How To Install A WordPress Plugin (3 Easy Routes To Take)

In this laser-focused article, you will find information about one of the most important components of WordPress websites i.e, “Plugins”. We explain how to install WordPress plugins in three easy ways.

 

But before you read that part of the content, I want to introduce you to our web design Los Angeles company - SFWPExperts. Being a client-oriented agency in the US, we are the best professional partner for everyone who wants to improve their website. With the term improvement, we mean everything including enhancing your website’s design, user experience, and functionalities. Keep in mind that your website’s potential is measured by how much traffic it gets, how many leads it generates, and most importantly how many visitors it converts. If you are concerned about any of them make sure to reach us from any corner of the world.

With that covered, now it’s time to turn to the headline of this content. So, let’s take a look at it:

 

Introduction

 

If content is the power source of websites, plugins are the functionality sources for sure. Plugins are one of the many objects that make a WordPress website and it is necessary that your website have it in the right number. Anything more or anything less could affect your website performance. But here the matter is not that but how to install plugins on Wordpress websites and what’s the easiest way to do it?

 

So, let’s look into it and learn the methods for WordPress plugin installation.

This tutorial is focused on new users of WordPress who want to self-educate.

 

How To Install And Activate WordPress Plugins (The Fast Ways Shared)

 

1. Install The Plugin From Your WordPress Dashboard

 

An easy way to add a plugin to your website is by installing it from your WordPress dashboard. By using this process for plugin installation, you can be rest assured that you will get an official plugin from WordPress.org repository.

 

There are some plugins that are not very much necessary for your site and then there are plugins that are extremely necessary. We recommend just a few that you must install such as Google XML Sitemaps, BackWPUp, and Yoast SEO.

Make sure these three plugins are always installed using this method only.

 

To begin plugin installation, first of all you need to login to your WordPress dashboard. Now open the menu items on your left and go to Plugins > Add New.

 

Here you have to type the plugin you are looking for in the search box. Let’s say I want to install a backup plugin for my WordPresss website. In that case, I’ll enter “backwpup” in the search box and click on the “Search Plugins” button just next to it.

 

Once I have done that, the search function will display the plugin we are looking for in the first place. Now I just have to click on the Install Now button and then it will be installed on our website.

After the plugin is installed on our website, it will ask whether we want to activate it or not. Simply click on the Activate Plugin link, available at the bottom left corner of the page - Voila! Now the BackWPup plugin is ready for use.

 

Up to this point you learned how to install a WordPress plugin from the official repository. Aside from this if you want to install a custom plugin on your WordPress website, you can get in touch with the accomplished Wordpress developers of our Los Angeles web design company. Describe to them your plugin specifications and once you have done that, you can expect to get it in a few days.

 

2. Upload The Plugin Through Your WordPress Dashboard

 

The next method we have on this list is plugin installation via your WordPress Dashboard. In this method, we use the WordPress dashboard not to look for the desired plugin but to manually upload the plugin we have downloaded before.

This method is usually adopted when you want to install plugins that are:

 

  • Not available in the WordPress repository (such as BackupBuddy)

  • Available on other platforms like GitHub

  • Developed by you

 

So, to start off the process you need to head to Plugins > Add New and then click on the Upload link available at the top of the page.

 

Just then a new page will open up on your screen through which you have to upload your plugin. We have chosen the zip file of the plugin that we want to upload on our WordPress website. Then, we clicked on the Install Now button and waited until the installation completed.

Now it’s time to activate the plugin by clicking on the Activate Plugin link.

 

In case the plugin you have uploaded is not working well on your WordPress website and you want some expert to resolve the problem, you must look forward to our experienced Wordpress website design company. We have multiple seasoned technicians to look into your website issue and find out what’s really stopping your site to function properly. Once we get it, we will report the same to you and bring your site back to normal working condition.

 

3. Install A WordPress Plugin Using A FTP Tool

 

From my experience, I can say that this method is the most solid way to install a WordPress plugin on your site. To carry out this process, you need to make sure you have FTP access to your server.

While there are a number of web hosts on the market who offer this convenience, it should not be a problem tracking down the hosting companies who provide you with FTP access.

 

Now let’s start executing the steps: first login to your FTP server using any FTP client, though we recommend FileZilla. Then head over WordPress installation directory and go to wp-content/plugins folder.

 

Here you need to extract the files from the plugin archive and paste that folder in the wp-content/plugins folder. Remember if you directly upload the plugin archive, WordPress will fail to identify it.

 

If I explain this to you with an example, assume that you download W3 Total Cache plugin. Now to upload this plugin through an FTP client, you need to extract it from the archive first that will generate a folder named w3-total-cache.

However, you will find w3-total-cache.0.9.4 as the archive name in this tutorial.

 

After the extraction is done, now we need to upload the plugin folder w3-total-cache using our FTP software.

 

Once that’s done, we head to Plugins > Installed Plugins and then search the plugin we just uploaded to our WordPress dashboard. Here, a small Activate link is present just below the plugin name, we simply click on that and the plugin will be activated.

 

So, this was the last method to install a plugin on your WordPress website. If you have any query or concern related to web hosts or their offerings, you can make contact with the experts of our Los Angeles web design company. We will suggest to you what hosting companies you should collaborate with to host your site.

Don’t worry we will also check whether they provide FTP access to your server or not.

 

Some Tips To Keep In Mind Before Installing A WordPress Plugin

 

If you have found the plugin you are looking for in the WordPress.org repository, then go ahead and install it; there isn’t any problem in doing that. But when you are uploading a plugin on your Wordpress website from some external source like GitHub or others, make sure the developer is credible and can be trusted.

 

Taking such precautions before plugin installation is absolutely necessary because once you have added any plugin to your site it gets full access to your database that could be abused. You are not offered options to grant permissions for certain activities as you might be used to in mobile devices when activating an Android application.

Some of the examples of trusted plugins include Envato WordPress Toolkit that you won’t find in the WordPress repository.

 

If you follow this tip, chances are less that your WordPress website will be injected with any malicious code.

 

What’s The Takeaway of This Discussion?

 

See it’s not a hidden fact that plugins boosts the functionality of our site. But when you make up your mind to install a plugin, think whether you really need that plugin or it can be avoided. The reason why I am saying this is more plugins generates more queries and more queries means slower execution. And if your site has slow load time you will be left behind in search engine rankings as compared to your competitors. So, it’s better to install lesser plugins so that your website feels lightweight and it opens quickly when someone clicks on its link.

This will get you a good ranking in search engine results and more people will come to your site.

 

Do you have any questions about how to install a WordPress plugin? Drop it in the comments section or if you like you can send it to us wrapped in a nice email. We will reply to your query as soon as we get it and help you understand the methods in a better manner. If you have some more expectations from us then you can choose our Los Angeles web design company - SFWPExperts to avail services like WordPress web design, web development, website maintenance, search engine optimization, content writing, and online marketing.

How To Install A WordPress Plugin (3 Easy Routes To Take)

By mikedavistech

How To Install A WordPress Plugin (3 Easy Routes To Take)

If content is the power source of websites, plugins are the functionality sources for sure. Plugins are one of the many objects that make a WordPress website and it is necessary that your website have it in the right number. Anything more or anything less could affect your website performance. But here the matter is not that but how to install plugins on Wordpress websites and what’s the easiest way to do it? Read more on https://bit.ly/3fRpkmM

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