Installing plugins

Plugins can do just about any job you can think of, but some of the most common are:

• Widgets to put in your sidebar or footer
• Shortcodes that let you add code into your page without actually writing the code
• Image galleries and slideshows
• Links to external sites, such as social media feeds
• SEO plugins to help you get found by search engines
• Forms plugins to help your visitors get in touch with you
• Performance plugins that will make your site run faster

Let's install a popular SEO plugin called WordPress SEO by Yoast:

1. Go to Plugins | Add New.
2. In the Search plugins... box, type WordPress SEO and hit the Enter key.
3. WordPress will display a list of plugins, meeting your search criteria. Find the plugin called WordPress SEO by Yoast and click on the Install Now button.
4. When asked whether you're sure you want to install the plugin, click on OK.
5. When you see the success screen, click on the Activate link.
6. The plugin is now installed and activated on your site.

I'm not going to show you how to configure the plugin as that's outside the scope of this book, but you will find guidance on the plugin website at https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/.

Now try installing some more plugins according to your site's needs. We'll be working with lots of plugins in the other chapters of this book, so you'll get to try plenty of them out.