How to install wordpress plugin

In this step, Learn How to install Plugin from WordPress Blog dashboard. Here I listed few of the must-have plugins for every new WordPress blog.

What is WordPress Plugin?

WordPress plugins are bits of software that can be uploaded to extend and expand the functionality of your WordPress site.

WordPress plugins have been playing a vital role in maintaining a blog in our WordPress.

  • There are 54,446 plugins present in the plugin directory.
  • These plugins are very useful for all works in attractive options to the visitors by handing over from the blog.
  • These are helpful as SEO and site optimization purpose on the web.
  • Along with these plugins, there are other plugins are also available on the specified website.
  • You must download the selected plugin from the specified site.
  • Adding Plugins to WordPress is very easy. After that, follow the instructions to the given steps.

How to install Plugins from the WordPress Dashboard?

This is a WordPress Install Plugin without FTP method.

Method 1: Search the Plugin from the Dashboard and Install it

  • Just go to the “Plugins” option at the left side of your WP Dashboard
add new plugin
  • The Search for your Plugin in the “Search” box and you will get the Plugin. Simply, Plugins > Add New > Search  (In the below image I have taken Yoast SEO plugin as an example).
search yoast plugin from plugin directory and install plugin
  • Just click on the “Install Now” button to get the particular plugin functionality to your WP Site/Blog.
  • After the installation has been completed, just activate the plugin.

Method 2: Install the Plugin from the Downloaded zip file

In the second method, just download the Plugin from the specified site to your system. This method is helpful to upload Premium WordPress Plugins from other than the WordPress free plugin directory.

  • Go to “Plugins > Add New” option from the left side
  • Select the “Upload Plugin” button.
how to upload plugin
  • Next, “Choose File” option from Install a plugin in “.zip“ format
Add plugin from Upload
  • Locate the downloaded zip file and click “Install Now”.
  • After this step Activate the plugin to get the plugin functionality to your WordPress site/blog.

Must have these WordPress Plugins for the new blog

Every WordPress blogger should know the importance of Plugins. WordPress plugins are bits of software (or) simple third-party code that can be installed from the WordPress repository. Here is the list of must have wordpress plugins.

1. Akismet :

This is an Official service provided by Automatic developers company. The plugin is trusted by millions of WordPress sites.

Features:

  • Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet Web service to see if they look like spam or not.
  • This plugin gives excellent protection to my blogs from thousands of Spam comments.
  • Every WordPress user must have this plugin.
  • It is a free plugin.
  • To activate this service you need to create and authenticate on the Akismet official site.

2. W3 total cache:

It is the best plugin to improve the site/blog speed score. It is an alternative plugin for hyper-cache and WP Super cache plugin.

Features:

  • Its function is minimizing to scripts, queries of cache database and expiry header to static images and others.
  • Database Caching is very good with this plugin.
  • Install the plugin in W3 Total cache and configure it properly. Check my W3 Total cache basic configuration settings post from my blog.

Recommended Plugin: I strongly recommend WP Rocket plugin for better results. WP Rocket is a Premium plugin.  It is easy to configure and gives great page loading speed. I am using WP Rocket plugin in all of my blogs including this blog. Here is my complete review and working guide on WP Rocket.

3. Broken Link Checker

This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.

Features:

  • It Monitors links in your posts, pages, comments, blogrolls, and custom fields (optional).
  • Detects links that don’t work, missing images and redirects.
  • Notifies you either via the Dashboard or by email.
  • Makes broken links display differently in posts (optional).
  • Prevents search engines from following broken links (optional).
  • You can search and filter links by URL, anchor text and so on.
  • Links can be edited directly from the plugin’s page, without manually updating each post.
  • Highly configurable.

4. Rank Math SEO Plugin:

Rank Math is a new generation SEO plugin for WordPress. All SEO Professionals are waiting for the most popular plugin Yoast SEO. Because of this multiple focus keyword optimization feature. So here is the Rank Math WordPress SEO plugin.

The Rank Math SEO plugin is a perfect SEO plugin for on-page activities and for technical optimization. You can check few other WordPress SEO plugins list.

Here are the awesome features of Rank Math SEO. After reading these features, you cannot leave this plugin without a grab.

Features:

  • It is Light Weight and Full optimized for Speed
  • Simple Modular Interface design
  • Simple User-Friendly Interface
  • Helpful Content In-depth SEO Analysis
  • Advanced SEO settings
  • Easy Rich Snippet setup
  • XML Sitemap creation
  • 404 Monitoring
  • Redirection
  • Social Media Sharing setup feature
  • Easy Schema setting
  • Robots.txt and .htaccess editor

5. UpdraftPlus Backup and Restoration:

Backup and restoration made easy. Complete backups; manual or scheduled. This plugin helps to back up my blog in ‘backup to S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, FTP, SFTP, email + others’. For secure backup and blog data migration from one host to another install plugin now.

Features:

  • This is an excellent plugin and I personally suggest for every WordPress blog admins.
  • It helps to back up the data from hosting to cloud hosting.

6. Thirsty Affiliates:

If you are promoting products on your blog, this is a perfect plugin. The Thirsty affiliate plugins shorten your ugly affiliate into a smart and short link. The plugin helps you to monetize your WordPress website with affiliate marketing.

Features:

  • Easy to set up and no need to coding skills
  • The better link management interface
  • Inbuilt affiliate link shorter/link cloaking feature
  • Easy tracking feature
  • No follow adding a feature and many more.

Tip: The thirsty affiliates team is providing more features in their premium version like Automatic Keyword Linking, Advanced statistic reports, and Links import – export features, etc. Here are the more details about this premium version.

7. Social WarFare:

This is the best WordPress social sharing plugin developed by social media experts group. It helps you to increase social sharing of your blog. You can choose from the top social networks sharing buttons, including – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Mix. This plugin is available in the WordPress Plugin repository (Free). For new blogs, the free version is enough. If you need additional features, you can choose the Social Warfare Pro version.

8.  JetPack :

Jetpack is another most popular Plugin from the WordPress developers. This is a super plugin for WordPress blogs. This plugin helped me to monitor my site statistics, site downtime monitoring, adding more sidebar widgets and many more features.

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