How To Install WordPress Plugins

Plugins are a very important tool on WordPress.

In this article. I will cover all possible ways to install plugins on WordPress. Installing plugins in WordPress is very easy just like the installation of WordPress Theme.

There are four ways to install plugins in WordPress:

1. Through the admin panel interface of your site from the WordPress plugin directory
2. Manually through the site admin panel, by uploading a ZIP archive from your computer to the site
3. Manually, by uploading the plugin directory to your hosting’s FTP server
4. Via the hosting cPanel

Let’s look at all the options and learn how to install plugins in any method!

Attention! Avoid situations where you have a lot of plugins installed but not activated. Any additional plugin can be a potential security flaw in the site if you do not update them in a timely manner. Remove plugins (rather than just deactivate them) if you don’t use them!

Method 1. Installing a Plugin from the WordPress Plugin Directory

This is the most common and most reliable method. Reliable because before the plugin is added to the directory, it is checked, not as carefully as we would like, but still checked.

The installation itself is done in three simple steps:

1. Finding the right plugin by keywords
2. Installing the selected plugin
3. Activation and further configuration

To add a plugin using this method, you need to:

1. Go to the site’s admin panel, click on plugins then add new.
2.  Next, in the search field, write the name of the desired plugin, for example, table of content press Enter. And in the search results, click install:
3. After the plugin is installed, activate it:

 

That’s it, the plugin is installed!

Method 2. How To Install WordPress Plugin Manually From ZIP

This method is used when the plugin is not in the WordPress plugin directory. For example, if you bought a plugin or downloaded it from another site. Not all plugin creators add plugins to the catalog.

The second method is useful if you purchased the plugin from one of the most popular and trusted online stores (I recommend CodeCanyon.net) or downloaded it from the plugin developer’s website after purchase.

Let me remind you just in case, to save you from problems: never trust anyone who offers you hacked versions of paid plugins. Very often, malicious code is inserted into hacked versions of plugins, which will allow you to exploit your site or insert unnecessary ads.

After purchasing the plugin, you will have a ZIP archive, which (most often) does not need to be further unpacked or manipulated. It all comes down to uploading it through the same plugin management interface in WordPress.

Let’s look at installing the WPForms plugin from the archive. I have an archive downloaded from the official WordPress site from the WPForms plugin page. This is a regular ZIP archive.

1. To install using this method, you need to download the plugin to your computer, it must be a ZIP archive.
2. Then, as in the first method, you need to go to the admin panel section and click on the button plugin>>>Add new and on upload
3. Next, click select a file (choose file) select our ZIP archive from your computer. Then click install:
4. Finally, click on install

That’s it, the plugin is installed!

Method 3: How To Install WordPress Plugin Via cPanel

1. Login to your cPanel
2. Scroll down to files and click file manager.
3. Open the site folder to install a plugin.
4. Go to wp-content/plugins directory and click the Upload button in order to upload a .zip file from your device.
5. Once the .zip file is uploaded, right-click on the zip file then the Extract option
6. Once the .zip file is extracted, you will see the folder of your plugin in the corresponding directory of your WordPress installation.
7. Finally, log in to your WordPress dashboard and activate it.

Method 4: Install WordPress plugins via FTP

This method of loading plugins is usually used in the same cases as when loading plugins from .zip of the archive. Personally, I use plugin installation via FTP only when I transfer sites from a local server to a hosting service 😉

To install plugins via FTP, you must::

1. Go to your site’s file directory via FTP.

2. Open the plugin folder. It is located in wp-content\plugins

3. Upload the unzipped plugin folder from your computer to the server in the plugin folder.

4. Go to Download plugins from the admin panel and activate the downloaded plugin.

As you can see, downloading and installing new plugins in WordPress is quite a simple task. If you still have any questions or have any difficulties installing plugins, please write in the comments.

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