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One of the reasons why WordPress site become one of the most used and comfortable platform is the ability to install plugins. These plugins let you add or embed almost every feature you needed on your site. That is why it is very important to know how to install plugins on WordPress site.
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Even though, to install plugins on WordPress site is not a big job it just take some tiny steps to accomplish it, you still needed to know how to do it successfully.
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Unfortunately, for you to install plugins on WordPress site you must have a custom domain. The free wordpress.com subdomains doesn’t allow you to add or install plugins. For this reason, you must firstly buy a custom domain to enable you install plugins successfully on your WordPress site.
What are plugins and their use
Plugins are simply tools use to add additional features, functions, data etc, in a site. These functions could be to create users engagement such as a social share and follow, comments, related and popular articles, categories, contact and subscription form, etc.
Some of the functions could be to improve website security such as a, backup, malware scan, blockings, Spam, etc.
Some could be to improve your website performance such as broken links checker, SEO, images optimization, CDN, etc.
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For these and many more reasons I could say without plugins no one could have preferred WordPress, that is the extent of the importance of plugins in WordPress.
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That doesn’t mean that WordPress is weak. No! WordPress CMS is a free source code. That means you can access and edit everything belonging to your website and that makes it possible for us to customize our website the way we wanted and one of the simplest way of customising your side is by adding plugins on the WordPress site.
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Why you need to install plugins on WordPress site
Since we have now known what are plugins and their use. The reason why you need to install plugins on WordPress site depends on their.
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That means, you install a plugin because it’s function is needed in your website.
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For instance, if I need to schedule backups of my WordPress site I will have to install backup plugin that will do the job for me. That means the plugin will automatically backup my site according to the settings and backup schedule without me login to my dashboard and making the backup.
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I may also need to add subscription form on my site to collect customers email addresses for newsletter and will need me to install a plugins.
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You also need to install plugins on WordPress site because of inability. Yes! When we can’t do something by ourselves we look for other people to do it for use, that is the same thing here. When you can’t code something on your site, there is possibly plugins that already have the thing or function you wanted to code. Therefore, installing the plugin will save you time to learn how to code it.
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Most a time it is simply difficult to secure a WordPress site without plugins, even for experts. You can manually take some steps to secure your website but to make it more guarantee a plugin is needed.
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In fact, we can’t do without plugins in WordPress. It could be that only coders could work with WordPress platform if there are no options to install plugins.
What are the most used plugins on WordPress
Yes! There are the most used plugins on WordPress. These category of plugins are very important and therefore, become very popular in almost all nice.
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The reason why some of them are so popular is because of their multi niche features. Some of this plugins are:
Security plugins
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This are the plugins that help use secure our websites from hackers and unauthorized useir and access.
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Some of the plugins in this category are wordfence, securi, jetpack, etc.
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SEO plugins
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This plugins help us optimize our website and pages for search engines and users. They are helpful for both beginners and experts (everyone need it).
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Some of the popular plugins in this category are the Yoast SEO, All In One SEO, etc.
Also read:
How to install plugins on WordPress site
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Since I have tried as much as possible to explain what are plugins and their use in WordPress I will now explain how to install plugins on WordPress site in simple steps.
Login to your WordPress admin dashboard.
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From the side menu select “plugins” and select “add new” from the drop-down submenu.
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Using the search bar, search for the plugin you needed.
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This could be done by typing the name of the plugin you want to install but if you don’t know the name use a keyword. E.g SEO for plugins that work for SEO, security for security plugins, backup of backup plugins, etc.
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Select the needful plugin from the available plugins in the results and click “Install now”
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The plugin will start installation immediately. Wait for it to finish installing
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After it has successfully finish installing you will see a “activate” options at the same location you found your previous “install now”
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Click the activate to activate the plugin the plugin is now install successfully
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Now every plugin has it’s different activation process follow their instructions carefully and you should be able to do it.
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What to do next
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After you had install the plugin you will see it from the list of your Install plugins and you will be able to configure the settings there.
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To make the plugin up-to-date you will need to update it regularly when a new version is available.
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Hope this article on how to install plugins on WordPress site has help? I will love your feedback on the comments
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