How to Download and Upload Plugins on WordPress
Hi, everyone! Welcome to BuildMySiteForFree.com. In today’s tutorial, I’m going to show you how to find, download, and then upload plugin files to your WordPress account. Now, this may sound like it might be a little bit difficult, but if you follow my directions, it will be very simple for you.
The first thing you want to do is locate the desired plugin that you want to install. Now, you can go to the WordPress plugin directory or
you can come to BuildMySiteForFree.com, and what you want to do is click the link in the top right hand corner that says plugins. It will bring you to their WordPress plugins page where you can search in alphabetical order all the plugins that they have to offer for you. They are all free. What you want to do, after you have actually located the file, is download it. So here we have, I have located the plugin file that I want to install. What I want to do next is click download now.
After I’ve done this, it will bring me to the download page. Here we have the title of the plugin that we have chosen. We have a little bit of a brief description and what this plugin has to offer. Then if you come over here to the right hand side, it tells you the required WordPress version you need to have this plugin. It will tell you what version of WordPress this plugin is compatible up to. It will give you the date of when this plugin was last updated by its author, and it will tell you how many downloads it’s been downloaded. It gives you a little bit of a description of what this plugin is all about for you to check out before you actually download it to your computer.
Now, what you want to do next is download the file. What you want to do is make sure that you save it as a zip file or else it’s not going to work. If you have a PC, save it as a zip, but I’m going to show you how to do it with my Mac. I’m going to double click. I’m going to scroll down to download linked file as, and as you can see it already came up as a zip file, so I know that’s right. You want to make sure that you save it in a place that you’re going to be able to find later. I’m just saving it in My Documents. Then you click save. So, now I have it downloaded to my computer.
So, we’ve located it. We’ve downloaded it. Next, we want to upload it. You come to your install plugins page on your – from your dashboard.
You just scroll down to plugins, open the submenu up, and click add new. It will bring you to this page that I’m on right now. Then, you want to click upload, and then choose file. Then you locate it. I’m already in Documents, but you locate it after you’ve clicked choose file. I have it right here. Then I want to click choose. It will be inserted into this box right here. The last thing I’m going to do is click install now.
Since it’s been installed successfully, it tells me plugin installed successfully right here. If it’s not installed successfully, it will let you know.
This is how you find, download, and upload files onto your WordPress account from your computer. Please stay tuned for more videos.
About the Author
Andy Johnson has been on the Internet since the its dawn(ie his first computer program was recorded on cassette tape) and his first hard drive cost about as much his current MacBook. His first byline was in 1993 for a local newspaper rag he eventually helmed, and his last “real job” was at a computer start up which ended when it ended. Throughout it all he’s freelanced and blogged. Now he is mesmerized by Search Engine Optimization forever trying to “rise to the top” for the right reasons. He’s been married to his wife Julia for as long as he can remember and has two lovely, wonderful children. He looks forward to sharing the latest in the technical best for all the online entrepreneurs.