Although WordPress ships with an extensive set of features, there isn’t enough room to include everything that anyone might want. That’s where plugins come in handy. They extend WordPress in more ways than can be counted.
Adding a plugin to your WordPress website is pretty straight-forward. After adding a plugin or two, you’ll be able to zip through the process, But the first time through can be a little intimidating.
Clicking on the “Add New” button on the Installed Plugins page or the “Add New” sub-option under “Plugins” on the admin dashboard menu running down the left edge of wp-admin pages will take ou to a page displaying the WordPress Plugins directory.
Here you can scroll through the Plugins directory, show “Featured”, “Popular”, “Recommended” or “Favorites”. You can also search for plugins by keyword. Each plugin displayed has a button to install and activate it on your website.
Once you find a plugin you want, click on the “Install” button in its display. Once installed, the “Install” button changes to an “Activate” button to be clicked to activate the now installed plugin on your website.
You can use the number of stars a plugin has earned, the number of installations (its popularity), how recently it’s been updated and whether the author claims the plugin is compatible with your version of WordPress to decide if you want to add it to your website.
If you want to install a plugin from somewhere other than WordPress Plugins Directory, download a zip file containing the plugin to your personal computer.
Now return to the “Add Plugin” page and click on the “Upload Plugin” button at the top of the page. This will take you to another page where you can click a link to browse the files on your personal computer and then a button to upload the file selected from the browsed files onto your website.