Installing plug-ins is easy to do – once you know how! Plugins aren’t available on wordpress hosted blogs but are on self hosted wordpress websites and blogs and they are well worth having,although installing too many can really slow down your website for users so beware of that. Less is more!
How To Install Plug-Ins for Your Self-Hosted WordPress Blog
1. Go to your dashboard, click plugins and ‘add new’.
2. Search for the plugin you want. It’s a good idea to research plugins beforehand by reading about them in blog posts or asking other wordpress users for recommendations. Each plug in gets a star rating too which helps you to make your decision.
3. Read the description of the plug in, you can also see more information in ‘more details’. When you are happy with your selection, click ‘install now’.
4. You will need the following details from your website designer or hosting company – hostname, ftp username and password. Then click ‘proceed’.
5. Click ‘activate’ the plugin.
6. If you are replacing the plug in with a new one (eg. I am changing the related posts plug in), don’t forget to deactivate (and then delete when you are happy with your new one) the previous plugin.
7. Click on a post to see it in action. Although some plugins (for example, the nRelate related posts plugin that I just installed) can take a couple of hours before they display. With nRelate, the default number of related posts shown is 3, however, I opted that 5 be displayed as shown below.
I hope that helps any of you having any difficulty with installing plug-ins on your site. If you have any other questions about blogging, do ask in the comments.
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Hi Lorna, which spam software would you suggest is worth trying?
Hi Marian, Akismet is what I use. Some spam comments get through but very few.
Great tutorial, Lorna! I love how the nRelate plugin works on your site, it was a great idea to install it
Have you tried GASP for blocking spam? The reason I uninstalled Akismet and installed GASP on my blog was because Akismet was giving a lot of false positives, and I would find quite a few times legit comments among lots of spam comments. With GASP, I only need to check a few spam comments occasionally.
Delia@ Blog Formatting recently posted…WordPress plugins: Series wrap-up
thanks for that Delia, I must give it a try. Akismet used to work brilliantly but I agree, those spammers are finding their way around it lately.
Tks Delia and Lorna, will give the GASP a go. The spam is getting ridiculous with the .org site.
I haven’t had an opportunity to try this yet Lorna but have it marked and looking forward to giving it a go. Thanks so much for posting
Great blog post Lorna. Was able to install this onto our blog in a couple of minutes. Having 5 displayed definitely looks better than the default of 3. Thanks, Kate
Good to hear Kate, we’ve noticed our bounce rate has decreased since installing it, people are more inclined to read more blog posts and pages
Any blog posts on figuring out your bounce rate!! Thanks, Kate
Kate McQuillan recently posted…Westminster Dogs Suspicious Death
Do you mean how to reduce it? Or working out what’s an acceptable level?