Best guide to install a WordPress Plugin or Theme on self hosted WordPress

We can’t do much with self hosted WordPress without having premium themes and plugins and we must know how to install a WordPress theme or plugin. In fact it is very easy to do this task and many of you may learn and install themes and plugins without any additional help. Yet, we have added this tutorial to our A 2 Z WordPress blogging guide.

Installation of themes and plugins is of two type;

1. Installing from WordPress.org repository
2. Installing theme or plugin .zip file from your own computer

Installing a WordPress theme

Installing from WordPress repository is as easy as a piece of cake and it is much faster too. All you need to do is searching themes and plugins from your own WordPress dashboard and using install button. This will download and install theme/plugin from wordpress.org server to your hosting server. Since data is transferred between two high speed connections, so large themes/plugins will be downloaded and installed within a few seconds.

To install a theme from repository

• Login to your WordPress website
• Go to left option bar > Appearance > Themes

• Click on “Add new” button
• You will see lots of theme thumbnails by default and you will be provided options to browse themes or search themes typing a keyword

• When you hover any theme thumbnail, you will get two options; Install and Preview. If you want to install a theme directly, click on “Install” button or if you want to see theme preview first, click “Preview” button

Installing a theme from computer

• Go to WordPress dashboard > Appearance > Themes > Add new
• Here click on “Upload” button and then choose your theme zip file from computer and hit install button
• WordPress starts uploading the zip package, extract and install it. If all goes well, you can activate the theme

 

Installing a WordPress plugin

To install a plugin from repository

• Go to WordPress dashboard > Left option bar > Plugins > Add New

• Just like installing a theme, you can browse, search and install plugins from WordPress.org repository

If you buy a premium plugin or theme, it will not be available via WordPress repository in 99% cases and you need to download this stuff from 3rd party website to your computer. Then you can upload downloaded theme or plugin to your WordPress.

There need to have been some precautions how to upload a theme or plugin from computer to WordPress;

• It must be packed in a zip file
• Zip file must contain plugin data in its root and not in any subfolder of zip file

When you are ready with theme/plugin zip file use the following guide;

Installing a plugin from computer

• Go to WordPress dashboard > Plugins > Add New
• Here click on “Upload” button and then choose plugin zip file from your computer and click on install button

• WordPress starts uploading the zip package, extract and install it. If all goes well, you can activate the plugin

Where to access your activated theme or plugin option panel

There is not a fix place where activated theme or plugin options are appeared. But one thing is for sure that you can find out theme/plugin option panel somewhere in left option bar of WordPress dashboard. Some themes create their panel in Appearance section and some of them create a separate menu item. Same is the case with plugins; many of them create their option panel link under “Settings” section and some of them create their panel in a separate menu item in option bar.

Installing WordPress theme, plugin or upload anything via FTP