Plugins are the next main item you’ll want to look into/install after you’ve installed a super nice theme.
Plugins for WordPress allow you to extend the functionality of your website.
For example, if you want to create an online store, you’ll need product pages, a shopping cart, and payment processing, among other things.
It takes a long time to set up on your own, but when you install the WooCommerce plugin, it takes around 4 seconds.
To install plugins, go over to the “Plugins” tab in the main menu, then click “Add New”.
From here you’ll see all the featured plugins and have sorting options just like with themes.
Click on any of these and you’ll get a popup to learn more about what each does.
For demonstration reasons, we’ll install the Orbit Fox WordPress plugin, which offers a ton of fantastic customization possibilities to any theme you install.
So let’s look it up in the plugin’s search bar:
Click on “Install Now”:
Then once again, Activate once the install button changes over:
You’ll then be able to find it in the list of installed plugins, also under the “Plugin” menu in your WordPress dashboard.
If you go there now, you’ll see there are a bunch of default plugins installed and as a WordPress beginner, you don’t really need any of these.
So to get rid of them, just click the checkboxes next to each one you want to deactivate:
Go up to the “Bulk Options” dropdown then click “Deactivate”:
Then smash that apply button.
Then to delete them, just follow the same checkbox process, just click “Delete” in the dropdown instead of “Deactivate.”
Ahh, feels so much cleaner now!
A couple of the top WordPress plugins
We only installed a few plugins to keep our WordPress tutorial short, and for the sake of time, those are a decent place to start.
Don’t waste your time attempting to search and explore all of the 100,000+ plugins available. Please. For the sake of all of us.
There are a couple more plugins you should look at if you want to take a slightly longer route through all of this “how to use WordPress” material.
We’ve put up a comprehensive list of the finest WordPress plugins for you.
If you don’t want to go that far, here’s a good place to start:
Features Plugins
MonsterInsights – connects your website to Google Analytics so you can observe how people find and utilize it.
WPForms is one of the best contact form plugins for WordPress (got a whole guide on how to use them for free right mere).
Elementor Is a drag-and-drop builder for WordPress themes!
Table of Contents
- The first step is to obtain a domain name and web hosting.
- Step 2: Installing WordPress
- Step 3: Using WordPress to Login
- Step 4: How to Use the WordPress Admin Panel
- Step 5: Putting WordPress Themes Into Place
- Step 6: How to Install WordPress Plugins
- Step 7: How to Change the Look and Feel of Your WordPress Theme
- Step 8: Adding Pages to WordPress
- Step 9: How to make a WordPress blog post
- Step 10: Creating WordPress Menus
- Step 11: Putting Your WordPress Site Online
- Step 12: How to speed up WordPress
- Step 13: Enable gzip compression for WordPress
- Step 14: How to Make Your WordPress Site More Secure
- Step 15: How to update your WordPress site
- Step 16: How do you backup your WordPress site
- Website tips and tricks for WordPress
- Now that you can build your own personal website
