It is assumed that you are in the Dashboard. If you are unsure about this start with the first tutorial of this site and work through

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Before we start adding pages, sometimes it is useful to add third party WordPress plugins first . This can range from e-commerce applications, email/contact forms, anti-spam tools, search engine optimisations (SEO) or booking/ appointments features. The list is endless. In this WordPress training course, we are adding two plugins:

• ContactForm

• SEO

Adding a WordPress plugins

Adding a contact form to WordPress

1. Click on the plugins main menu options then select “add new”

   

2. Into the search plugins box (top right) enter “Contact form 7.”  The plugin should appear.

3. Click on the install now button

4. When complete it will say “Successfully installed the plugin Contact Form 7”

5. Click on the “Activate Plugin” link

6. You should then see it in the list plugins you have.

7. Click on Contact Forms’ option blue hyper link labelled  Settings

8. Click on “Contact form 1” hyperlink. As you hover over it you can see the word Edit. You may click on that.

9. What you then see is the skeleton of the contact form. You may change the wording such as “Your name” or “your email” to something else if you wish, but avoid editing anything you don’t understand like the <p> tags.

10. Note the code “

    Your Name (required)
    

    Your Email (required)
    

    Subject
    

    Your Message
    
    ” at the top. This is what you will paste into any page you would like the form to appear on .   “xx” is the page ID number.  This can vary. Make a note of the short code, we will need it later, though we can come back later and look it up.

11. In the mail tab section you will find a ‘To‘ box. Put in the email address you’d like to send the contact form information to. By default it’s set to the hosting default email address which would normally be yours as set up by your hosting company.

12. Click the  save  button, at the top of the window on the right, to continue

Adding SEO

1. Click on the dashbord menu plugins options again then select “add new” as before.

2. Into the search plugins box (top right) enter “Add Meta Tags”

3. Check for the one by George Notaras

4. Click on install now
   

5. Look for “Successfully installed the plugin Add Meta Tags“

6. Click on the Activate plugin link

7. You should now see in the list of plugins installed

8. We will make use of the meta tags, for SEO, when we create some pages.

HEALTH WARNING

Plugins can degrade the performance of your site and some may have security implications. Delete any plugin you no longer use. It is suggested you keep plugins to a minimum and make sure you always update them when they have been updated. Remember that little red circle next to word Plugins in the Dashboard menu. See it! Do it!

 

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