WordPress: How to easily extend your website with plugins

The popu­lar con­tent manage­ment sys­tem Word­Press offers its own plug­in store inte­gra­ted into your web­site. You can open it direct­ly from the dash­board (the admin panel) of your Word­Press web­site. In this artic­le, I would like to show you how to quick­ly and easi­ly add plug­ins / exten­si­ons to your Word­Press web­site.

Preparations #

To access the plug­in store, you must first log in to your Word­Press web­site. To do this, open the fol­lo­wing URL and enter your cre­den­ti­als the­re.

https://www.deine-domain.de/wp-login.php

Once the link is ope­ned, you should get a simi­lar dis­play as below.

Here you have to enter your access data. After­wards, you will be redi­rec­ted to the dash­board of the Word­Press web­site.

Open Plugin Store #

Using the navi­ga­ti­on on the left side, you can reach all are­as of the Word­Press web­site.

So also to the plug­ins and the plug­in store inte­gra­ted the­re. If you click on Plug­ins, you get to the over­view of the instal­led exten­si­ons of the Word­Press web­site.

Here you can see all instal­led plug­ins that are available in the Word­Press ins­tance. In addi­ti­on, you can deac­ti­va­te indi­vi­du­al plug­ins from here and also dele­te them com­ple­te­ly.

Tip: For secu­ri­ty reasons, all plug­ins that are not used should be remo­ved from the sys­tem to pre­vent pos­si­ble back­doors.

To install a plug­in, use the navi­ga­ti­on to switch to the “Install” sub­me­nu. Alter­na­tively, you could also use the but­ton labe­led > Install < at the top of the screen.

Now, the­re are two ways to install a plug­in:

• Install plug­ins from the Plug­in Store — the­se are free plug­ins or else plug­ins that are available in a light ver­si­on.
• Upload and install plug­ins manu­al­ly — the­se are most­ly pre­mi­um plug­ins purcha­sed through exter­nal pro­vi­ders or deve­lo­ped in-house.

Install WordPress plugin from plugin store #

Under Word­Press > Plug­ins > Install, you can view over 59,000 free Word­Press plug­ins and install them for your own Word­Press web­site. In addi­ti­on, a key­word search and a fil­ter func­tion is available. So actual­ly, ever­y­thing to find the right plug­in.

For exam­p­le, if you want to install an SEO plug­in that helps opti­mi­ze your web­site, you can use the key­word search to dis­play all plug­ins rela­ted to SEO. The­r­e­fo­re, enter the term > SEO < in the key­word search to get an over­view of all SEO plug­ins.

Next to each plug­in, a but­ton with the label > Install now < is dis­play­ed. Over it, you can add the indi­vi­du­al plug­ins to the Word­Press web­site. You sim­ply sel­ect the desi­red plug­in and click on the but­ton.

If the instal­la­ti­on went wit­hout pro­blems, the text and the color of the but­ton will chan­ge. Ins­tead of > Install now < as befo­re, it now says > Acti­va­te < and the color of the but­ton turns blue.

To acti­va­te and use the plug­in direct­ly, click the > Acti­va­te < but­ton. Alter­na­tively, you could do this later via the plug­in over­view page (Word­Press > Plug­ins).

That’s it — the plug­in is rea­dy to be used on the web­site.

Upload/Install a WordPress Plugin Manually #

The­re are plug­ins that are not offe­red via the Word­Press Store. The­se are often so-cal­­led pre­mi­um plug­ins, i.e. exten­si­ons that must be purcha­sed. Usual­ly, the­se pre­mi­um plug­ins are pro­vi­ded by exter­nal pro­vi­ders as a ZIP archi­ve. The­se can then be instal­led via the upload form of Word­Press.

To install a plug­in manu­al­ly, first go to Word­Press > Plug­ins > Install and press the but­ton > Upload plug­in <. Now the upload form appears, with which the ZIP file can be uploa­ded to the ser­ver.

Via Sel­ect file, sel­ect the desi­red file and then con­firm the upload with “Install now”. It must be a ZIP file. If it is not a valid plug­in, Word­Press will dis­play an error mes­sa­ge.

Then you acti­va­te the plug­in via > Acti­va­te plug­in < and can use this on your own page.

If ever­y­thing work­ed, you will get a con­fir­ma­ti­on from Word­Press that the plug­in has been acti­va­ted.

WordPress Plugin Upload via FTP/SFTP #

Bes­i­des the two Word­Press solu­ti­ons, the­re is of cour­se also the pos­si­bi­li­ty to pro­vi­de plug­ins direct­ly via FTP/SFTP.

For this, it is important to know whe­re Word­Press stores the plug­in files. The­se can always be found start­ing from the main direc­to­ry of the Word­Press instal­la­ti­on in the fol­lo­wing direc­to­ry:

/wp-content/plugins

With a FTP cli­ent like File­Zil­la you con­nect to your web­ser­ver and chan­ge to the root direc­to­ry of your Word­Press instal­la­ti­on.

The main direc­to­ry can be reco­gni­zed by the file and fol­der struc­tu­re. The­re should be the fol­lo­wing fol­ders wp-admin, wp-con­­tent, wp-includes and the file wp-config.php.

From here, you can now access the plug­in direc­to­ry via wp-con­­ten­­t/­­plu­g­ins, whe­re all exis­ting plug­ins are alre­a­dy stored. The dis­play may dif­fer, as it depends on the plug­ins used.

Each plug­in is stored in its own direc­to­ry. So in the exam­p­le abo­ve, the­re are 10 plug­ins (inclu­ding captcha-for-con­t­act-for­m‑7, con­t­act-for­m‑7, f12-cf7-dou­­b­le­op­­tin, etc.).

Once you have uploa­ded the fol­der and its files to the ser­ver, the plug­in will be dis­play­ed in the over­view under Word­Press > Plug­ins.

If the plug­in does not appear here, eit­her some­thing was not done cor­rect­ly during the upload or it is not a valid Word­Press plug­in.

Summary #

Word­Press’ plug­ins can be easi­ly exten­ded thanks to the inte­gra­ted plug­in store. The key­word search makes it pos­si­ble to find the right plug­in, even with the abun­dance of plug­ins (more than 59,000).