The abundance of free plugins is one of the main reasons behind WordPress’ huge popularity. A quick search in the WordPress plugin repository will reveal hundreds of plugins for any purpose. These plugins allow you to do advanced things with your website.
While plugins are essential for any WordPress site, they don’t come pre-installed. Rather, you have to search and install your desired plugins on your own. If you are a complete beginner to WordPress, you may not have any idea about how to install plugins. If that is the case, you have come to the right place. In this video below, I will show you how to install a plugin from the WordPress repository. If you prefer to read and see pictures please find the rest of this article below the video.
How to install a plugin in WordPress
There are two ways of installing a plugin:
- Install the plugin from your website
- Upload the plugin manually
I will discuss both of these methods. However, before I discuss the methods, there is something else you should know – how to select a plugin.
As plugins will have access to the database and content of your website, make sure that you are installing plugins from reliable and reputed developers. Check the reviews, ratings and other details of a plugin before installing it. Try to avoid the plugins which have lots of low ratings and/or bad reviews.
Now, let’s start with the first method of installing a plugin.
Install the plugin from your website
First of all, log in to your website’s dashboard. Go to Plugins > Add New. You will be taken to a screen like the following –
The page will show the featured plugins that are selected by WordPress. You will also find links to browse the popular, recommended and favorite plugins. In order to see the favorite plugins, you will need a WordPress.com account.
If you know the name of the plugin you are looking for, provide the name in the ‘Search Plugins’ field. You can also search for any generic term. The search results page will look like the following –
If you don’t know which plugin you should choose, you can get an idea from the number of downloads, number of ratings and the average rating. Once you have chosen a plugin, click the ‘Install Now’ button right after the plugin name. A popup will appear asking your confirmation. Click ‘OK’.
At this point, the plugin will be downloaded and installed in your website automatically.
You can activate the plugin by clicking the ‘Activate Plugin’ link. Alternatively, you can return to the plugin installer. So, that’s how you install a plugin from your website.
Install a Plugin Manually
For any reason, if you are unable to install a plugin from your website, you have another option – you can install the plugin manually. To do that, go to the WordPress plugin repository.
Like the previous method, you can search for a plugin. Once you have found the plugin, click on the plugin’s name. This will take you to the plugin page.
Click the ‘Download Version …’ button. This will download a zip archive to your computer. Then, get back to your website dashboard. Go to Plugins > Add New.
Click the ‘Upload Plugin’ button. You will be taken a page like this –
Click ‘Choose File’, select the zip archive you downloaded from WordPress plugin repository. Click ‘Install Now’. The plugin will be uploaded and installed in your website automatically. Then, you will find options to either activate the plugin or get back to the plugins page. And that’s how you install a WordPress plugin manually.
Well, I tried to cover every aspect of the plugin installation process in this tutorial. However, if you are still confused about any steps discussed here, please let me know. I will be glad to help you.