Alright, so you’ve launched your WordPress website, you chose the theme which suits you the most and now you are searching for the right plugins. In the vast sea of free and freemium plugins located at the WordPress repository, how do you choose the plugin(s) for your site?
In one of my recent articles, I covered the list of plugins I recommend for a WordPress website. Of course, I use these plugins on my own personal website and depending on the type of website you are managing, you might not need all of them! In any case, let’s start with the basics 🙂
Installing a WordPress plugin
Log into the wp-admin area of your WordPress website and navigate to Plugins > Add New.
You will be able to search the WordPress repository and find the plugin you need. You can also check for Popular and Recommended plugins.
Now, let’s say you were searching for a photo album plugin and the first four plugins that popped out were these:
The most important things to have in mind when you are choosing a plugin for your website are:
- Number of downloads
- Rating
- Whether the plugin is compatible with your version of WordPress
- When was the plugin last updated
Having these parameters in mind, WP Photo Album Plus would be the winner!
Check the additional plugin information by clicking on More Details and once you feel comfortable enough, go for it and click Install Now.
This is the approach that I would recommend using each time you are searching for a plugin for your website, and to spice things up, ManageWP offers a great tool for plugin discovery and I highly suggest always checking this article and using this tool in addition to the approach I described above!
Thanks!