Tag: WP Plugins

One of the main features of WordPress is that you can quickly enhance your WP website or blog’s functionality using inexpensive (and often 100% free) software called plugins.

Understanding WordPress Plugins

No doubt, you probably own a mobile phone. What happens when you would like to access something new on your phone like a new application, software or a new business productivity tool?

Why, simple … you download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is really easy to install and integrates new features into any smart phone.

(Just like you will find social sharing apps for mobile phones …)

A WordPress plugin is really similar to an app. You simply download and install an application that provides new functionality to your WP site …

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

Generally, adding new features to an existing web site involves additional cost. Depending on how complex the feature or enhancement is, this could get quite expensive, especially if website developers have to add new code or modify programs or install programs that integrate into your existing site.

This also applies when starting a new website. Many companies tend to invest in components they may not need.

For sound, strategic business planning reasons, we suggest a modular approach when setting up your web presence and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could:

1) Start simply and with minimal expense involved. Get a web presence up and running fast, then …

2) As you need more features, simply install new software modules with only a few mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your website, giving your website an entirely new and expanded range of possibilities, and …

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

Well, that’s exactly what plugins allow you to do!

WP Plugins – Benefits & Advantages

Earlier, we compared WordPress plugins with apps. In the same way that some apps are free to download and some cost a little bit of money, so do WP plugins.

In fact, many plugins are available at no cost to WordPress users.

WP plugins that cost money are referred to as “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when you compare these to the cost of investing in professional web development services to add similar functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite low.

Also, since WordPress makes its code publicly available, anybody can create, modify and customize any part of the WordPress code. This has enabled many third-party software development professionals to create more applications that integrate seamlessly with the WordPress application than you can imagine.

• Plugins allow you to start simply with a basic yet professional web site and then expand only as required.
• Plugins allow you to add practically unlimited features to your web presence quickly, easily and very cheaply.
• WordPress plugins give you virtually unlimited expansion capabilities.
• WP plugins allow ”non-techies” to have a website that they can manage themselves.
• Most plugins will normally work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to give your website or blog new capabilities and functionality.
• Some plugins offer more extensive options and could require some initial configuring.

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

Like WordPress themes, thousands of great WP plugins are available for WP users … for FREE!

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

As mentioned earlier, you will find WP plugins that will do just about anything you need your web site to do.

There are plugins for:

• Site Management
• Content Syndication
• Web Traffic Generation
• User Interactivity
• Social Media
• Media Utilities Automation
• Improving Sales And Opt-In Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting Applications
• WP Security

For example, you can expand your website with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• Surveys
• Display ad banners
• E-commerce (from setting up single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce stores with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social media integration
• Membership sites
• Newsletter 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 website from English to Portuguese)
• Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
• Custom navigation
• Customer interactivity – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
• Cloud storage integration
• Making pages load faster
• Event management
• Business listing directories
• Automatically sell spots on your blog
• Set client appointments and appointment reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken links and send you reports
• Redirect URLs
• Monitor social conversations
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add sitemaps
• Hide specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
• Protect content on your pages and posts
• Import information from non-WordPress applications
• Search and replace data
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize visitor comment displays (e.g. displaying Facebook comments)
• Inserting scripts and code elements into your posts
• Add tables
• Add animated graphic elements and advanced text formatting options
• Add and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search
• Add a map
• Publicize your content automatically on social pages like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and many others
• Display countdown timers (for scarcity offers, coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so much more!

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

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

For example, if you need content protection, you can use plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on a page inaccessible, or create a full membership site with separate login details for all users …

As mentioned previously, you can use free plugins to improve your website in lots of ways. From installing new features that improve your business, your visitors’ experience and your ability to review visitor data …

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

You can also add complex functionality to your website using relatively inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can set up plugins that integrate and automate tasks on your website like displaying customer testimonials and event registration details …

And even set up a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a tiny fraction of the cost of paying web developers to create these functionality for you …

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WordPress commenting features and plugins that can allow you to engage more with visitors, clients and registered site users …

For example, your web visitors can:

• Post comments on your site (which can grow into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then shared throughout the visitors’ Facebook pages, providing you with increased exposure).
• Bookmark your posts on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage online directly with other users using online forums or even set up an online social network on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team using live chats
• Dial your business from their laptops while visiting your pages
• Open a support ticket
• And so much more …

Finally you, can also integrate complex “back end” applications with a WordPress “front end”. This lets you manage your business sales and marketing, while the third-party application handles the technological aspects …

Useful Things To Know About WordPress Plugins

• There are so many great plugins available. Be careful of overloading your server with too many plugins, as this can invariably start to affect your site’s performance and site loading speed. It also means more maintenance work for you resulting from potential conflicts.
• Only keep the plugins that you really use. Delete any plugins you don’t use from your site, as these use additional resources.
• Many free plugins typically receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing premium plugins, ensure that you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to offering support, upgrades, new features, etc. Be sure to check our WordPress plugin recommendations for more helpful information.
• If you see that a plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before installing it on your website or blog. The WordPress core software changes often and older plugins that have not been updated can create problems.
• Always keep all plugins up-to-date. Outdated plugins not only can cause errors, they could also contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malicious software.

As you can see, WP plugins are an integral part of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most popular content open source platform in the world. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add new features to their web presence without spending thousands of dollars on outsourced web development costs.

One last thing on the topic of plugins:

If there is a feature you need for your web presence, you can guarantee that a plugin probably exists that will do just what you want it to do, and that this plugin can either be accessed for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that it will be surprisingly inexpensive.

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

And, if by chance such a plugin has not been created yet, then one can certainly be written for you at a reasonable cost.

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

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