What Are WordPress Plugins? And how do we put them to use?

WordPress plugins Really helps :

No piece of software is perfect, neither can it do absolutely everything you need it to, at any given time. Taking that into consideration, the smart people that built WordPress made it able to extend its functionality beyond the defaults, in order to bring us a high quality product we can use to build our websites easily. Plugins come in many different shapes and varieties, doing many different things. But let’s dig in further.

Plugins may be somewhat separate pieces of software that provide extra functionality, but to bring it to WordPress, they use the WordPress Plugin API (Application Programing Interface). The API is a set of software abstractions that allow the plugin writer to easily interact with the WordPress installation.

To communicate with the WordPress installation, the plugin uses the API’s hooks – functions which allow your plugin to “hook to” WordPress.

But enough babble about how plugins work, let’s discuss the different varieties of plugins that are available:

• SEO plugins – those are concerned with the way your page presents itself to search engines. Optimizing for keywords, analytics for your on-page optimization, URL rewriting … all of these fall under the category of plugins for SEO. Most notable example – All In One SEO.

• Spam protection plugins – those filter out spam or add measures like CAPTCHA to fight off automated spam attacks. The only plugin which is installed by default in WordPress, called Akismet, is an anti-spam plugin.

• Integration plugins. Want to hook your phpBB forum with your WordPress blog? No problem. Integrating a Coppermine Gallery? Again, no problem. Integration plugins are there to help you include other pieces of software within WordPress or share the same user database.

• Social media plugins. These come to alleviate you of your troubles regarding Twitter buttons, Facebook like buttons, sharing content through social bookmarking sites and a wide plethora of other social activities.

• Forms plugins – plugins that generate contact forms and all sorts of other forms that your WordPress installation might need. The leader in this branch is definitely Gravity Forms, for its unique ability to easily and instantly create all the forms you might need.

• Lots of other plugins who are just hard to put in one single category

WordPress is one of the first Content Management Systems (site installations) who offers so much plugins that you can find a plugin for nearly everything you want done on your site, all automated and not needing to write a single piece of code. With over 19 thousand plugins, there’s a lot to choose from.