WordPress is one of the biggest blogging platforms in the world, powering over 20% of blogs from all over the world. When you start a WordPress blog, you gain access to thousands of plugins which help you get supposed difficult tasks executed with only a couple of clicks. In this guide, I will show you how to install WordPress Plugins using three different methods.
Plugins play a key role, if you want to get the most out of your WordPress blog. there are several important plugins, like the Yoast SEO, Elementor, and host of others.
It is very easy to install a plugin on WordPress. in fact, it only requires a few clicks to install directly from your WordPress dashboard. However, there are other methods of installing WordPress plugins. which are; manual installation and using an FTP client. Let’s see how to install a WordPress plugin using any of these methods.
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How to install WordPress Plugins from the official WordPress Directory.
It is advisable to always install your plugins from the official WordPress.org plugin directories, so as to avoid installing an outdated or malicious plugin. Installing directly from official wordpress.org plugin directories only require a few clicks.
Hover your mouse cursor around the plugin menu from the left sidebar of your dashboard. you will get a drop-down menu of options.
click on ‘Add New’.
From the top-right corner, you can search for any plugin you wish to install.
Enter the keyword of the plugin you wish to install on your WordPress blog. A list of plugins with related names are displayed in the search results. For the sake of this tutorial, I will show you how to add the pretty link plugin for shortening and tracking affiliate links.
I you type in pretty links in the search bar, it will be displayed among search results.
click on ‘Install Now’. Installation will initiate immediately.
After installation, click on ‘Activate’ to have it activated. The plugin will be added to your list of plugins immediately.
How to install WordPress plugins manually.
Before installing plugins manually on WordPress. you must have downloaded the plugin and saved it in a folder you can remember the location. downloaded plugins usually come in zip folders. After downloading and saving the plugin in a folder you can remember, go back to your WordPress dashboard. Hover your mouse cursor on the plugin icon from your dashboard. Click on ‘Add New’
in the top-left side of the page, you will notice an upload button.
click on upload plugin, browse and locate where you have saved the plugin. select the the zip file, and then click on install now to have it installed on your WordPress website. After installation, click on activate to have it added to your list of plugins.
How to install WordPress plugins using an FTP client.
This is the most technical way of installing WordPress plugins. To install a plugin using this method, requires having access to your website via an FTP client. An FTP client uses file transfer Protocols to connect to an FTP server and transfer files directly to your server.
There are many FTP clients out there. But for this tutorial, I’ll be using FileZilla. If you have not setup an FTP client, I advice you do that now in order to have access to your website root.
To upload a plugin directly to your servers. First, download the plugin to your computer and extract the contents of the zip folder using winzip7 or any other extraction software.
connect to your host servers using your desired FTP client.
Access public_html on your remote site directories.
click on wp-content
click on plugins
The final address of the Remote site should look like the one above. /public_html/wp-content/plugins. You could also paste this address directly on your Remote site search bar.
Once you are here, now access your local site, locate the exact folder you have saved your extracted folder. Right click on it.
click on Upload. This should take only a few seconds. After successfully uploading the plugin to your Remote server plugin directory, head over straight to your WordPress dashboard, click on activate to have it activated.
the plugin should now be among the list of plugins on your website.
Click on activate to have the plugin activated on your website.
Those are the three methods of uploading plugins on WordPress.