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Your brand new, basic WordPress installation has all everyone needs for creating excellent text-based content, with minimal support for fancy display and design. Fortunately, WordPress programmers have created a “plugin framework,” which allows anyone with some programming skill to add cool capability to the WordPress platform.
In the past, plugins were installed into a special directory on the server using FTP or similar client applications allowing you to upload the plugin software in the appropriate directory where WordPress could find the plugin. In the latest version of WordPress, plugins may be installed directly from the administrative interface by searching on keywords.
Let’s take a look at installing plugins using both methods.
Automatic plugin installation using WordPress interface
Most plugins you will initially use are part of the WordPress family, and are very easy to install.
So easy, it’s almost seems silly to mention it… but, that’s after you see how it works, so let’s take a look.
Install JDV Google Analytic plugin
Plugins > Add New and search on key words or plugin author, and a list of hopefully relevant plugins will be returned.
Then look to the right side of the list of plugins, and click Install.
Here’s a mega screenshot shows the procedure in 4 steps.
After installing, click Activate and you’re done.
Activate plugin
Since I already have all the foundational plugins installed, I’m activating the “Collapsing Archive” plugin to see what it does. If I like I like it, you may see it in use around Website In A Weekend in the future.
You’re ready install your 5 critical plugins, so let’s get busy.
5 critical WordPress plugins
Your next stop on your journey to Web Hero should be Your Top 4 Plugins for WordPress — Critical infrastructure for your WordPress blog. These first 4 will help with blog security, blocking spam, and getting you listed in Google search engine for free traffic.
WordPress is extraordinarily powerful software “out of the box,” but there are 4 plugins that you absolutely must have for an effective WordPress installation:
- Akismet (From Automattic, the WordPress people)
- Google Analytics for WordPress (author: Joost de Valk)
- Google XML Sitemaps (author: Arne Brachold)
- WP-DBManager (author: Lester “GamerZ” Chan)
- WordPress Backup (author: Blog Traffic Exchange)
Each one of these vital plugins is reviewed below.
Akismet
Akismet comes pre-installed as an Automattic (the WordPress company) product. All you have to do is activate it, and provide the free key you get from registering yourself on wordpress.com. It’s all free, and very easy. Akismet will save you hours and hours of time from deleting spam comments from your blog. And the spam will come very, very quickly!
Google Analytics for WordPress
Google Analytics for WordPress by Joost de Valk allows you to use the Google Analytics tools to measure the traffic on your blog. You will be able to how much traffic is coming in from search engines, from links, from direct URLs, and from other sources. Metrics include how long people stay on your site, how many pages they read, which pages they read, and much more.
There are actually several plugins for WordPress for handling Analytics. I have this one to be accurate, easy to understand, and updated regularly. The author, Joost de Valk, makes his living using WordPress for marketing, and has a vested interest in maintaining this plugin.
Google XML Sitemaps
Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachold builds a site map of your whole WordPress installation and automatically submits your site, with all the links, pages, everything to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft search engines. This site map is used by the search engine to help them understand the structure of the site, so that they can index the site pages much more effectively.
Again, there are several sitemap plugins. Like the Google Analytics plugin above, this one is easy to understand and updated regularly. Feel free to experiment with similar plugins if you need more (or less) functionality!
WP-DBManager
WP-DBManager by Lester “GamerZ” Chan makes automatically backing up the WordPress database incredibly easy. Install it, go to the administration page, have a back up created to immediate download, for storage on your server, or even have the backup emailed to you. You can even instruct WordPress to run WP-DBManager on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule, and have those backups emailed to you (this is what I do, super convenient!).
WordPress Backup
WordPress Backup, by Blog Traffic Exchange (BTE), picks up where WP-DBManager leaves off, zipping up everything else for your WordPress installation, including themes, plugins and uploaded files. Remember to download your zipped up files on a regular basis. Consider investing in Whitepaper 1: Maintain Your WordPress Website Using 9 Point Daily Checklist. You don’t have to do the checklist daily, but should create a regular schedule in any case.
Manual plugin installation using FTP
As noted below, many plugins can be found and installed from within WordPress.
But not all!
Some plugins not in the WordPress “family,” and have to be installed manually. For example, the Wishlist Member and Action Popup plugins are commercial products which must be installed according to the following directions.
- Download the plugin(s) you would like to install.
- Unzip to your local computer. I use a special folder on my desktop.
- Upload the plugin folder and files to the wp-content/plugins directory on your website.
- Activate the plugin(s) in the Plugins WordPress administration page.
That’s all there is to it.
Let’s have a short screencast anyway, seeing is believing.
Plugin foundation summary and review
These 5 plugins are always the first I install, before I even write the first post or page. Fortunately, it’s easy to install these using the built-in plugin interface. Just go to “Plugins > Add New” and search on the plugin name. I provided the author’s names to ensure you will be able to find the correct plugin when several results are returned from searching.
Here’s what you learned and accomplished:
- You learned how to install a plugin using the WordPress interface.
- You learned to install a plugin using FTP.
- You added 5 plugins critical for building a solid foundation for your brand new WordPress blog.
Any questions? Leave a comment!
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| Install WordPress on Your New Web Site in 5 minutes | Write out your goals for your website |
This is the new module for 8 pm Friday evening in the Website In A Weekend eCourse. This article combines two previous articles on plugins, extending the material with screenshots, and updating for the current version of WordPress.
Here’s what I have for you:
I’ll do a screencast on any particular point in the article, for the first 3 NEW commenters. A screencast could include the “new” upload-plugin-as-zip-file in the plugin interface, which I didn’t write up. Yet.
For the rest of you Heroes, I’m busy cooking up trouble elsewhere. )’(
Trouble eh, sounds promising. ;) May need to go add a couple plugins; I’d been doing my backups manually through cpanel.
.-= Heather´s last blog ..The Mayans: Login Part 1 =-.
Backing up via cPanel isn’t a bad skill to have, not at all.
Learned it by accident lol, common sense though I guess. The problem with that is remembering to go and do it.
.-= Heather´s last blog ..The Mayans: Login Part 1 =-.
This one I like Dave. I am “sucking” in as much information I can get my hands on as I have finally decided to move my blog to WP tomorrow. Hopefully everything will run smooth or I will very quickly drop by here and blast you with all kinds of questions, lol. GR8 tips, thanks
.-= DiTesco´s last blog ..iBlogZone Moving To WordPress =-.
Tell you what, bro, you let me know if you’re stuck on anything, I’ll do whatever I know how to to get you unstuck.
Frankly, I’m not real pleased with this article on several counts, and I’m thinking about rewriting it from the top down. Not happy about that either.
Dave,
Just installed these 5 on the new Cantakerous Old Coots. Now I will check my blog to see what I have already. What do you recommend for SEO?
.-= Ralph´s last blog ..Sunday Funnies – Something to do with your treadmill =-.
I use All In One SEO for a couple of reasons:
1. It’s simple yet complete.
2. It’s theme-independent.
Here’s an article I need to rewrite, but it will get you started: http://website-in-a-weekend.net/building-traffic/bootstrap-your-traffic-using-smart-search-engine-optimization/
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Social Media Overload! You can’t be everywhere… what to do? =-.
Thank you very much.
.-= Ralph´s last blog ..Sunday Funnies – Something to do with your treadmill =-.
You sure nailed it with these 5, and that’s what I like about you. Unlike so many others, when you say foundation plugins, you really mean foundation plugins and not the typical “top 17 plugins you can’t live without”.
One thing I’d add is the cache, to optimize and speed up things. My choice for that is the W3 Total Cache, which is quite a powerhouse (but slightly scary for beginners).
.-= Antti Kokkonen´s last blog ..How to increase productivity by doing less =-.
Antti, the next set of plugins adds contact form, caching, SEO, etc. The rest of the back end stuff.
I just deactivated a couple of spam plugins after getting 5 false positives this morning. We’ll see how that goes.
awesome post mate.
though add ‘contact form’ plugin !!! ;P
.-= Dev | Technshare´s last blog ..30+ Inspirational Social Bookmarking Sites =-.
That’s in the next batch!
One more I’d add to this…it’s not critical but good to have AND will keep people from seeing your site before it is ready for prime time. Its unlikely anyone will find it before then, but I am a just in case kinda Gurl ;)
I don’t know how many there are, but I use the plug in Maintenance Mode for this myself. It basically shows everyone but those with admin rights a configurable “We are down for maintenance, please come back later” page. If one wants to get really jiggy with such a page, all they need is some HTML knowledge.
Some very basic HTML is good to have so you can do bold and such if you want, but not really necessary especially if your just setting up and only a few people other than yourself have the URL.
This is a keeper for down the road if you are doing major changes to your site or fixing something that was broken and don’t want your readers to come in until your house is back in order. :)
I still owe you a hat tip… still need to check an install, actually…
There’s at least another article in this series for plugins, maybe two more. Your suggestion might go in as another hat tip!
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..How To Publish The **** Out Of Your Blog Post =-.
Thanks for this! All done and installed.
.-= Michelle Brown´s last blog ..Welcome to our Mixed Media Art adventure =-.
Michelle, thanks for stopping by. I hope the rest of this series works out as well for you.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..How To Publish The **** Out Of Your Blog Post =-.
Hey, just getting a new blog up and running and working on some of your tips for building a web site. (I’m quite new at this.)
I just installed these 5 plug-ins, but now seeing problems with google analytics for wordpress and the the WP-DB backup.
Google analytics is active but won’t authenticate and I get a message that I must select which profile to track, but when I click through to do that I repeatedly get an error message that there was an error in my attempt to authenticate. I can’t figure out where to find the UA code to manually enter it. Any ideas?
And after I installed DB-WP backup, I am now seeing a message on the dash that says:
Your backup folder MIGHT be visible to the public
To correct this issue, move the .htaccess file from wp-content/plugins/wp-dbmanager to /home/sarah_oleary/wellnessthenaturalway.com/wp-content/backup-db
Cannot figure out where to find the .htaccess file and how to move it.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated! And thanks for your helpful site!