How to Install Plugin for WordPress Website

WordPress is the most popular platform for publishing website. If you are in this post then you also might have published your website or blog on WordPress. The main advantage of WordPress is the number of plugins that it offers and the options to install external plugins into it. With the use of a plugin you can do many customisation to your website even if you do not have any programming knowledge. Here let’s see how to install plugin for WordPress.

how to install plugin for wordpress

What is a WordPress plugin?

Plugin as the name suggest is an addition to the WordPress with which you can perform specific tasks. Plugins like yoast SEO, WP opimize come really handy for managing your website and also boost your website SEO. They are shortcuts to add a specific feature to your website.

Process to install a plugin for WordPress

Like any other installation that we do like installing an app in a phone or an app in a laptop we need a store where we can find the app and download it. Similarly in WordPress also to install plugin there is a plugin store where you can search the specific plugin that you need to install and add it to your WordPress website.

Let’s check out the process of how to Install Plugin for WordPress. To do this process you need some requirements.

Now that assuming that you have the above mentioned things ready, lets start with the process.

Step 1: Login to WordPress Account

Go to WordPress login page by clicking the link Once you are in the login page you will see different ways that you can login to your WordPress website.

How to Install Plugin for WordPress

Step 2: WordPress Dashboard

In the above page provide the valid login details and login to your account. Once you are logged in to your account, you will see the WordPress dashboard. as shown below

How to Install Plugin for WordPress

The dashboard is the page where you will find all the things that you can add or edit in your website. In case you are wondering how to install a WordPress plugin continue with the next step.

Step 3: Finding the WordPress Plugin store

Once you have reached the WordPress dashboard then you will see a black color sidebar which will have a list of options available.

How to Install Plugin for WordPress

There you will see a Plugins button listed which I have marked with arrow. Click on that and you will be redirected to the plugin store.

Step 4: Searching for a wordpress plugin

WordPress plugins can be installed in two ways,

  • Installing the plugins from the store
  • Uploading and Installing the plugin

As we are in the plugin store now let’s first see how to search and install a plugin. The page that you are in now will show the preinstalled plugin list, You can update your installed plugins as well as update or delete them here.

To install a new WordPress plugin, click on the “Add New” button shown at the top of the page.

Add new plugin

On clicking the Add New button you will be redirected to the WordPress plugin store.

Step 5: Searching for a WordPress Plugin

Now that you are inside the WordPress plugin store, you can search for the plugin that you want to install by entering the name in the search box.

plugin search

Enter the specific term of search and hit enter on your keyboard, you will be shown with the list of plugins that match your search query. Here I have searched “yoast” and we can see the list with yoast SEO plugin listed.

Step 6: Installing the WordPress Plugin

To install the wordpress plugin to your wordpress site, you need to click the “Install now” button shown with the specific plugin that you want to install.

install now

After clicking on the Install now button, you need to wait for some time for the plugin to be downloaded. Once downloaded and installed the button will change to “Activate” .

Step 7: Activating a WordPress Plugin

Click on the “Activate” button shown after installing the plugin. Now the plugin gets activated with he default settings that were set by the plugin developer. The installed plugins will appear on the black color sidebar.

installed plugin

This is one method of how to install plugin for WordPress but you can also install plugins that are not in the WordPress store. For that you need to upload the plugin to your WordPress website.

Step 8: How to upload a wordpress plugin

To upload a plugin into a WordPress site you need to follow Step 1 to Step 4 mentioned above. In place of the 5th step you need to follow a different process.

To upload a plugin, in the plugin store page you will see an “Upload Plugin” button at the top of the page. Click on that button.

uploading a plugin

On clicking the “Upload Plugin” button, you will see a new upload section at the middle of the page above the plugin search.

Click on the “Choose file” button and you will see a file explorer page. Here you might have downloaded the plugin file in a zip format.

Upload plugin

Find the location of the zip file and upload it. Once uploaded WordPress will ask if you want to Activate it or not.

Click on Activate and you are good to go.

Conclusion

Plugins are really a great addition to any WordPress website. If you want to make your website productive and interactive to the user, with the use of different plugin you can easily achieve it. The same way you can also find the answer for how to install woocommerce plugin in wordpress which people use to increase a e-commerce website to sell products online. Hope this tutorial helped you to find the process of installing a plugin. If you like the post please share it. Thanks for reading


Kiran Sankar
Kiran Sankar

I am a software engineer crazy about technology and gadget. I like knowing about the latest technologies and the way they work. I created this website to share my knowledge on latest tech and products so that it would help you guys find out what is the best for you and decide for your purchase. We have included products from Amazon and Flipkart in here for you to select.