How to Move Plugins Around in a WordPress Layout

1. Download the plug-in file of your choice to your hard drive. Extract the contents of the compressed file into your plug-ins folder.
2. Open your File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client that you use to upload new content to your website. Navigate to the 'wp-content' folder inside your WordPress installation. Find the 'plugins' folder and open it.

3. Transfer the plug-in files from your hard drive to the open folder in WordPress using your FTP transfer client.
4. Log in to your WordPress blog dashboard. Select 'Appearance' and then click 'Plugins.' You should see your new plug-in listed in the directory. Activate the plug-in by clicking on 'activate.' Click out of the plug-in directory and press the 'F5' key on your keyboard to refresh your dashboard controls.
5. Navigate down through the dashboard menu until you find a listing for the new plug-in. If you just installed the 'WP-Polls' plug-in, for example, you will see a control panel listed for WP-Polls. Open the control panel to configure the settings for the plug-in. Save your changes and then exit out of the folder.
6. Determine where you want the plug-in to appear on your WordPress page. If you want to place the feature in a widget sidebar, click on 'Widgets.' You should find a listing for your new plug-in under 'Available Widgets.' Drag and drop the plug-in label to the sidebar location. If you want to place the plug-in inside a main content column on your layout, click on 'Editor' instead. Find the plug-in code in the list of page codes on the right side of the Editor page. Open the coded .php file for the plug-in and copy it to your temporary clipboard.
7. Locate the PHP page template that you want to use for hosting the plug-in. Open it and edit the template to include your plug-in code. You can also program it to link directly to the plug-in code using script language references. Either way, be forewarned that this kind of editing requires knowledge of WordPress script language and PHP functions. If you do not have this experience, use the Widget method described in Step 6 to place the plug-in on a page. You can also contact the designer of your WordPress theme or members of the WordPress community through the many WordPress forums on the Web to seek advice on how to edit the base code to accommodate a plug-in.