Technical ConfusionBecause Technology Is Confusing

In most cases, installing a Wordpress plugin is not that difficult. It’s important to read the instructions of any plugin you may want to install, in case you need to tweak any template files.

Wordpress Plugin Installation

Download and unzip the plugin. (Some come zipped, some don’t)

Read the instructions.

Upload the plugin to your /wp-content/plugins folder with FTP. (If you don’t know how to FTP, see How to FTP ) You may have to look around for this folder first, depending on your Wordpress installation.

Login to your Wordpress admin, go to your admin page. You need to go to your Plugins page.

In Wordpress 2.5, after you log into your dashboard, just look to your right, and you’ll see the plugins link.

In older versions of Wordpress, you’ll see it on the main navigation list across the top when you first login to your dashboard.

Once on the plugins page, look for the Plugin you just uploaded, and click activate. Sometimes you’ll need to look around to do some tweaking the plugin requires from within the Wordpress admin, look at all your links. Sometimes this is under Options, it could be under Plugins, or on the nav links on the first page of your admin. Sometimes a link is provided under the Plugin description after you’ve installed the Wordpress plugin.

Tweak the plugin if needed.

Walla! You’re done installing your Wordpress plugin.

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How To Upload Wordpress Themes

One of the great things about Wordpress is the amount of themes that are available. There are tons. And if you’re design challenged like I am, themes are a perfect solution.

When you find a Wordpress theme you like, you first download it to your computer. Remember where you saved it.
Unzip it.
Read the instructions for the theme.
Then, you need to upload the theme via FTP. (Here is an FTP tutorial.)There is a theme folder within your Wordpress software. The path looks like this:

/youruserid/public_html/wp-content/themes/

or if your Wordpress install is in a separate folder it would be

/youruserid/public_html/blog/wp-content/themes/

replacing blog with the name of your folder where you installed Wordpress.

Once you’ve uploaded the theme, you then need to login to your Wordpress admin.

Go to the Presentation tab. (In Wordpress 2.5, you’ll go to the Design Tab)
Click on the link of the theme you just uploaded.

You’re done.