WordPress Plugins-What Is A WordPress Plugin
by Bill Parlaman
Filed under Bill's Blog, SEO WordPress
I get a lot of questions from business owners asking me about WordPress Plugins.
A WordPress plugin is an application that improves your blogs functionality. In simple terms, it helps your WordPress business blog do a lot of really cool things.
These are functions and applications that you would have had to hire a programmer to accomplish in the old days of the internet.
Not anymore!
You see, WordPress is open source software. Meaning, there are tons of smart programmers online creating these cool little WordPress plugins for FREE! There are also “premium” WordPress plugins you have to pay for but for the most part, the free ones do just fine.
To add WordPress plugins to your business blog, just log in to the control panel of your business blog. You’ll notice on the left side navigation menu a heading for “Plugins.” Expand the Plugins box, and you’ll see the option to “add new.”
Once you click “add new” you’ll be taken to the plugins menu page. Once here, you can search for plugins by keyword, by popularity and by newest.
If you’re looking to add a certain function to your business blog, simply type some keywords into the search box on the plugins menu page. From there you’ll be shown a whole host of plugins to choose from if they exist.
For example, lets say you want to add a Facebook like button to your business blog. Simply click the add new plug-in link and type, “Facebook like button” into the search box. After clicking the search button, you’ll be shown a whole host of Facebook like button plugins to choose from.
Now there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind when working with WordPress Plugins.
First, you’ll only want to upload free WordPress plugins from www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins. The reason for this is because sometimes people online are NOT so nice. They like to stick nasty little malware and viruses in their plugins. Stick with trusted sources.
Second, once you’ve uploaded your WordPress Plugins, be sure to update them to the current version. With the latest version of WordPress 3.01 its as easy as clicking a button to do this.
Finally, if you ever have something “funky” happen to your blog, the first thing you’ll want to do is deactivate all of your plugins. Sometimes plugins don’t play nice together or do not play well with your current version of WordPress.
Once you’ve deactivated all of your plugins, reactivate them one at a time until you find the pesky bugger causing you heartburn.
So there you have it, everything you must know about WordPress plugins.
In my next few posts, I’ll reveal my favorite plugins for general use. And of course I’ll also reveal my top WordPress plugins for SEO.
Talk to you then.
Now go dominate Google, Bill Parlaman
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