WordPress plugins are used to add to or expand on the functionality of your WordPress powered website.

Commonly installed WordPress plugins cover such topics as contact forms, comment spam, and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

What else can WordPress plugins do?

Mostly if you have an idea for something you’d like your WordPress website to do then the chances are that someone else has already had a similar idea. I’m not saying you’re unoriginal, its just that with over 60million websites using WordPress someone has probably had a similar idea. Take a quick look through the WordPress plugin repository to get some ideas of the diversity of just what’s available.

Free, freemium and premium plugins.

The WordPress plugin repository has over 32,000 plugins available for free download, but there are also freemium, and premium plugins available.

Free. Many plugins are from developers who’ve solved a problem, and decided to give the solution to the WordPress community for free.

Freemium. Here the plugin author releases a free version of their plugin, perhaps missing some features or the support of the premium version. Their hope is that you upgrade to the premium version after finding the plugin useful.

Premium. With so many free plugins available why would you choose to pay? A professional company authoring WordPress plugins should be able to provide support and will likely be updating their products to stay compatible with the latest version of WordPress.