Tag: WP Plugins

One of the most useful benefits of WordPress is that you can easily increase your WordPress web site’s functionality using applications called plugins.

Understanding Plugins

No doubt, you probably use a device like a cell phone. What do you do when you would like to access something new on your device like a new game or a business productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software that is easy to install and adds new features and functionality to a smart device.

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

A plugin is like an app. You install a little software application that provides new functionality to your WP web site …

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

Normally, adding new features to your website involves additional cost. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancements, things could get quite expensive, especially if website developers need to create new code or modify programs or develop scripts to integrate with your existing set up.

This also applies when setting up a website. Business owners tend to invest money in bells and whistles they probably will never need.

To keep costs low, we suggest a sustainable strategy when setting up your web site and WP plugins are ideal for doing this.

Imagine if you could:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a professional-looking web site up and running quickly, then …

2) As the need for new features and functionality arises, just install new software modules with only a few mouse clicks that integrate seamlessly with your existing web site, and give your website or blog a completely new range of possibilities, and …

3) Cost not one cent more to install on your web site?

Well, that’s precisely what a WordPress plugin lets you do!

WP Plugins – Benefits & Advantages

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

In fact, thousands of powerful plugins are available at no cost to users.

WP plugins that you purchase are called ’Premium’ plugins. The good news, is that when you compare it to the price of paying for professional web development services to get the same functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite low.

Also, since WordPress makes its code publicly available, anyone can create, edit and customize any portion of the code. This has allowed many third-party web development companies to create more new tools that plug seamlessly into the WordPress platform than you can possibly imagine.

• WP plugins let you start off with a basic site and expand as required.
• WP plugins allow you to add almost endless functionality to any web presence quickly and cheaply.
• Plugins give your web site practically endless expanding capabilities.
• 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 site new enhancements and functionality.
• Some plugins are a little more advanced and may require some initial configuring.

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

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

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

As previously mentioned, you can find WP plugins that can do just about everything you need your website to do.

There are WP plugins for:

• Web Site Administration
• Content Management
• Traffic
• User Interactivity
• Social Monitoring
• Media Utilities Automation
• Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
• Data & System Monitoring & Reporting
• WP Optimization

You can enhance a website with plugins like:

• Contact forms
• Polls and quizzes
• User Surveys
• Display advertising banners
• E-commerce (from managing single-item ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring payments, coupon codes, etc …)
• Social sharing buttons
• Private Membership sites
• List-building subscription forms
• Sales funnels
• Mobile integration
• Improving your site’s SEO
• Image galleries (with rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
• User feedback forms
• Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change all content on your website from English to French)
• 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 directories
• Automatically sell and manage spots on your site
• Set up client appointments and appointment reminders
• Set up reservations and bookings
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your pages and email you reports
• Redirect affiliate links
• Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
• Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
• Add a site map
• Exclude certain from showing on areas of your site (e.g. sitemaps, feeds, etc.)
• Hide page content sections
• Import content from different CMS platforms
• Search and replace content
• Block SPAM commenting
• Customize guest comment displays (e.g. display Facebook posts)
• Insert HTML and code elements into your pages
• Add formatted tables
• Add animated graphics and advanced font display formatting options
• Create and manage QR codes
• Improve Google search listings
• Add a map
• Publish your posts automatically on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and others
• Show countdown timers (for scarcity offers, discount coupons, etc …)
• Display custom greetings, timed offers, etc …
• And so many other features!

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

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

For example, if you need to protect your content, you can use plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your page inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with personal login details for users …

As mentioned previously, free plugins can be used to enhance your web site in lots of ways. From adding functionality that can improve your business, your website visitors’ experience and your ability to analyze visitor metrics …

To extending your site’s reach across various social networks and search engines …

You can also add sophisticated features to your website using inexpensive paid plugins. For example, you can buy plugins that integrate and automate features on your site such as user feedback and event registrations management …

And also set up a custom bookings and reservations system online … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring software developers to create these applications for you …

You can also take advantage of built-in WordPress commenting features and plugins that can allow you to engage even more with your visitors, clients and registered site members …

For example, your visitors can easily:

• 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 a visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
• Share your content with other online users on bookmarking sites.
• Contact you using contact forms
• Engage in online discussions with other users through forums or even set up a private online community on your own site.
• Engage with members of your team via live chats
• Dial your business directly from their cellphones when visiting your website
• Open support tickets
• And much more …

You can also integrate complex enterprise-level solutions with a WP “front end”. This lets you control the content that your visitors will see on your web site, while your 3rd-party application handles the technological functions …

Some Useful Information About Plugins

• There are loads of plugins available. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can start to affect your site’s resources and site loading speed. It can also mean more maintenance issues for you as a consequence of potential conflicts.
• Install only those plugins that you really need to use. Delete inactive plugins from your site, as these use resources.
• Many free plugins typically come with very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing paid WP plugins, we recommend that you check some reviews online and see what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new improvements, etc. Be sure to check some of our WP plugin recommendations for additional useful information.
• If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a very long time (e.g. two or more years), then think twice before installing it. WordPress updates frequently and older plugins that have not been updated can create problems.
• Make sure that you always maintain your plugins up-to-date. Older plugin not only can cause errors, they may also contain security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and malware.

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

One last thing about plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you want for your web presence, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do what you want, and that it will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a paid plugin, that the price will be very reasonable.

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

And, if by any chance this plugin is not available, then a custom plugin that does precisely what you want it to do can probably be coded for your business for a very reasonable price.

Hopefully, this information 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 related posts to learn about more great WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

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