Installing A WordPress plugin is very similar to installing a WordPress theme.
But, there are a couple of important differences that I wanted to point out, so I thought I’d cover them in this article, just to make sure that everyone understood How To Install WordPress Plugins to your site using an FTP client.
The first thing you need to do before you can upload your new plugin, is to make sure you have already unzipped the plugin file it was downloaded in.
To unzip the file on a mac simply “Double Click” on the zip file, if your using a PC I recommend a software called Alzip.
The first step is to connect to your server using your FTP client, I use Filezilla so the following tutorial will be showing you screenshots of the Filezilla interface.
After connecting to your server “Click” on the “public_html” file.
If you have more than one domain name hosted on your server choose the site you want the plugin installed on and “Double Click” on that file.
The next step is to “Double Click” on the “wp-content” file.
Next find the “Plugins” folder, Here you can either drag your “Plugin” file from your hardrive directly into the “plugin” folder.
Or you can open your “plugin” folder and drag your new plugin into your plugins folder, in this example I will simply drag my plugin from my hardrive directly onto the plugins folder without opening the plugin file.
Your plugin file will automatically start to upload on to your server.
The next step is to “Activate” your new plugin, to do this you need to log into your WordPress admin.
Once inside your WordPress Admin area look to the left sidebar for the “Plugins” link. Click on the link to go to your “Manage Plugins” page.
On the “Manage Plugins” page you will see a list of all the plugins installed on your site,
WordPress comes pre installed with a couple of plugins, One is “Akismet” and anoher is the “Hello Dolly” plugin, I strongly suggest you activate the akismate plugin immediately.
To continue “Activating” your plugins you will see under the plugin name three links, “Activate“, “Edit“, “Delete“, simply click on the “Activate” link.
Your plugin is now “Active“, although many plugins are fully working from the time you “Activate” them, some plugins do require additional “Setting Up” and “Tweeking” for you to get the maximum bennefit from them.
If you do require some additional set up for your plugins, you usually need to look for your plugins settings page under the “Settings” tab.
Your plugin should also have a “ReadMe.txt” text file within the plugin file, for additional set up instructions you can usually find the instructions or at least a URL for the instructions there, and You will almost always find a link to the plugin authors site under the plugin name on the “Manage Plugins” page.
