To make it a bit easier for others, you can do the following to enable the installation of the WordPress plugin “Popularity Contest“.

Access phpMyAdmin for the hosting account (domain) you’ve installed you WordPress. Select the correct database for your specific WordPress installation. Select the “SQL” tab in the top navigation. Back up your database first (in case something goes wrong!)

In the text box entitled, “Run SQL query/queries on database…”, place each block of code (see the two blocks below) and then select “Go” (it’s a button on the far right).

Make sure you substitute the first part of the table name that says “wp”, to the table_prefix that you set in your wp-config.php file. Many people have it as “wp” (but that is not secure), often it’s changed to something else (to improve security).

CREATE TABLE `wp_ak_popularity` (
`post_id` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`total` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`feed_views` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`home_views` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`archive_views` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`category_views` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`tag_views` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`single_views` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`searcher_views` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`comments` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`pingbacks` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`trackbacks` INT( 11 ) NOT NULL ,
`last_modified` DATETIME NOT NULL ,
KEY `post_id` ( `post_id` )
)

and

CREATE TABLE `wp_ak_popularity_options` (
`option_name` VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL,
`option_value` VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL
)