Many beginners do not know How to Install a WordPress Plugin. Don’t worry. Follow this tutorial and you too will be able to install WordPress plugin easily on your website. No skill is required. WordPress plugins are indeed great tools that add more functionality to your site. In other words, it lets your site perform more functions and increase site’s user-friendliness.
There are numerous free plugins in the WordPress plugin directory that you can use on your website. Building and designing a site needs a number of tools and, of course, plugins are indispensable. You had better choose WordPress.org than than WordPress.com. Though I am not going to detail about it, however, as you are going to use plugins you should know the matter a bit for the shake of your convenience. It will tell you the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org. WordPress.com free and personal plan does not let you install plugins onto your site. The only alternative to use and install plugin into your website is to upgrade to the business or e-commerce plan. On the other hand, WordPress.org lets you install plugins into your site. So, whenever you are going to host a site choose this as you can use plugins.
You need to install plugins only after creating a website and installing WordPress properly. Because plugins let your new site perform more functions and you can access your site and do work properly if you have installed WordPress.
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Which Kind Plugin do You Install? Free or Premium
You have set your mind to install a plugin into your site to give it more features. It deserves credit. But prior to installing a WordPress plugin you have take into account some considerations as follows:
- Which kind of functions you need to perform in your site?
- Which kind of plugins does your site need?
- How many plugins does your site need now?
- Is your site compatible with the plugin that you are going to install?
- Are you going to install free WordPress plugins?
- Are you going to install premium plugin into your site?
Plugins may perform various functions like, editing post, page, social sharing, building template for post or pages, newsletter signup, messaging, notifications, providing URL redirect, security etc.
Which kind of plugins your site needs depends on the type of site. For blogging site it needs plugins consistent with its work. On the other hand, for e-commerce you need the plugins effective for this. That said, in addition to the common plugins it needs some specific plugins.
Do not install too many plugins unnecessarily if your site is on shared hosting. Because, it may increase loadtime. On the other hand, sites having dedicated IP can have more plugins as,it its loading time is shorter than the former ones. So, install only the required plugins.
Whether you want to install a free wordpress plugin or a premium plugin is a matter of question. Because in each case you have to resort to different way to install and activate the plugin.
How to Install Free Plugins From WordPress?
The WordPress official plugin directory contains about 58,249 plugins as of 11th Jan,2021. Most of the plugins are free but some are needed to upgrade to unlock all usable features. There is no restriction and anyone can install the plugins. And your host should support and provide plugins integration features. That’s why choose the best web hosting while you are going to host a website. Moreover, the theme too ought to support third-party plugins addon compatibility features—- a matter of coding. So, select the best theme for your site. You can check the compatibility of any plugin with your WordPress( version) with PHP Compatibility Checker. I have made a screennshot of the Calculated Fields Form plugin prior to installation, ran the compatibility test and found it compatible with my WordPress site. Jump now to look it below in screenshot.
In order to install a wordpress free plugin into your site you have to do a number of tasks step by step. Don’t worry if you do not know how to install a WordPress plugin. I have explained in details with pictures. Just follow the instructions till the end.
Go to the WP-Admin Dashboard
In order to install a WordPress free plugin, first of all, go to the WP-Admin Dashboard. Look at the picture for more clarity. You can go to this location by typing the following web address:
www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/
The dashboard contains many options like posts, pages, media, comments,appearance, plugins etc.
Go to the “Plugins” in the Side Menu Bar and Click on “Add New”
After accessing to your WordPress dashboard go to the plugins in the side menu bar. Click on the plugins menu and you will see the following three options as shown in the screenshots.
Now click on the Plugins menu and you will see the Add New submenu that you have to click on in order to go to the WordPress directory. The installed plugins will show all the plugins already installed into your site.
Go to the WordPress Plugin Directory via Add New to Search plugins
Click on the “Add New” under the Plugins and it will take to you to the WordPress Plugin Directory having the URL https://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/plugin-install.php onto your WordPress dashboard. Look at below.
Now you have come to the WordPress plugin directory. It has two boxes , namely, the ‘Keyword’ and ‘Search Plugins.’ Write the name of the plugin in the ‘search plugins’ field and press ‘Enter’. It will display ‘ exactly the same plugin and a number of other plugins similar to it based on keyword. As for example, type the keyword ‘calculate’ in the search plugins and will display many plugins matching the keyword. I have listed below two plugins with the keyword calculate.
Install the Plugin by Clicking on Install Now
So far you have come to the WordPress plugin directory and found out the plugin by search. Now you need to install the plugin. Before installing the plugin you can see its details by clicking on ‘More Details’ if you like. You should know details about plugin before installing it. You will know about the features, active installations, support, update etc. Look below at the plugin which is compatible with the current version of my WordPress.
So, now click on the Install Now button to start installing the plugin into your site. During installing it will appear as follows.
After complete installation the plugin will show the Activate button instead of install now. Look at below for more clarification.
Now you can Activate the plugin and to do that just click on the Activate button. Also you can access the plugin from installed plugin option under the plugin and click on Activate. Configure other settings properly if needed or lest it will use the predefined configurations by default.
How to Install Premium Plugin?
Premium plugins are generally purchased from third -party sites or theme developers as, these are not available in the official WordPress plugin directory. You need to purchase, download and then upload such kind of plugins into your website. You cannot install premium plugins like that of WordPress plugins though can upgrade to premium plan from free one. So, follow the tutorials to know how to install premium plugin.
Purchase the Premium Plugin
First of all, Purchase the Premium Plugin. There are many sites to sell premium plugins starting from US$ 20 to US$ 200 or more on yearly basis. Consider the pros and cons before purchasing a premium plugin. And, of course, you should choose the best plugin meeting your site’s needs. If you do not know selecting a featured plugin then read our article on how to choose the best plugin for WordPress. So, select the plugin, create account and give payment on a schedule–monthly or yearly.
Download the Plugin in .zip Format
After successful payment login to your account. Carefully watch your product. If everything is ok, then dont’t hesitate. Download the plugin in.zip format. Generally large files are downloaded in this format and it is set by default. So, keep the downloaded plugin into your computer’s local storage( hard drive).
Now you can look at the screenshot. I have downloaded the plugin in .zip format. The plugin was in the WordPress directory, however I downloaded it outside my WordPress dashboard and directly from the WordPress directory.
Come to ‘Add New’ from Plugin inside Menu Bar
Login to your WP-admin dashboard as explained above and come to Plugin inside menu bar. Put your cursor on plugin and it will show you a popup having the installed plugin, Add New , plugin editor etc. So, click on the Add New option in order to add or upload new plugin as indicated in the picture below.
Upload the Plugin via Media
After clicking on the Add New the browser will take you to a new location, the Upload Plugin located on the upper left corner of your block editor. Look below to clarify.
Now click on the Upload Plugin and it will take you to your Computer’s local storage. Find out and locate the file already downloaded in.zip format.
Browse the File on Your Pc
Now click on the Browse as indicated in the picture below. It will show you the downloaded files and folders. Select the file that has contained the plugin in.zip format.
So, I clicked the ‘Browse’ and it took me to my PC’s local storage containing files and folders.
Select the File and Open it to Upload
Now select the file that contains the plugin to be uploaded. Also keep in mind that these files are normally downloaded in .zip format. Look at the picture below. The file is compressed.
As you are going to upload and use the file so it needs to be opened. So,click on ‘open’ to upload the file successfully.
After clicking on open the file will be uploaded into your wordpress site.
Install the Plugin After Upload
The plugin has been successfully uploaded into your WordPress site. Now, you need to install the plugin in order to let it work. So, click on the ‘Install Now’ as indicated by the arrow in the picture. Also note that the plugin has been uploaded in .zip format in which it was downloaded before.
Now the plugin becomes unpacked from compressed .zip format during installation. After successful installation it will display a message like this.
Till now you have installed the plugin with success without any error. The only step to let the plugin work is to Activate it and configure some settings if needed.
Summary: How much have you grasped of the tutorial ‘ how to install a WordPress plugin. If you think it hard, then keep in mind the following points in brief:
- Go to the Plugin, expand it and click on ‘Add New’.
- Search the name of the plugin by typing keyword/s in the plugin search field and select the plugin you like to install
- Click on the ‘Install Now’. After installation click on the Activate and configure the settings properly to let the plugin work.
- In case of premium plugin everything is same but, first of all, you need to download the plugin and upload it into your site. The rest is as same as I pointed out above.
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