Install WordPress Plugins: What's the Easiest Way?

WordPress without plugins is like a pizza without toppings: Good, but not great. Thanks to its extensions, the content management system (CMS) can be tailored to your exact specifications and needs, adding capabilities that WordPress otherwise wouldn't have.

A huge selection of plugins exists, with something for nearly every purpose, whether SEO, security, performance, or backups. But, before you can start taking advantage of these, you'll need to install them. Below, we'll show you the easiest ways to do that.

There are several different ways to install WordPress plugins. Some are more for beginners, while others can be slightly complicated. Deciding which works best for you depends on what plugins it is that you want to add.

Below, we've prepared step-by-step guides for the three most common installation methods:

The simplest way to install a WordPress plugin happens entirely in your WordPress dashboard. There, you'll have access to a huge selection of free plugins all of which can be installed and activated with a few clicks.

Step 1: Head to your WordPress page (www.[URL of your website].com/wp-admin) and log in with your username and password.

Step 2: Look for Plugins (electrical plug icon) in the menu to the left and scroll over it. In the sub-menu that opens, you can either click on Add New to directly install a new plugin, or on Plugins and then Add New near the top.

Step 3: Welcome to WordPress's plugin marketplace. Here, you can sort plugins by category (such as popularity or favorites) or find whatever you're looking for using the search tool.

Step 4: After you've selected a plugin, click on the Install Now button.

Step 5: Once installation is complete, click on the Activate button that should appear where the Install Now button was.

Congratulations: The plugin you've installed is now activated and can be found in your WordPress menu.

It's possible to review which plugins you've installed at any time in your WordPress dashboard's plugin area. For many plugins, a separate entry also appears in the main menu.

Even though WordPress offers a huge selection of plugins in its app marketplace, it isn't the only source for them. Many third parties don't promote or sell their plugins through WordPress but, rather, on their own websites. When interested in one of these, you'll download a Zip file that needs to be uploaded to WordPress in order to be installed. But don't worry, this is easy to do.

Step 1: The first thing you'll need is a Zip file that contains the plugin you want to install. This can be downloaded directly from the developer's website or the plugin area of WordPress.org.

Step 2: Next, log in to your WordPress dashboard (as described in Step 1 of the previous method).

Step 3: Head to the dashboard's plugin area by clicking on the electrical plug icon in the menu to the left. At the top of the window that opens, click on the Upload Plugin button.

Step 4: Click on the Choose File button and select the Zip file you'd like to upload. After that, click on the Install Now button.

Step 5: Once installation is complete, an entry for the plugin should appear in your dashboard's plugin list. All that's left to do is to activate it.

Some WordPress plugins cannot be installed using the options provided by the CMS. There can be a number of reasons for this, but a common one is an issue with file permissions.

Should neither of the two methods detailed above have been successful, you can transfer the plugin to your web server using the file transfer protocol (FTP). To do this, you'll need an FTP client (such as FileZilla).

Note: How exactly to proceed from this point depends upon your FTP client and hosting provider.

Step 1: Download the Zip file for the plugin you'd like to add to WordPress and unzip/extract its contents to an empty folder.

Step 2: Install and open an FTP client.

Step 3: Create an FTP account. You'll need to get the login data for it from your hosting provider.

Step 4: Once logged in to your FTP client, open the plugin list in WordPress by heading to /wp-content/plugins/. Here, you'll upload the folder that contains your unpacked plugin.

Step 5: If everything went according to plan, the plugin should now be visible in the plugin area of your WordPress dashboard. All you'll need to do now is activate it.

Plugins make WordPress as flexible as it is: There's something for almost every feature that users of the CMS could want. A number of these are free, while others are premium.

Free WordPress plugins can usually be installed directly in the dashboard with a few clicks. The same goes for premium options, which are generally installed by uploading the Zip file you downloaded after payment. In case neither of these options works, you can install an FTP client, like FileZilla, and manually transfer the plugin to WordPress, however, this option is more complicated.

Would you like to change how your WordPress website looks? With themes, you can, and installing them is just as simple.