WordPress.org

1. Download the plugin and extract its contents.
2. Upload the wordpress-popular-posts folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
3. Activate WordPress Popular Posts plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress.
4. In your admin console, go to Appeareance > Widgets, drag the WordPress Popular Posts widget to wherever you want it to be and click on Save.
5. (optional) Go to Appeareance > Editor. On "Theme Files", click on header.php and make sure that the <?php wp_head(); ?> tag is present (should be right before the closing </head> tag).

That's it!

Using WordPress Popular Posts on Pages

If you want to use WordPress Popular Posts on your pages (a "Hall of Fame" page, for example) please use the shortcode [wpp]. Attributes are optional, however you can use them if needed. You can find a complete list of the attributes WordPress Popular Posts currently supports at your wp-admin > Settings > WordPress Popular Posts page.

Usage:

[wpp]

[wpp attribute='value']

Example:

[wpp range=today stats_views=1 order_by=views wpp_start=<ol> wpp_end=</ol>]

Template Tags

wpp_get_mostpopular

Due to the fact that some themes are not widget-ready, or that some blog users don't like widgets at all, there's another choice: the wpp_get_mostpopular template tag. With it, you can embed the most popular posts of your blog on your site's sidebar without using a widget. This function also accepts parameters (optional) so you can customize the look and feel of the listing.

Usage:

Without any parameters:

<?php if (function_exists('wpp_get_mostpopular')) wpp_get_mostpopular(); ?>

Using parameters:

<?php if (function_exists('wpp_get_mostpopular')) wpp_get_mostpopular("range=weekly&order_by=comments"); ?>

For a complete list of parameters (also known as "attributes"), please check your wp-admin > Settings > WordPress Popular Posts page.

wpp_get_views()

The wpp_get_views template tag retrieves the views count of a single post since the plugin was installed. It only accepts one parameter: the post ID (eg. echo wpp_get_views(15)). If the function doesn't get passed a post ID when called, it'll return false instead.

Usage:

<?php if (function_exists('wpp_get_views')) { echo wpp_get_views( get_the_ID() ); } ?>