Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins: Must Read Information

Driving the platform’s popularity is its combined ease of use and flexibility. WordPress provides standard functionality to allow any user to get a site up and running in no time.

You can create posts and pages, manage and schedule content, book appointments, assign user roles, upload and insert images and other media, and moderate comments right out-of-the-box.

Let’s say you do all that and want to continue building your site by customizing your login page or adding social proof to your posts and pages, for example. Since WordPress is open-source, you could extend or modify the source code to create nearly any functionality your site needs. Such flexibility is a huge appeal for developers.

But what if you’re not a developer and don’t have much experience coding? In that case, you can use a plugin.

WordPress plugins are like apps on your phone. You can download or purchase them to add or enhance the functionality of your WordPress site.

Plugins allow WordPress users to create powerful sites without touching a single line of code. As content management systems continue to democratize web design and abate the dependency on web developers and designers, plugins are an increasingly integral part of how we create and consume content on the internet.

This post will give you an overview of what WordPress plugins are, how they work, and some popular examples.

What is a WordPress plugin?

A WordPress plugin is a piece of software that “plugs into” your WordPress site. Plugins can add new functionality or extend existing functionality on your site, allowing you to create virtually any kind of website, from ecommerce stores to portfolios to directory sites.

Plugins can make small tweaks on your site or massive changes, depending on their features. For example, you could use a plugin to add a WhatsApp share button to your site or to create a fully multilingual site. Or, if you run an ecommerce business, you might add a plugin to assist with payment gateways.

While many make changes to the front end of your site, some plugins make changes on the back end so maintenance is easier for your team. These plugins might allow you to scan your site for broken links or run A/B tests, for example.

As mentioned, there are plugins that have the power to assist with almost anything you could think of on your site. There are plugins that enhance your contact forms, make beautiful sliders, backup your site in case of data failure, and make email opt-in easy — plus much more.

To get started with these plugins, you have to add them to your WordPress site. There are multiple ways to add and update WordPress plugins both manually and automatically. For example, you can do so from your dashboard, from the official WordPress plugin directory, or from third-party sites. Plugins from the official directory can be automatically installed in one click, while some premium plugins have to be manually installed via FTP.

Once you’ve found a plugin that’s right for your site, you can follow this step-by-step tutorial to install a plugin.

Now that we have a better understanding of what plugins are, let’s take a closer look at how they work.

How do WordPress plugins work?

Plugins allow you to add or extend the functionality of your WordPress site without changing core WordPress files. Plugins use access points, formally known as filter and action hooks, provided by the WordPress Plugin API to “hook into” the source code. These access points and methods will call the functions of the plugin at specific times and modify the default behavior of WordPress.

A plugin developer who wants to use the WordPress Plugin API to create a plugin will start by creating a PHP function to, say, delete comments with profanity from their site. Then they’ll hook the function to a specific event, such as saving comments to the WordPress database or publishing a post, by using the add_filter() function or add_action() function.

Let’s say this developer wants to create a plugin that adds a line of text that says “Thank you for reading!” below every post on a WordPress site. In that case, the function of the plugin would be adding “Thank you for reading!” to a post and the event that triggers the function would be publishing a post. So their plugin file would look something like the following:

<?php

/**

* Plugin Name: Thank You Plugin

* Plugin URI: http://www.mywebsite.com/thank-you-plugin

* Description: The very first plugin that I have ever created.

* Version: 1.0

* Author: Your Name

* Author URI: http://www.mywebsite.com

add_action( ‘the_content’, ‘my_thank_you_text’ );

function my_thank_you_text ( $content ) {

return $content .= ‘<p>Thank you for reading!</p>’;

Now let’s say you’re a site owner who wants to add this functionality to your site. If this plugin is not available in the official WordPress directory, then you would download the plugin as a zip file and save it in the wp-content/plugins folder of your directory. This would automatically install the plugin to your WordPress site.

You’d then navigate to Plugins in your admin dashboard. Once you located the newly uploaded plugin from the list of installed plugins on your site, you’d just click the plugin’s “Activate” link and be all set! From then on, every time you published a post, the line “Thanks for reading!” would be automatically added to the bottom of the post.

If this sounds like a lot of work, then you might be wondering why people use plugins instead of editing core WordPress files to add functionality to their site. That’s because, when updating to a new version of WordPress, all the core files — and any edits made to them — are overwritten. To add that same functionality on your updated site, you’d have to go back in and edit the core files again.

However, if you install plugins to add functionality to your site, then you just need to worry about keeping the plugins updated.

Now that we understand what plugins are and how they work, let’s look at some plugins that can add essential features to your WordPress site.

Must-Have WordPress Plugins

WordPress offers essential standard functionality to get you publishing visual content as soon as possible to attract your target audience. However, it’s missing some key features to help you engage and delight these visitors. The must-have WordPress plugins below can help optimize your content, enhance your site or landing pages, advance your conversion strategy, and keep your visitors coming back.

HubSpot WordPress Plugin

HubSpot’s WordPress plugin offers an array of sales, marketing, and CRM features. The plugin allows you to engage visitors with live chat and chatbots and then convert them into leads with forms and popups. You can nurture leads by building responsive email drip campaigns and marketing automation campaigns. You can then use HubSpot’s built-in analytics to evaluate the impact of each of these sales and marketing actions.

This plugin not only connects your WordPress site to HubSpot’s marketing, service, and sales tools — it also connects your site to the HubSpot CRM. That means you can easily manage your contacts, segment them into lists, and see every interaction they’ve had with your website, from page views to live chat conversations.

The best part? You can do all this without leaving your WordPress dashboard.

What is a WordPress plugin?

How do WordPress plugins work?

Must-Have WordPress Plugins

Best WordPress Plugins

Free WordPress Plugins

Enhance Your Site with Plugins

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