How To Install a WordPress Plugin

It is no more new that WordPress is the best among the most popular blog publisher softwares on the internet.

It provides the primary functionality for publishing content and managing users.

But,…

What Are WordPress Plugin ??

WordPress Plugins are PHP scripts that extend the functionality of WordPress. They enhance the features of WordPress or add entirely new features to your site. Plugins are often developed by volunteers and are usually free to the public.

Plugins are available via the WordPress Plugin Directory. Although plugins you find here are thoroughly tested and considered safe to use, they are of varying quality and are often works in progress.

The WordPress content management system software, or WordPress core, provides the primary functionality for publishing content and managing users.

Each WordPress plugin is an additional piece of software that can be easily installed to extend the functionality of WordPress core.

This allows you to customize your WordPress site with your desired functionality. Since so much functionality is provided through plugins, WordPress core is full-featured and customizable, without having to include everything for everyone.

You cannot install plugins on WordPress.com unless you upgrade to their business plan. On the other hand, you can install any plugin you want on your self hosted WordPress.org website right out of the box.

Installing WordPress Plugins

There are 3 ways to install WordPress plugins.

Automatic Plugin Installation. Any plugin available on the WordPress Plugins Directory can be installed via the built-in plugin installer.

Upload via WordPress Admin. You can easily add a new plugin by uploading a zip archive of the plugin from your local computer.

Manual Plugin Installation. In some cases, you may need to manually upload a plugin directly using an SFTP client.

Automatic Plugin Installation

This is the simplest method of installing a plugin. To add a plugin using the built-in plugin installer:

Navigate to Plugins > Add New.
Use the search form in the top-right to search by keyword, author or tag.
On the search results that appear, click a plugin’s title to read more about it. This page may contain installation notes, plugin documentation or other useful information.
Click the Install Now button to install the plugin.
Click Activate to activate the plugin.

Manual Upload via WordPress Admin

If you have a copy of the plugin as a zip file, you can manually upload it and install it through the Plugins admin screen.

Navigate to Plugins > Add New.
Click the Upload Plugin button at the top of the screen.
Select the zip file from your local filesystem.
Click the Install Now button.
When installation is complete, you’ll see “Plugin installed successfully.” Click the Activate Plugin button at the bottom of the page.

Manual Plugin Installation

In rare cases, you may need to install a plugin by manually transferring the files onto the server. This is recommended only when absolutely necessary, for example when your server is not configured to allow automatic installations.

This procedure requires you to be familiar with the process of transferring files using an SFTP client.

Warning: this process may put your site at risk if you install a WordPress plugin incompatible with the current version or from an unreliable source. Back up your site completely before proceeding.

If your plugin is in the form of a zip file, unzip the contents. You should see a single folder named after the plugin.
Look in the plugin folder for a readme.txt file. Read the file to confirm that this is the correct plugin, and to look for any special instructions.
Connect to your WordPress server with your SFTP client.
Copy the plugin folder to the wp-content/plugins folder in your WordPress directory. This installs the plugin to your WordPress site.
Navigate to your Plugins admin screen and locate the newly uploaded plugin in the list.
Click the plugin’s “Activate” link.
If there is one, click the plugin’s “View details” link to learn more about the plugin.

Uninstalling Plugins

Plugins have a safe and easy-to-use uninstaller. If that’s unavailable to you for some reason, you can also manually uninstall them.

Automatic Uninstallation

The safe and easy way to uninstall a plugin is via the WordPress admin screen.

Navigate to your Plugins admin screen and locate the plugin to be installed.
Click the plugin’s “Deactivate” link.
Click the plugin’s “Delete” link.

Manual Uninstallation

In rare cases, you may need to manually uninstall a plugin without using the Plugins admin screen. This is recommended only when absolutely necessary.

Warning: The following procedure involves manually deleting files from your WordPress server. This can be dangerous. Back up your site completely before proceeding.

Navigate to your Plugins admin screen and locate the plugin to be installed.
Click the plugin’s “Deactivate” link.
If installing the plugin required you to edit your WordPress theme, manually edit the theme files to remove those modifications.
Connect to your WordPress server with your SFTP client.
Navigate to your WordPress directory, then into the wp-content/plugins folder. Locate the folder named after the plugin to be uninstalled. Note: the folder name will not match the plugin completely, but it should be recognizable. A plugin named The Most Useful Plugin Ever would probably be located at wp-content/plugins/the-most-useful-plugin-ever.
Delete the plugin folder and its contents.
Navigate to your Plugins admin screen and review the list of plugins to confirm that you have successfully removed the intended plugin.

5 Must Have WordPress Plugins

1. ELEMENTOR

Elenentor is a WordPress website builder plugin that delivers high-end page designs and advanced capabilities, never before seen on WordPress.

It is a WordPress website builder, with no limits of design

It’s time for Elementor Website Builder.

THE LEADING WEBSITE & PAGE BUILDER

Whether you’re a web designer looking for a way to achieve pixel-perfect websites, a marketer looking to get online fast or a developer who wants to expand their capabilities, Elementor’s website builder has what you need – intuitive drag-and-drop Editor, advanced design features and a full open-source approach.

FASTER. MUCH FASTER.

Instant reaction was a key feature we wanted to achieve. And we did. Instant drag & drop website builder, instant live edit, instant page load. This makes the interface fun and easy to work with, as well as reduces the time it takes to design.

LIVE DESIGN. TRULY LIVE.

Never again work on the backend and guess what the frontend will look like. With Elementor, you’re editing the site live, and simultaneously see exactly how it looks like. Elementor features live design & inline editing, so the whole process of writing and designing is done directly on the page, with no need to press update or go to preview mode. It also works perfectly with or without Gutenberg.

PROFESSIONAL FEATURES RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX

With Elementor’s unique features, you can create websites that have that certain ‘designer touch’. Among our design features are: Box Shadows, Background Overlays, Hover Effects, Headline Effects, Animations, Shape Dividers, Gradient Backgrounds and much more.

100S OF PRE-DESIGNED TEMPLATES & BLOCKS

Choose from 100+ of beautiful full page WordPress templates and customize them to make them your own. You can also build your website by choosing and combining from over 300+ Blocks.

Blocks are pre-designed section templates that can be easily combined into any page. Blocks include a variety of categories: services, testimonials, call to action and more. Save and reuse Elementor templates on different pages, or export them to a different website with a click.

RESPONSIVE LIVE EDITING

Elementor Website Builder comes with an exclusive toolset, that lets you create a truly responsive website in a whole new and visual way. From different font size, padding and margin per device, to reverse column ordering, this is the most powerful mobile site builder for creating perfect responsive websites.

40+ FREE WIDGETS AND COUNTING

No other page builder or website builder can compare to Elementor. We packed 40+ of the most useful widgets into our website builder. True, that’s way more than we had to offer, but we wanted to spare no widget from you, so you can reach the top of your design capabilities.

Heading. Add eye-catching headlines.
Image. Control the size, opacity and other settings of images.
Text Editor. A WYSIWYG text editor, just like the WordPress editor.
Video. Add YouTube \ Vimeo to your page.

Button. Controlling every aspect of the button design.
Image Box. A box that includes image, headline and text.
Testimonials. Customer testimonials that show social proof.
Icon. Place one or more of 600+ icons available.

Icon Box. Works the same as the image box, only with icons.
Social Icons. Icons to your social pages like Facebook / Twitter.
Image Gallery. Displays your images in an aligned grid.
Image Carousel. A rotating carousel or slider of chosen images.

Icon List. A bullet list with any chosen icon and text.
Counter. Show stats and numbers in an escalating manner.
Progress Bar. Include an escalating progress bar.
Tabs. Vertical or horizontal tabs that display different pieces of content.
Accordion. A collapsable display of content.

Toggle. Like Accordion, for FAQ pages.
Star Rating. Add some social proof with a styled star rating.
Alert. A colored alert box to draw the attention of the visitor.
HTML. Insert code into the page.

Shortcode. Easily insert shortcodes from any plugin into the page.
Menu Anchor. Link any menu to this anchor.
Read More. Set the Read More cut-off for the excerpt in archive pages.
Sidebar. Add any sidebar into the page.

Google Maps. Embed maps into the page.
SoundCloud. Add audio bits from SoundCloud.
Divider. A line that divides different elements in the page.
Spacer. A space that divides the various elements.
Columns. Create inner columns within the column.
And More…

2. YOAST SEO: THE #1 WORDPRESS SEO PLUGIN

Since 2008 Yoast SEO has helped millions of websites worldwide to rank higher in search engines.

Yoast’s mission is SEO for Everyone. Our plugin’s users range from the bakery around the corner to some of the most popular sites on the planet.

Yoast SEO Free contains everything that you need to manage your SEO, and the Yoast SEO Premium plugin and its extensions unlock even more tools and functionality.

GET AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION

To rank highly in search engines, you need to beat the competition. You need a better, faster, stronger website than the people who sell or do the same kinds of things as you.

Yoast SEO is the most-used WordPress SEO plugin, and has helped millions of people like you to get ahead, and to stay ahead.

TAKING CARE OF YOUR WORDPRESS SEO

Yoast SEO is packed full of features, designed to help visitors and search engines to get the most out of your website. Some of our favourites are:

Automated technical SEO improvements, like canonical URLs and meta tags.
Advanced XML sitemaps; making it easy for Google to understand your site structure.
Title and meta description templating, for better branding and consistent snippets in the search results.
An in-depth Schema.org integration that will increase your chance of getting rich results, by helping search engines to understand your content.
Full control over site breadcrumbs, so that users and search engines always know where they are.
Faster loading times for your whole website, due to an innovative way of managing data in WordPress.
[Premium] E-mail support for our Yoast SEO Premium users.
[Premium] The possibility to expand Yoast SEO with the News SEO, Video SEO, Local SEO and WooCommerce SEO extensions.

WRITE KILLER CONTENT WITH YOAST SEO

We know content is king, that’s why Yoast SEO is famous for its state-of-the-art content and SEO analysis. Yoast SEO gives you:

SEO analysis: an invaluable tool while writing SEO-friendly content with the right (focus) keyphrases in mind.
Readability analysis: ensures that humans and search engines can read and understand your content.
Full language support for: English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Indonesian, Polish, Portuguese, Arabic, Swedish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Turkish, Czech, Norwegian, Slovak and Greek.
A Google preview, which shows what your listings will look like in the search results. Even on mobile devices!
Innovative Schema blocks for the WordPress block editor, so that your FAQ and HowTo content can be shown directly in the search results. Plus a breadcrumbs block to guide your users.
[Premium] Internal linking blocks to easily improve the structure of your content. Easily add a table of contents block, a related links block, a subpages block, or siblings block! Plus, we’ll keep adding these easy-to-add blocks to improv

Premium] Internal linking blocks to easily improve the structure of your content. Easily add a table of contents block, a related links block, a subpages block, or siblings block! Plus, we’ll keep adding these easy-to-add blocks to improve your site structure.
[Premium] Social previews to show you how your content will be shown on Twitter and Facebook. Plus: Social Appearance Templates to guarantee a consistent look.
[Premium] The Insights tool that shows you what your text focuses on. This way you can keep your article in line with your keyphrases.
[Premium] Optimize your content for synonyms and related keyphrases.
[Premium] Optimize your article for different word forms of your keyphrases, as the singular and plural. But also different verb forms, synonyms, and related keyphrases. This makes for more natural content!
[Premium] Automatic internal linking suggestions: write your article and get automatic suggested posts to link to!
[Premium] An orphaned content filter to detect posts that have no links pointing towards them!
[Premium] SEO workouts to make working on your site as easy as ABC. These SEO workflows will get your site into shape in no time!

KEEP YOUR SITE IN PERFECT SHAPE

Whether you are an online entrepreneur, blogger or content creator, a developer, a (WordPress) SEO expert or a business owner, Yoast SEO helps you keep your website in perfect shape by:

Tuning the engine of your website, so you can work on creating great content!
Giving you cornerstone content and internal linking features to help you optimize your site structure in a breeze.
Translating your content to structured data where possible, to help search engines understand your website.
Helping you manage your team: with our SEO roles you can give colleagues access to specific sections of the Yoast SEO plugin.
[Premium] Automatically creating redirects when URLs change or when pages are deleted, and providing tools to manage or create redirects.
[Premium] Showing you social previews to manage the way your page is shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

TRUST THE EXPERTS

Yoast is powered by a team of expert developers, testers, software architects, and SEO consultants. They work constantly to stay at the cutting edge of WordPress SEO, and to improve the plugin with every release.

Yoast SEO is the only WordPress SEO plugin made by world-renowned SEO experts.

3. UPDRAFT : Best Plugin For Backup

Description

UpdraftPlus simplifies backups and restoration. It is the world’s highest ranking and most popular scheduled backup plugin, with over three million currently-active installs. Backup your files and database backups into the cloud and restore with a single click!

Backup into the cloud directly to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 (or compatible), UpdraftVault, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift, and email. The paid version also backs up to Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Storage, Backblaze B2, SFTP, SCP, and WebDAV.

DON’T RISK YOUR BACKUPS ON ANYTHING LESS

Your WordPress backups are worth the entire investment you’ve made in your website. The day may come when you get hacked, when something goes wrong with an update, your server crashes or your hosting company goes bust – without good backups, you lose everything. Would you entrust all your hard work to a backup plugin with only a few thousand downloads, mixed reviews or no professional support?

Believe us: writing a reliable backup plugin that works consistently across the huge range of WordPress deployments is hard.

UpdraftPlus works. We’ll keep your backups safe.

WHY YOU SHOULD BACKUP YOUR WEBSITE.

WordPress like any CMS can be vulnerable to things such as server crashes, hacking, security flaws, bad plugin or theme updates and insecure web hosts. If anything happened to your website, it would cost you dearly in time, money and reputation.

Whilst other security measures are essential, backups are the ultimate insurance: they mean that, if the worst were to happen, your website (plus all related files and databases) stay safe, and can be restored in no time.

You could always create your own manual backups- but using backup plugin is infinitely quicker, simpler and safer. Life’s busy enough! With UpdraftPlus, you can simply “set and forget”, scheduling in automatic backups to save you time, work and hassle.

HOW UPDRAFTPLUS COMPARES WITH OTHER BACKUP PLUGINS:

UpdraftPlus is the most highly-rated and popular plugin out there – and for good reason. Not only is it comprehensive in terms of its features, but it’s also easy and intuitive to use. And because it has such a vast user base, it’s tried and tested in a whole range of different situations and scenarios.

Unlike many other plugins, UpdraftPlus:

Restores, as well as backing up
Backs up to more cloud options than any others
Allows you to set up automatic backup schedules, for the ultimate in convenience
Is faster, using up fewer server resources
Has been tested on over 3 million sites

1. JETPACK : Popular Plugin For Growth

Description

THE MOST POPULAR WORDPRESS PLUGIN FOR JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING.

WordPress security, performance, marketing, and design tools — Jetpack is made by WordPress experts to make WP sites safer and faster, and help you grow your traffic.

24/7 AUTO SITE SECURITY

We guard your site so you can run your site or business. Jetpack Security provides easy-to-use, comprehensive WordPress site security including auto real-time backups and easy restores, malware scans, and spam protection. Essential features like brute force protection and downtime / uptime monitoring are free.

Back up your site automatically in real time and restore to any point with one click. Unlimited storage for your backup. Great for eCommerce stores especially Woo.
Manage migration to a new host, migrate theme files and plugins to a new database, easily duplicate websites, create full database backups, clone websites, repair broken websites by restoring older backups or easily set up a test site by creating a duplicate of your existing WP website.
See every site change and who made it with the activity log, great for coordination, debug, maintenance, or troubleshooting.
Automatically perform malware scans and security scans for other code threats. One click fix to restore your site for malware.
Block spam comments and form responses with anti spam features powered by Akismet.
Brute force attack protection to protect your WordPress login page from attacks.
Monitor your site uptime / downtime and get an instant alert of any change by email.
Secure WordPress.com powered login used by millions of sites with optional 2FA (two factor authentication) for extra protection.
Auto update individual plugins for easy site maintenance and management.

PEAK SPEED AND PERFORMANCE

Get blazing fast site speed with Jetpack, the premier WP plugin built to leverage the power of AMP, a tool that helps optimize your site on mobile devices. Jetpack’s free CDN (content delivery network) auto optimizes your images. Watch your page load times decrease — we’ll optimize your images and serve them from our own powerful global network, and speed up your site on mobile devices to reduce bandwidth usage and save money!

Jetpack has partnered with Google AMP to create the best, highest performance all-in-one toolkit for WordPress. By using Jetpack and AMP together, you get all the features you need to build a beautiful, fast, modern website with no coding required.
Image CDN for images and static files, like CSS and JavaScript, served from our servers, not yours, which saves you money and bandwidth.
Lazy load images for a super fast experience, even on mobile. Jetpack’s lazy loading automatically delays the loading of media on your posts and pages until your visitors scroll down to where they appear on the page.
Unlimited, high speed, ad free video hosting keeps the focus on your content, not on ads or recommendations that lead people off site.
Custom site search is incredibly powerful and customizable. Helps your visitors instantly find the right content so they read and buy more. Works great with WooCommerce / eCommerce sites to help filter products so customers get what they want on your site faster.
Recommended to use with WP Super Cache for ultimate WordPress site speed.

POWERFUL TOOLS FOR GROWTH

Create and customize your WordPress site, optimize it for visitors and revenue, and enjoy watching your stats tick up. Build it, share it, and watch it grow.

Advanced site stats and analytics to help you understand your audience.
Auto publish blog posts and products to social media by simply using our tools to connect to Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.
Easily share Instagram posts on your pages and blog posts.
Collect a payment or donation, sell a product, service, or membership with simple integrations with PayPal and Stripe.
Grow traffic with SEO tools for Google, Bing, Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress.com. XML sitemap created automatically.
Advertise on your site to generate revenue. The ad network automatically does the work for you to find high-quality ads that are placed on your site.
Manage Jetpack features from anywhere with the official WordPress mobile app, available for Apple iOS (iPhone or iPad) and Google Android.
Looking for Customer Relationship Management? Check out the Jetpack CRM plugin which works alongside Jetpack to give you a simple and practical way to build relationships with your customers and leads.

EASY DESIGN TOOLS

Quickly customize your site to make it stand out — no coding needed.

Themes — Simple themes to get started or pick a professional theme to make your site stand out.
Related posts — Keep visitors on your site by automatically showing them related content they will be interested in.
Gallery and Slideshow tools — Image galleries, carousel slider, and slideshows for WP sites and stores.
Subscriptions — Make it easy for visitors to sign up to receive notifications of your latest posts and comments.
Contact form — Easily build unlimited contact forms for free without any coding. Receive email notifications for each response. Integrate with mail solutions like Creative Mail to reach your customers and leads quickly. Connect to Jetpack Anti spam (powered by Akismet) to filter submissions.
oEmbed Support — easily embed images, posts, and links from Facebook and Instagram.

INTEGRATIONS

Jetpack is updated monthly to ensure seamless integration with top WordPress plugins and other tech products.

Built for WooCommerce: Jetpack and WooCommerce are both made by Automattic. Backup, Scan, Anti-spam, integrate perfectly for Woo / eComm stores
Jetpack is fully compatible with v2.0 of the official AMP plugin for WordPress.
Better understand your customers and marketing with Google Analytics (GA) integration
Social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
Simple Blocks to customize your site: Pinterest, Whatsapp, Podcast player, GIFs, maps, tiled gallery, slideshow
Payment processors: easily collect payments or donations and sell products through Stripe and PayPal
Site speed and performance plugins: Works great with WP Super Cache by Automattic and Cloudflare.
Contact form: Anti-spam (Powered by Akismet) blocks spam comments for Jetpack forms, Contact Form 7, Ninja Forms, Gravity Forms, Formidable Forms, and more

Other tech integrations: Instagram, Creative Mail, Mailchimp, Calendly, Whatsapp, Pinterest, Revue, and more.

5. WOOCOMMERCE : Ecommerce Plugin

Description

WooCommerce is the world’s most popular open-source eCommerce solution.

Our core platform is free, flexible, and amplified by a global community. The freedom of open-source means you retain full ownership of your store’s content and data forever.

Whether you’re launching a business, taking brick-and-mortar retail online, or developing sites for clients, use WooCommerce for a store that powerfully blends content and commerce.

Create beautiful, enticing storefronts with themes suited to your brand and industry.
Customize pages in minutes using modular product blocks.
Showcase physical and digital goods, product variations, custom configurations, instant downloads, and affiliate items. Bookings, memberships, subscriptions, and dynamic pricing rules are only an extension away.
Rise to the top of search results by leveraging WordPress’ SEO advantage.

Built-in tools and popular integrations help you efficiently manage your business operations. Many services are free to add with a single click via the optional Setup Wizard.

Choose how you want to get paid. Conveniently manage payments from the comfort of your store with WooCommerce Payments (Available in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and now: Spain, France, Germany, and Italy). Securely accept cards, mobile wallets, bank transfers, and cash thanks to 100+ payment gateways – including Stripe, PayPal, and Square.
Configure your shipping options. Print USPS labels right from your dashboard and even schedule a pickup with WooCommerce Shipping (U.S.-only). Connect with well-known carriers such as UPS, FedEx, and ShipStation – plus a wide variety of delivery, inventory, and fulfillment solutions for your locale.
Simplify sales tax. Add WooCommerce Tax or similar integrated services to make automated calculations a reality.

GROW YOUR BUSINESS, ADD FEATURES, AND MONITOR YOUR STORE ON THE GO

WooCommerce means business. Keep tabs on the performance metrics most important to you with WooCommerce Admin – a powerful, customizable central dashboard for your store.

Manage your store from anywhere with the free WooCommerce mobile app (Android and iOS). Spoiler alert: Keep an ear out for the slightly addictive “cha-ching” notification sound each time you make a new sale!

OWN AND CONTROL YOUR STORE DATA – FOREVER

With WooCommerce, your data belongs to you. Always.

If you opt to share usage data with them, you can feel confident knowing that it’s anonymized and kept secure. Choose to opt-out at any time without impacting your store.

Unlike hosted eCommerce solutions, WooCommerce store data is future-proof; should you wish to migrate to a different platform, you’re free to export all your content and take your site wherever you choose. No restrictions.

WHY DEVELOPERS CHOOSE (AND LOVE) WOOCOMMERCE

The core platform is tested rigorously and often, supported by a dedicated development team working across time zones. Comprehensive documentation is updated with each release, empowering you to build exactly the store required.

WooCommerce has a large, passionate community dedicated to helping merchants succeed, and it’s growing fast.

FOOTNOTE

With this guide, you should be able to known what plugin is and how to install state them.