How to install wordpress site

How to Install WordPress: Installation and Setup Guide

WordPress is the ideal website platform for developing your online business and earning revenue from incoming traffic due to ads and sales. It offers many customization options, gives you full control over every aspect of your website, and is mostly free! (Essential plugins and good WP themes may cost some money, but it’s always worth it.

So if you’re a publisher looking to migrate from other website building platforms like Wix or Squarespace, or you’re a newbie looking to jump on the booming website monetization trend, we’ve got you covered. In this article, you’ll learn how to install WordPress in several simple steps.

WordPress.com or WordPress.org

WordPress.com and WordPress.org are different platforms; WordPress.org is 100% free (open-source website software) and has to be set up with a hosting provider, while WordPress.com is an all-in-one platform that creates your website in a few clicks.

WordPress.com offers both free and premium versions, and you don’t need any external hosting; the free version has limitations. WordPress.com is preferable for potential website owners that don’t want the stress and lack web development skills, while WordPress.org is preferable for website owners who want to control everything.

Installing WordPress on a hosting provider

A website is hosted when a web hosting company allocates space on a web server for a website’s files. Web hosting makes a website’s files (code, images, etc.) available online. Every website you visit is on a server.

The amount of server space allocated to a website depends on the hosting. Shared, dedicated, VPS, and reseller hosting are the most common types. They often differ in terms of server technology, management, and additional services. Here’s a comprehensive guide on choosing web hosting.

What is a server? A server is a computer that connects users from all over the world to your website. Web hosting companies provide servers, connectivity, and related services to host websites. They cover a wide range of hosting needs, from small blogs to large corporations.

Bluehost

Bluehost is one of the world’s leading hosting businesses and an officially approved WordPress hosting provider. First, choose a domain name for your new website or blog and buy it.

Go to Bluehost’s home page and click “Get Started,” and select a domain name. If you have a domain name, you can enter it here and then get your DNS pointed to Bluehost.

Once you’ve entered a domain name, fill in your personal information. Choose which hosting package you want.

HostGator

Just like Bluehost, HostGator is a popular beginner shared WordPress. They also make WordPress installation a snap with just a few clicks.

You can now access the WordPress admin area by clicking the ‘Login‘ button. Congratulations on completing the WordPress installation process on your HostGator account.

SiteGround

All SiteGround plans include a quick and easy WordPress install. From your hosting dashboard, you can install WordPress. We’ll show you how to install WordPress on SiteGround using two different methods. You can select the one that best suits your needs.

Installing WordPress on SiteGround as a new user

If you’re new to SiteGround, you’ll see a welcome popup when you first log in. It asks if you want to start building your website right away.

Congratulations! your WordPress installation on your new SiteGround account is successful.

Installing WordPress on SiteGround as existing customer

Installing WordPress from your SiteGround hosting account is extremely simple.

The WordPress admin dashboard consists of custom shortcuts for creating content, customization, and a beginners’ guide for your website. WordPress installation on your SiteGround hosting account is now complete.

WP Engine

WP Engine manages your WordPress site updates, installation, and performance optimization. As a managed WordPress hosting provider, WP Engine installs WordPress for you automatically when you sign up. You can also create new websites depending on your hosting plan.

WP Engine begins installing your WordPress environment. DNS changes will take a while to take effect.

Installing WordPress from cPanel

Many web hosting companies use cPanel. It provides a simple web-based interface for website owners through which they can manage their hosting accounts. It consists of various useful tools, including auto-installer scripts that make WordPress set up an easy process.

Hosting companies use various auto-installer scripts, the most popular options are Softaculous, QuickInstall, and Fantastico.

We’ll show you how to use all three auto-installers to install WordPress. Depending on the installer available on your cPanel dashboard, you can follow the instructions.

Softaculous

QuickInstall

Fantastico

Fantastico is a WordPress auto-installer script. It works similarly to the other installer scripts and allows you to install WordPress more quickly.

Installing WordPress via FTP

We’ll show you how to do it with cPanel. If your hosting company uses a different control panel, look for MySQL databases. The remaining settings will be very similar.

Things to do after installing WordPress

1. Choose a language

You can use WordPress in any language, including English, Spanish, and others. Select a language during the WordPress installation process or change it later by going to the WordPress General page in the Admin settings.

2. Choose a theme

Themes are in charge of the visual appearance of your WordPress-powered website. There are tens of thousands of WordPress themes to choose from. With so many options, it can be confusing for beginners. Therefore, here’s our guide for you in choosing a theme for your site.

3. Installing and using WP plugins

WordPress has a vast collection of plugins available for usage, allowing you to extend functionality and add new features. There are more than 58,000 free plugins available in the WordPress plugin directory alone. If you’re not sure which plugins to install, check out our list of the most important WordPress plugins for all websites.

Conclusion

WordPress is a large platform with a lot of tools to help users create and manage their websites. Due to its increasing popularity, a growing number of users are attempting to turn their WordPress website into a source of income (and since you’re reading this, you’re probably one of them).

Fortunately, WordPress is a great content management system (CMS) for creating a profitable eCommerce website. However, it’s primarily a blogging platform, so you’ll need to find plugins or solutions to help you monetize it.

We understand that monetization is crucial for many website owners. And we encourage you to use various methods to monetize the time and effort you put into your website. We’ve written a special article to help you make money from your website.

New to WordPress – Where to start

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If you are new to WordPress, here is a step-by-step plan for getting started. If you need help along the way, plenty of options for assistance are listed in this article. Welcome to the exciting world of WordPress!

Step one – Read

WordPress is a great product. It’s easy-to-use, powerful, and flexible. Creating a website, and maintaining a website, is a science and art that has quickly evolved. In order to fully appreciate this it is important to be well read on the subject. One major thing to keep in mind is your investment of time. Being knowledgeable will without a doubt save you much time in the long run. With that in mind, before you invest your valuable time and energy into installing WordPress, there are some documents you need to read to help you get started.

Suggested reading includes,

Step two – Make a plan

Based upon the information you’ve just read, including instructions on installing WordPress, you should have a list of the things you need and things to do. If not, make that list now. You’ll want to make sure it includes the following information:

The following documents will help you understand more about how WordPress works and how to make a plan for your WordPress site:

It is important to make a plan about how you want to use WordPress on your site. Here are some questions to ask yourself.

Step three – Install WordPress

With this information and your plan, it’s time to install WordPress.

Step four – Set up WordPress

With your installation complete, it’s time to set up WordPress so it will work the way you want it to work.

To help you understand how all the various features and screens on the WordPress Administration Screens work, check out the Administration Screens guide for a detailed walk-through.

For help on creating your user profile information, of which some or all may appear on your WordPress Theme, see the Users > Your Profile pages for guidance.

To set the site name and other information, go to Administration > Settings > General in the dashboard.

After you’ve published a few posts, you can experiment with the full edit or quick edit features in the Administration > Posts > Posts screen.

Add your “About,” “Contact,” and other information Pages by going to Administration > Pages > Add New.

Want to change the look and feel of your WordPress site? Go to Administration > Appearance > Themes.

You’ll find helpful information by reading WordPress Lessons, and these helpful documents:

Appearance and themes

Changing the look of your WordPress website is easy with just a few clicks.

If you want to create a new WordPress Theme from scratch, or do major renovations, or even design WordPress Themes for public release, you should visit WordPress Theme Developer Handbook.

If you want a custom-made WordPress Theme created especially for you by expert web-designers, it is recommended you search for qualified web designers on the Internet, or look in your local community.

Adding WordPress plugins

There are many “add-on” scripts and programs for WordPress called Plugins that add more capabilities, choices, and options to your WordPress site. WordPress Plugins do many things, including customizing the results of your site information, adding weather reports, adding spell check capability, and presenting custom lists of posts and acronyms. For more on how to work with Plugins and where to find WordPress Plugins for your site:

As like as Theme, you can create a new WordPress Plugin from scratch, or do major renovations. Please visit WordPress Plugin Developer Handbook for detail.

Advanced use of WordPress

Now that you are familiar with the basic features and functions of how WordPress works, it might be time for you to plunge deeper into the power of WordPress.:

Need more help?

As simple and easy as it is to use WordPress, if troubles arise, if something is confusing, if things aren’t working, don’t despair because help is available! Even though WordPress is free and open source, there are literally hundreds of volunteers eager to help you. Here are some helpful official resources for WordPress:

Giving back to WordPress

Now that you’re a full-fledged WordPress user, consider contributing to the WordPress Documentation, Support Forum, Development, and other volunteer efforts that keep WordPress going. WordPress is free and totally supported by volunteers, and your help is needed.

How to install WordPress

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WordPress is well-known for its ease of installation. Under most circumstances, installing WordPress is a very simple process and takes less than five minutes to complete. Many web hosts now offer tools (e.g. Fantastico) to automatically install WordPress for you. However, if you wish to install WordPress yourself, the following guide will help.

Things to Know Before Installing WordPress

Before you begin the install, there are a few things you need to have and do. Refer the article Before You Install.
If you need multiple WordPress instances, refer Installing Multiple WordPress Instances.

Basic Instructions

Here’s the quick version of the instructions for those who are already comfortable with performing such installations. More detailed instructions follow.

That’s it! WordPress should now be installed.

Detailed Instructions

Step 1: Download and Extract

Download and unzip the WordPress package from https://wordpress.org/download/.

The WordPress package will extract into a folder called wordpress in the same directory that you downloaded latest.tar.gz.

Step 2: Create the Database and a User

If you are using a hosting provider, you may already have a WordPress database set up for you, or there may be an automated setup solution to do so. Check your hosting provider’s support pages or your control panel for clues about whether or not you’ll need to create one manually.

If you determine that you’ll need to create one manually, follow the instructions for Using phpMyAdmin below to create your WordPress username and database. For other tools such as Plesk, cPanel and Using the MySQL Client, refer the article Creating Database for WordPress.

If you have only one database and it is already in use, you can install WordPress in it – just make sure to have a distinctive prefix for your tables to avoid over-writing any existing database tables.

Using phpMyAdmin

If your web server has phpMyAdmin installed, you may follow these instructions to create your WordPress username and database. If you work on your own computer, on most Linux distributions you can install PhpMyAdmin automatically.

Note: These instructions are written for phpMyAdmin 4.4; the phpMyAdmin user interface can vary slightly between versions.

Step 3: Set up wp-config.php

You can either create and edit the wp-config.php file yourself, or you can skip this step and let WordPress try to do this itself when you run the installation script (step 5). (you’ll still need to tell WordPress your database information).

(For more extensive details, and step by step instructions for creating the configuration file and your secret key for password security, please see Editing wp-config.php.)

Return to where you extracted the WordPress package in Step 1, rename the file wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php, and open it in a text editor.

DB_NAME The name of the database you created for WordPress in Step 2. DB_USER The username you created for WordPress in Step 2. DB_PASSWORD The password you chose for the WordPress username in Step 2. DB_HOST The hostname you determined in Step 2 (usually localhost, but not always; see some possible DB_HOST values). If a port, socket, or pipe is necessary, append a colon (:) and then the relevant information to the hostname. DB_CHARSET The database character set, normally should not be changed (see Editing wp-config.php). DB_COLLATE The database collation should normally be left blank (see Editing wp-config.php).

Save the wp-config.php file.

Step 4: Upload the files

Now you will need to decide where on your domain you’d like your WordPress-powered site to appear:

Note: The location of your root web directory in the filesystem on your web server will vary across hosting providers and operating systems. Check with your hosting provider or system administrator if you do not know where this is.

In the Root Directory

In a Subdirectory

Step 5: Run the Install Script

Point a web browser to start the installation script.

Setup configuration file

If WordPress can’t find the wp-config.php file, it will tell you and offer to try to create and edit the file itself. (You can also do this directly by loading wp-admin/setup-config.php in your web browser.) WordPress will ask you the database details and write them to a new wp-config.php file. If this works, you can go ahead with the installation; otherwise, go back and create, edit, and upload the wp-config.php file yourself (step 3).

Finishing installation

The following screenshots show how the installation progresses. Notice that in entering the details screen, you enter your site title, your desired user name, your choice of a password (twice), and your e-mail address. Also displayed is a check-box asking if you would like your blog to appear in search engines like Google and DuckDuckGo. Leave the box unchecked if you would like your blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines, and check the box if you want to block search engines, but allow normal visitors. Note all this information can be changed later in your Administration Screen.

If you successfully install the WordPress, login prompt will be displayed.

Install script troubleshooting

Common Installation Problems

The following are some of the most common installation problems. For more information and troubleshooting for problems with your WordPress installation, check out FAQ Installation and FAQ Troubleshooting.

I see a directory listing rather than a web page.

The web server needs to be told to view index.php by default. In Apache, use the DirectoryIndex index.php directive. The simplest option is to create a file named .htaccess in the installed directory and place the directive there. Another option is to add the directive to the web server’s configuration files.

I see lots of Headers already sent errors. How do I fix this?

You probably introduced a syntax error in editing wp-config.php.

My page comes out gibberish. When I look at the source I see a lot of “ ” tags.

If the tags are being sent to the browser, it means your PHP is not working properly. All PHP code is supposed to be executed before the server sends the resulting HTML to your web browser. (That’s why it’s called a preprocessor.) Make sure your web server meets the requirements to run WordPress, that PHP is installed and configured properly, or contact your hosting provider or system administrator for assistance.

I keep getting an Error connecting to database message but I’m sure my configuration is correct.

Try resetting your MySQL password manually. If you have access to MySQL via shell, try issuing:

If you do not have shell access, you should be able to simply enter the above into an SQL query in phpMyAdmin. Failing that, you may need to use your host’s control panel to reset the password for your database user.

I keep getting an Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress message but I’m sure my configuration is correct.

Check to make sure that your configuration of your web-server is correct and that the MySQL plugin is getting loaded correctly by your web-server program. Sometimes this issue requires everything in the path all the way from the web-server down to the MySQL installation to be checked and verified to be fully operational. Incorrect configuration files or settings are often the cause of this issue.

My image/MP3 uploads aren’t working.

If you use the Rich Text Editor on a blog that’s installed in a subdirectory, and drag a newly uploaded image into the editor field, the image may vanish a couple seconds later. This is due to a problem with TinyMCE (the rich text editor) not getting enough information during the drag operation to construct the path to the image or other file correctly. The solution is to NOT drag uploaded images into the editor. Instead, click and hold on the image and select Send to Editor.

Installing WordPress on your own Computer

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Local Installation Instructions

Use these instructions for setting up a local server environment for testing and development.

Installing WordPress locally is usually meant for the purpose of development. Those interested in development should follow the instructions below and download WordPress locally.

Software Appliance – Ready-to-Use

You may find that using a pre-integrated software appliance is a great way to get up and running with WordPress, especially in combination with virtual machine software (e.g., VMWare, VirtualBox, Xen HVM, KVM).

Another software that can be used is Parallels, which you would have to pay for unlike virtual machine software. It allows you to run both Mac and Windows on your machine.

A software appliance allows users to altogether skip manual installation of WordPress and its dependencies, and instead deploy a self-contained system that requires little to no setup, in just a couple of minutes.

Unattended/automated installation of WordPress on Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS

Unattended installation of WordPress on Ubuntu Server https://peteris.rocks/blog/unattended-installation-of-wordpress-on-ubuntu-server/

You can follow this guide by copy & pasting commands in a terminal to set up WordPress on a fresh Ubuntu Server 16.04 installation with nginx, PHP7, MySQL plus free SSL from LetsEncrypt.

You will not be prompted to enter any credentials or details like in other guides, everything is automated. You can even skip the installation wizard.

If you don’t have IIS on your computer or don’t want to use it, you could use a WAMP Stack :

These stacks can be downloaded freely and set up all the bits you need on your computer to run a website. Once you have downloaded and installed WAMP, you can point your browser at localhost and use the link to phpmyadmin to create a database.

Then, in order to install WordPress, download the zip file, and extract it into the web directory for your WAMP installation (this is normally installed as c:\wamp\www). Finally visit http://localhost/wordpress to start the WordPress install. (Assuming you extracted into c:\wamp\www\wordpress).

Tip: If you want to use anything other than the default permalink structure on your install, make sure you enable the mod_rewrite module in WAMP. This can be enabled by clicking on the WAMP icon in the taskbar, then hover over Apache in the menu, then Apache modules and ensure that the rewrite_module item has a checkmark next to it.

FAQ Installation

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Installation

How do I install WordPress?

Under most circumstances, installing WordPress is a very simple process and takes less than five minutes to complete. Many web hosts offer tools to automatically install WordPress for you. If you prefer a manual installation you can take a look at the Installation Guide.

How do I find a good host for my WordPress website?

Any host that supports the requirements for WordPress can be used for hosting your website. If you’re not sure if your host can run WordPress the best thing to do would be to contact them and ask if they meet the requirements for running WordPress. You can find a list with some good hosts here.

How do I install using cPanel / cPanel X?

If you want to perform a manual installation using cPanel you can follow the guide on using cPanel.

How do I configure the wp-config.php file?

The wp-config.php file is one of the most important files of your website. It’s located in the root of your WordPress installation and contains most of the website’s configuration details. Editing this file can be done in any plain-text editor. Usually this isn’t necessary unless you’re installing WordPress manually.
See also:

What are the requirements for installing WordPress?

The current requirements for running WordPress can be found on the requirements page at WordPress.org.

How do I get WordPress to use my language?

If you want to change the language that WordPress is using, you can select your preferred language in the Administration Screen. To do this you can go the Settings > General, and choose your preferred language from Site Language dropdown menu.

Do I need to create a database?

Yes. WordPress requires access to a MySQL or MariaDB database to store information. So you’ll need a database.
You should create a new database if:

It is not essential to create a new database for each WordPress installation.

Why is my website showing a 403 Error?

If the following (or similar) message appears after uploading your website a couple of things can be happening:

You are not authorized to view this page. You might not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials you supplied. If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page, please try to contact the Web site by using any e-mail address or phone number that may be listed on the personal.fredsmith.com home page. You can click Search to look for information on the Internet. HTTP Error 403 – Forbidden

If your account is hosted on a Apache based server the following things can be happening:

If you have checked all these settings and everything seems to be set up correctly you’d best contact your hosting provider for support.

Can I rename the WordPress folder?

If you have not already installed WordPress, you can rename the folder with the WordPress files, before, or even after uploading the files.

If you have WordPress installed already, and you want to rename the folder, login to your website as an administrator and change the following settings in Settings > General:

Once you have done this, you can rename the directory or folder with the WordPress files in it.

Why is my upload directory “C:apachehtdocswordpress”?

When you specified the upload path, you used backslashes.

Use forward slashes “/” to specify the path to the directory.

Can I install WordPress on Windows Server?

Yes you can! As long as you have PHP installed you shouldn’t have any trouble getting started with WordPress. Both Apache and Microsoft IIS are capable of serving your WordPress website.

Advanced Installation

How do I install WordPress with the files in different directories?

This also answers the questions:

How can I hide my blog from people?

Whether you are testing a new version of WordPress, setting up a new blog or have some other reason to limit access, the following information may help you keep unwanted visitors out.

Apache

There is no guaranteed way to do this. You can use the .htaccess file (which also contains your permalink code) to check for certain IP addresses and prevent them from viewing your site. This will only stop the IP address, not the person, so if they have access to an allowed IP address, they can get to your page. One tutorial for this is located at Clockwatchers.com

An .htaccess file can also be used to prevent others from “hot-linking” to your images (bandwidth theft) or to set up a password protected blog.

Apache Basic Authentication

To require a password to access your site using .htaccess and .htpasswd.

Note: When your site is accessed the password is encoded weakly using Base64 and can be easily intercepted and decoded.

Search Engines: Spiders and Bots