Installing Wordpress plugins and then activating them is easy and very quick and you need to know how to do it because they add just so much more to what you can do with Wordpress.
In fact I would say that they are essential to building a successful website or blog with Wordpress, especially if you want to make money online. And who doesn’t?
Get More Plugins at Wordpress or Search on Google
If you are looking for plugins a great place to start is actually on the Plugins Tab on your Wordpress Dashboard, so just login to Wordpress admin for the site in question, click on the plugins tab and you will see a link on the page (probably at the bottom) to all the plugins hosted for free download at Wordpress.org at their Plugins Directory.
Here you will be able to search for plugins by keyword and see lists for featured plugins, newest plugins, most popular and recently updated plugins . There are hundreds to look for, so you should always find what you want here.
Download Your Plugin To Your Computer and then UnZip It
When you find the plugin you want and wherever you find it you will be able to download it by clicking on a button or link to egt it to automatically be downloaded to your desktop computer.
What you will get is a compressed (zipped) folder of the wordpress code for the plugin and you will need to unzip this before using it to install the plugin. Use Winzip or a similar free software to do this and note that you can do this easily on Vista by right clicking on the downloaded folder and selecting ‘Extract All’.
Upload your Unzipped Plugin Folder to your Site with FTP
The new unzipped plugin folder needs to be uploaded to your website and installed at your web host.
You should do this using some FTP software such as WS-FTP , Filezilla or SmartFTP or other free ftp software which you can find easily by using Google.
Copy your new unzipped plugin folder, using your FTP software of choice, to the /wp-content/plugins folder at your website. If you are using Hostgator this would be /public_html/wp-content/plugins .
Activate Your New Plugin in Wordpress Admin
Once the new plugin has been upload to your server you will need to go into your admin dashboard to activate the plugins before you can use it with Wordpress.
Just click on the Plugins Tab to see a list of all plugins for your site, both activated and deactivated. Your new plugin should be in the list of Inactive Plugins at the bottom of the page.
Find your new plugin and click on the Activate link next to it.
Your plugin will be activated and move from the Inactive List to the Currently Active list.
How easy was that?
Check In Admin Settings if Your Plugin Needs Configuration
Some of the more complex plugins and those with optional functionality will probably need you to do some configuration for them, so just check the Setting Tab in the Wordpress admin dashboard.
Most plugins will not require this but some do, so it always best to check.
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[...] If you aer doing this manually the when you have the zipped plugin folder just unzip it and ftp the folder to the plugins directory at your site. If you don’t know where this is or how to do this checkout Installing Wordpress Plugins. [...]