitors’ experience and your ability to review site metrics …

To increasing your business visibility across social media and search engines …

You can also add complex features to your site using relatively inexpensive paid WordPress plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that integrate and automate features on your website like user testimonial and event registration management …

And even run a complete bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to build these functionality for you …

You can also take advantage of native WP commenting features and plugins that will enhance your site’s interactivity …

For example, your visitors can:

• Leave comments on your blog posts (which can grow into online discussions) using either the built-in WordPress commenting feature, or integrated Facebook comments (which then get displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on various social sites.
• Contact you via contact forms
• Engage online with your support team through online forums or even set up a private online social network on your own site.
• Engage with your support staff using live webcam conferencing and chatroom facilities
• Dial your business directly from their devices when visiting your pages
• Get support via a user help desk
• And so much more …

Finally you, can also integrate sophisticated 3rd-party solutions with a WordPress “front end”. This lets you control your business sales and marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technological areas …

WP Plugins – Additional Things To Know

• There are loads of plugins to choose from. Be careful of overloading your server with an excessive amount of plugins, as this can affect your website’s performance and page loading times. It also means more maintenance work for you resulting from possible conflicts and errors.
• Only keep those plugins that you really plan to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these also consume server resources.
• Many free plugins normally receive little to no support from the plugin developer. When considering premium plugins, make sure you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the developer has when it comes to offering support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check the plugin reviews we publish on this site for more helpful 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. WordPress changes frequently and out-of-date WordPress plugins can cause problems.
• Ensure to always update your plugins. Outdated plugin not only can create problems, they may also contain vulnerabilities that can 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 powerful, flexible and scalable website open source application available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with easy, simple and inexpensive ways to expand quickly without having to spend thousands of dollars on outsourced web developers.

One last thing about plugins:

Whatever feature you need for your web site, you can guarantee that a someone has probably already created one that will do exactly what you want it to do, and that this plugin can either be accessed at no cost, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the cost to buy it will be minimal.

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

And, if by chance such a plugin does not exist, then it can probably be developed for your business for a very reasonable price.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of plugins – what they are and how they can to improve your blog. See our published posts to learn about more popular WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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