The plugins in WordPress are without a doubt, WordPress’ most powerful component
How to install, remove, and update plugins in WordPress
We recently covered How to manage blog posts so today I am going to show you the basics of installing, removing, and updating plugins. WordPress plugins are without a doubt, the most powerful component of WordPress. They can turn your WordPress website into a large elaborate website or add a few small enhancements.
Accessing your plugins
You can access your plugins page by clicking ‘Plugins’ in the sidebar.
Installing plugins
Installing plugins is incredibly easy and can be done one of three ways. After clicking ‘Add New’, we’re present with a few options:
First, you can search or browse the WordPress Plugin Directory http://wordpress.org/plugins/) by entering a keyword, or clicking on any one of the tags.
You can browse the “Featured”, “Popular”, “Newest”, and “Recently Updated”.
Once you find a plugin that you want, simply click “Install Now”, “OK” on the confirmation, and then “Activate Plugin”.
If the plugin is a premium plugin or it’s not available on the WordPress.org directory, the Second option is to upload the plugin’s zip file by clicking ‘Upload’ on the ‘Add New’ page.
From here, all you have to do is choose your file, and then click “Install Now”.
There is a Third option if you are familiar with FTP. You can add plugins by placing the plugin folders in /wp-content/plugins/
Activating plugins
After you get the plugin files onto your WordPress install, you must activate the plugins in WordPress either at the end of the install dialog, or on the plugin page here by clicking on the activate link.
Deleting plugins
If you do not wish to use the plugin, simply click “deactivate” to disable the plugin. Deactivating will not remove the settings, so if you have to reactivate it later on, the settings will remain intact. You can delete the plugin entirely if you want to completely remove it.
Updating plugins
If you have a large number of plugins, you can use the search dialogue in the upper right to find what you are looking for. If the plugin has an update available, you will see a yellow bar. Also note that Updates appear with a badge indicator on the Admin bar at the top of your screen. You can update the plugin in one of two ways:
You can click “Update automatically” or you can manually download the plugin, and use FTP to change out the plugin files.
Be careful when updating plugins in wordpress. Sometimes plugin updates can mess up features, break plugins that work with each other, or the new plugin may not be compatible with your version of WordPress. If the plugin is a quality plugin built by a developer who knows what they’re doing, this should not be an issue. But be careful when updating, always have backups of everything before updating, and make sure everything is working properly after performing the update.
Often plugins will have a settings page. The location for these Settings pages vary, but the vast majority of the time can be found listed under the plugin description.
With lots of creativity and success,
Nicole Orozco
I hope you found this WordPress Tutorial helpful. If you have questions about using plugins in WordPress, please enter them in the comment box below
Thank you for sharing this article, it’s very good.I am looking forward to more posts like this one and will check back soon. Thanks again for sharing!
Thank you so much for your comment. I see we are in the same career field. I will be adding more tutorials like this one soon. Thanks for stopping by!
Really a great tutorials! I needed to learn how to install WordPress plugins. I want to open a new blog on WordPress instead of blogger, so this article is a great help.
Hello Piyush, I am glad that you found the tutorial helpful. Thank for reading and commenting!