Many beginners are confused about how to use plugins when starting a WordPress blog or website. In this post, you will find a step-by-step tutorial on how to upload, install, config and use WordPress plugins.
Table of contents:
- What is a WordPress plugin?
- Where to find WordPress plugins?
- How To Install A Plugin?
- How To Install A Plugin Manually?
- How To Upload A Plugin To WordPress Via FTP?
- Config Your WordPress Plugins
What is a WordPress plugin? Back To Top
Before the beginning of this post, you need to understand what is a WordPress plugin, what a plugin can be used for and what the benefits you could get from plugins when you running a WordPress website.
A WordPress plugin is a PHP based extension that adds additional/specific features to your existing WordPress site. Anyone can customize and extend the WordPress functionality with no any PHP skills. Read More
Where to find WordPress plugins? Back To Top
Here are some famous websites from which you can search and download proper plugins for your WordPress blogs and sites.
WordPress.org
Official WordPress plugin directory.
Github
Tons of Open Source WordPress Plugins.
Codecanyon
6000+ Premium WordPress plugins.
How To Install A Plugin Directly? Back To Top
The fastest way to find and install WordPress plugins is to add plugins in the ‘Add Plugins’ section of your WordPress dashboard.
1. Login to your WordPress admin panel.
2. Click the Add New link under the Plugins section in the left sidebar.
3. Search WordPress plugins by keywords, tags or authors.
4.Click the Install Now button to instantly install the plugin you selected for your WordPress site.
5. To active the plugin, just click the Active button when the plugin is completely installed.
How To Install A Plugin Manually? Back To Top
If you have a WordPress plugin in a .zip format, you may install it by uploading it in the Add Plugins page.
1. Login to your WordPress admin panel and goto the Add Plugins as noticed above.
2. Download the plugin zip file and save it to your computer.
3. Click the Upload Plugin button on the top of the page.
4. Select the plugin zip file from where you saved the zip file on your computer and then click the Install Now button.
5. Active the plugin and done.
How To Upload A Plugin To WordPress Via FTP? Back To Top
The third way to install a WordPress plugin is by uploading the plugin files via an FTP client of your choice.
Recommended FTP clients:
- FileZilla: A full free and open source FTP/SFTP client.
- WinSCP: A free SFTP, SCP and FTP client for Windows.
- Flashfxp: A high performance and secure FTP, FTPS, SFTP client.
To upload a WordPress plugin to your website, follow these steps:
1. Download the plugin zip file and save it to your computer.
2. Unzip the plugin.
3. Login to your FTP server via an FTP client.
4. Navigate to the WordPress folder /wp-content/plugins/
5. Upload the plugin files from the folder extracted in Step 2.
6. You will find the WordPress plugin in the Plugins page of your WordPress admin panel.
7. Click the Active link to enable the WordPress plugin. Done!
Config Your WordPress Plugins Back To Top
The final step of installing a WordPress plugin is to override the default plugin settings according to your actual needs.
To config WordPress plugins, follow these steps:
1. Login to your WordPress.
2. Hover over the Settings link in the sidebar dashboard.
3. Find and click the plugin name.
4. You can also go to the plugin’s setting page by clicking the settings link under the Plugin Name in the Plugins page:
Done!
In this post, you learned how to find, upload, install and config plugins for your WordPress site. If you have any questions please let me know.
