3 Easy Ways to Install a WordPress Plugin

Why I and many other professional bloggers prefer using self-hosted WordPress blog because the best and amazing thing about WordPress is that you can almost include any feature and functionality to your blog by using WordPress Plugin. There are numerous WordPress plugins available in the market, some are free which are available on WordPress Repository site and some are paid and can be found on third party sites like CodeCanyon. So in short plugins will make your blogging life easier and give your blog functionalities which you want.

The best part is that you don’t need to be a coder to install any plugin or configuring that plugin. Although at some point we required professionals but mostly you can easily manage the plugins.

Installing a WordPress plugin is just a game of few clicks. In this post, I am going to show you three easy ways to install a WordPress plugin.

Installing WordPress with Seach and Install Method

This is the easiest and most common method to install a WordPress plugin. But through this method, you can only install those plugins which are available in WordPress Plugin Directory. In this directory, you can find free plugins which that follow WordPress and GPL(General Public License) guidelines.

To install the plugin through this method you just have to go to your Dashboard, Click on “Plugins” on the left sidebar and then “Click Add New”.

Now search for the desired plugin and this will show you a list of plugins. Select the appropriate plugin which you want to install. Click “Install Now”.

WordPress will download and install the plugin automatically. Then it will ask to activate that plugin. Just click on the “Activate” link.

Once a plugin is successfully installed. You just have to configure that plugin as per requirement. To configure that plugin you need to go to settings of that plugin. You can easily plugin option either on the left side bar or under “Tools” or “Settings”.

In any case, if you are unable to find the plugin configuration settings then follow the installation guide of that plugin available on WordPress Plugin Directory.

Installing WordPress with Upload and Install Method

The above method is only for those plugins which are available in WordPress repository. But to install any premium plugin you need to first download that plugin to your PC from that particular plugin provider site.

One the plugin is download to you PC all you need is to go to your WordPress Dashboard. Click on Plugins> Add New> Upload Plugin.

A new window will open and asked for to choose a file name. Choose the file and click “Install Now”.

Ones the file will upload and install. It will ask you to activate that plugin. Just click on the “Activate Plugin” link.Ones the plugin is activated, configure it as needed.

Installing WordPress with FTP Clients

The above two methods are easy to use and I will recommend using the above two if you are a newbie. But sometimes our premium plugins are large in size and WordPress will not allow uploading that much large size to upload. So in this case you need to install that plugin via FTP client.

To use this method you need to first setup your FTP client to upload files. There are many FTP clients available in the market but I prefer using FileZilla because it is the most common and easy to use FTP Client.

So once you set up your FTP client and connect it to your server you will see two windows, one on the left and one on the right. The Left windows will show your PC directory and the Right windows will show you the server directory.

Now download the required plugin which you want to install. Once downloaded unzip that plugin and upload that unzip folder to your server under. You need to upload your plugin folder to public_html > wp-content > plugins.

This will take some time to upload files. Ones all the files are uploaded just go to your Dashboard and click on Plugins> Installed Plugins. Now you will see your installed plugin here. Just active that plugin and your plugin is ready to use.

Note: Any some cases if you are unable to access your dashboard after activating your plugin caused by either plugin conflicts or theme conflicts you can simply log into your FTP client and either rename the folder name of that plugin or simply delete it.

Do let me know if you face any problem while installing a WP Plugin? I am always happy to help.