Installing WordPress – Three Easy Options
By JB on Aug 1, 2008 in Wordpress
In our last post we talked about choosing a web host for your new website. I recommended HostGator.com as a low cost but good quality host. I have an account with them now, and I’ve owned a web hosting company in the past, so my recommendation is not uninformed. That being said, there are a number of other great hosts out there as well, so if you have a company who has been fantastic for you, please share your experience so that we have options available.
This article will focus on actually installing WordPress on your website. We’ll assume that you have your site up and running on your hosting account, and that you know all the appropriate usernames/passwords, etc. In the future, we may evaluate options other than wordpress, but for now, let’s keep it simple. Ok… let’s get started.
There are three primary ways to install wordpress on your hosting account:
- Use Fantastico in cPanel
- Use the Install4Free service
- Roll up the sleeves and do it yourself
While I prefer to do it myself because I feel it gives me a better understanding of exactly how everything is configured, options 1 and 2 are certainly easier. That being said… installing it yourself is not by any stretch difficult.
Ok… Option 1: Using Fantastico
cPanel installs on HostGator (and most other hosts for that matter) include a great little feature called Fantastico. In case you are wondering, cPanel is the web-based control panel that you would use to manage your hosting account. It’s where you can create email addresses, add databases, check stats, etc. We’ll come back to it in a bit, but for now let’s focus on just one feature, Fantastico.
Fantastico allows you to install many scripts (including WordPress) by answering a few questions and clicking a button. It’s fantastic-o. (I know, but I couldn’t help it.) You will need to name your blog, and enter your email address, but beyond that, it takes care of the whole install, database included for you, and it’s included for free in your hosting account. It really is that easy.
Option 2: If you happen to not have Fantastico available, and don’t feel confident enough to tackle the install yourself, there is a group of volunteers who offer free WordPress installations. They don’t guarantee that they will have time, or technically that they can even finish the job, but I think that’s more just them covering their bases… after all, it’s free. You can find the service at http://install4free.wordpress.net/ I have never used their service, but they are linked to directly from the wordpress.org site, so I have to assume that they’ve been checked out to some degree and don’t have too many complaints. If you do end up going this route, be sure to report back and let everyone know about your experience.
Option 3: Finally, if you have just a little bit of experience with websites, then you’ll have no problem at all installing wordpress youreself. The install takes less than 5 minutes and can be brokend down into four basic steps:
- Create your database and databse user (make sure the user has full access to the database
- Edit your wp-config.php file to include the database information. (This also requires that you rename the default file from wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php.)
- Upload your files to your website. If the blog is going to be the main event at your site, then just upload them to the main root folder. If you are going to have a different main site, then you may want to upload the files to a “blog” directory or something similar.
- Run the install by accessing the site from your web browser.
That’s it! Really! For more detailed instructions, please see the famous 5 minute install over at wordpress.org.
So now you should have a blog up and running. Spend some time looking around in the WordPress control panel. Add some articles, delete some stuff. Make some comments. You can’t mess it up easily, and even if you do, you now know how to reinstall it easily. We’ll pick up next with a design element and talk about choosing and installing a theme for your blog.