How to Install Plugin in WordPress

This is a beginners guide for WordPress users after installing WordPress in just 10 steps. You may already know that WordPress allows you to add different functionalities in the form of code to your WordPress blog by installing plugin. Plugin is a piece of code which is embedded at run time into your blog and hence gives extra features to your readers as well as you. Plugins are everywhere from displaying related posts into your blog or stopping spammer to leave comments on your blog. You just need to download and install plugin, activate it, set some settings(some plugins require) and plugin will do the rest for you. Its as easy as you would have like means you don’t need to know any programming skills in order to add functionality in your WordPress blog.

How to Install WordPress Plugin.

As i said earlier in new installation by default you will not get much functionalities in WordPress blog so you have to install plugins in order to enhance your blog. Now the first thing came into our minds is from where we get these plugins. The answer is that plugins are of two types free and premium. You can download free plugins from WordPress official plugin website and premium plugins from any website which sells plugins like Wpplugins. Now that you have get your desire plugin its time for your to install the plugin. Below are two famous ways through which you can easily install WordPress plugins.

Install Plugin from Dashboard.

One thing you may have notice in the left side menu bar in your WordPress admin panel and that is Plugins menu. After you have download the plugin click the Plugins menu and than click on Add New link. This will open a new page in the right side of your Admin panel. Here you will many options like Search, Upload, Featured, Popular, Newest and recently Updated. Just click on Upload link and you will see anew page. Click Browse button and navigate to the directory where your downloaded plugin is located. Select your plugin and click Install Now button. After successful installation you will see Activate Now link. Just click on it in order to activate the plugin. Now your plugin is activated and running, some times it may require additional settings in that case a new menu will appear in the left side of your blog menu.

One Click Plugin Updater.

There is another any very easy way to install WordPress plugins and that is via One Click Plugin Updater. What this plugin will do is to eliminate the donwload process of plugins and you simply have to mention the URL of the plugin and it will do the rest for you. But for this you have to install the plugin first via method mention above. Download the WordPress One Click Plugin Updater from here and install it via method mention above. After activating the plugin you will see a new option in the Plugins menu and that is Install a Plugin. Now every time you have to install a plugin you don’t need to download it, simply copy the download URL of that plugin, paste it in the URL box, select Plugin from drop down menu and click Install button. Congratulations today you have learned how to install plugin in WordPress.

How to Install WordPress Theme

If you are newbie blogger than after purchasing your top level domain and webhosting you need to install WordPress in just 10 steps. You can also install WordPress with just one click of a button if your webhost gives you cPanel. After installing WordPress you need to do 10 essential WordPress settings. Than you should learn and install plugins in WordPress so that you make your blog more SEO friendly and full of features. Now its time for you to learn how to install theme on your WordPress blog so that you make it more professional and unique.


Where to find Themes.
First of all you need theme so that you install it in your blog. Now there are lots of free and premium themes available on internet so its very difficult to mention some of them but you can choose between top 10 best free WordPress themes from here. Also you can find free themes from WordPressthemesgallery, Freewpthemes and premium themes from Thesis themes.
Download the Theme.
After you find your free or premium theme its time for you to download a copy of your theme. Before downloading the theme make sure that you have seen the preview of it. Also make sure that downloaded file is in Zip format and don’t unzip the file as we upload it in the form of zip file.
How to Install Theme.
Click on Appearance Tab on the left side of the Admin panel of your WordPress blog and than click on Themes link. Here you will see page with another tab named as Install Themes, just click on it. Now again you will see five options Search, Upload, Feature, Newest and Recently Updated. Click on Upload button in order to upload the file.

Now click on Browse button and search for your theme file on present on your computer hard-disk. After you find it select it and click OK button. After that again click on Install Now button and theme installation will be started. After some time it will display a message saying that your theme is installed. But wait it still not activated. Click on Activate Now button to activate the theme and refresh your blog home page to see the effect.
Set Options or Customize Theme.
Many themes now a days come with various options to set so that everyone customize there blog theme according to there liking. If you have successful install the theme than you will see its options in the Appearance tab. Most of the time these options are changing the background of your blog theme, logo changing, your theme colors etc. But if your theme have no options to set than you can also customize its files by editing its CSS code present in the Editor Tab.
Almost all themes gives you the ability to change and edit sidebar so that you totally customize it to your liking. You can very easily add widgets by going to Appearance >> Widgets and than drag and drop various widgets on the sidebar so that it appear on run time.

Show Random, Recent, Related Posts without Plugin in WordPress

No one can take away credit from installing plugins in WordPress as plugins make life easy for blogger and even a man which don’t know much about programming can use this option to enhance his or her blog. But as of many thing plugins have some draw backs as well like they will increase the loading time of your blog and second is that customizing plugins in not that easy for an average person. So if someone wants to be free from these plugins and want that he or she display Random, Recent and Related Posts without plugins than we can use some PHP code to display these posts.

How to Show Random Posts.
You can always use wordpress random posts plugin in order to show random posts on any of your page or in sidebar. But when you use this plugin you cannot customize its CSS code easily and you have to read all the code in order to customize it. Now below i am sharing a simple piece of code which will display random posts. All you have to do is to paste this code into Single.php or Sidebar.php file of your blog theme. You can change the number of posts you want to display by changing the numberposts value.

<li><h2>Random Posts</h2>
<ul>
<?php $posts = get_posts(‘orderby=rand&numberposts=5′); foreach($posts as $post) { ?>
<li><a href=”<?php the_permalink(); ?>” title=”<?php the_title(); ?>”><?php the_title(); ?></a>
</li>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
</li>

How to Show Recent Posts.
Again you can use wordpress recent posts plugin if you are not comfortable editing your blog themes files. The benefit of using your own code instead of plugin is that you can apply CSS code so that you customize these with the look and feel of your blog theme. Like you can easily apply Drop shadow effect, make corners round or even apply gradient effect. Just use the simple PHP code below into Single.php or Sidebar.php file of your blog theme.You can change the number 5 to any number of your choice.

<?php echo “<b>Recent Posts:</b>”; ?>
<?php get_archives(‘postbypost’, ’5′, ‘custom’, ‘<li>’, ‘</li>’); ?>

How to Show Related Posts.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) is considered to be the best related posts plugin with lots of options. But the biggest disadvantage of using this plugin is that it takes huge amount of server resources and in some cases many blogs were blocked by there web-hosts because of excessive server resources and it turn out to be the related posts plugin which was taking many resources. So the easy solution is to use your own code which is executed relativity fast and before run time.
Related Posts without Images.

Just paste this code into any PHP file of your and it will show related posts based on tags of the current post.

<?php
//for use in the loop, list 5 post titles related to first tag on current post
$tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
if ($tags) {
  echo 'Related Posts';
  $first_tag = $tags[0]->term_id;
  $args=array(
    'tag__in' => array($first_tag),
    'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
    'showposts'=>5,
    'caller_get_posts'=>1
   );
  $my_query = new WP_Query($args);
  if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
    while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
      <p><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"
title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<?php the_title(); ?></a></p>
      <?php
    endwhile;
  }
}
?>

Source
Related Posts with Images.
Just paste the code given below in the Single.php file of your blog theme right after Post Content. You can change the values of image size by changing the 90 to some thing 100, 130 or may be 150.

<!——Related posts code start here——->
<?php
add_image_size( ‘related-posts’, 90, 90, true );
$tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
if ($tags) {
$tag_ids = array();
foreach($tags as $individual_tag) $tag_ids[] = $individual_tag->term_id;
$args=array(
‘tag__in’ => $tag_ids,
‘post__not_in’ => array($post->ID),
‘posts_per_page’=>5, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
‘caller_get_posts’=>1,
‘orderby’=>’rand’ // Randomize the posts
);
$my_query = new wp_query( $args );
if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
echo ‘<div id=”related_posts”><h3>Related Posts</h3><ul>’;
while( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
$my_query->the_post(); ?>
<li>
<a href=”<?php the_permalink()?>” rel=”bookmark” title=”<?php the_title(); ?>”>
<?php the_post_thumbnail( ‘related-posts’ ); ?>
</a>
<div>
<a href=”<? the_permalink()?>” rel=”bookmark” title=”<?php the_title(); ?>”><?php the_title(); ?></a>
</div>
</li>
<? }
echo ‘</ul></div>’;
} }
?>
<?php wp_reset_query(); ?>
<p/><br/>
<!——Related posts code end here——->

Now its time to customize your Related Posts boxes. This time you have to copy and paste code given below in the Style.php file of your WordPress blog theme and your are ready to go. Again you can play with some of the settings to customize it according to your blog theme.

#related_posts {
margin-top:-15px;
}
#related_posts ul {
overflow:hidden;
margin:0;
margin-left:-43px;
}
#related_posts li {
list-style:none;
float:left;
margin:0 22px 0 0;
}
#related_posts li a {
display:block; font-size:11px;
font-family:tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;
text-transform:uppercase;
text-decoration:none;
letter-spacing:1px;
text-align:center;
width:100px;
line-height:16px;
border-bottom:none;
overflow:hidden; }
#related_posts li img {
padding:5px;
background-color:#f4f4f4;
border:1px solid #ddd; }
#related_posts li img:hover {
background-color:#ddd;
}
#related_posts h3 {
border-top:1px dashed #AAAAAA;
color:#135A9F;
padding-top:10px;
font-family:’Patrick Hand’,Arial,sans-serif; font-size:1.35em;
}

Source