Installing WordPress, or WP, manually can be a complicated procedure, especially for people who do not already have experience running or installing websites. However, there is an automated method that some site owners may be able to use to easily install WP. The real key to using this simplified method is to use the right web hosting company.
Automatic WordPress Installation
Some website hosts offer a very convenient feature for site administrators to automatically install WordPress. In fact, this same feature can actually be used to automatically install up-to-date versions of numerous different free, open source website scripts.
Most well known hosts, like HostGator, that run servers using the Linux operating system will offer cPanel as the back end administrator system. Using this system, it is extremely simple to create a new site running WP.
First, the domain name being used for the site must be pointed to the proper nameservers for the hosting account, and the domain must be added to that account. Once this is done, a Software option found in the cPanel administration, QuickInstall, can be used to install WordPress to the site.
QuickInstall Software
This is a very convenient and free service offered by most major web hosts. It is an auto installer that can be used for much more than just installing WordPress. A wide variety of other content management systems are available through QuickInstall, but there are also many other types of free software that available to be installed here.
Once QuickInstall is reached, WordPress can be found under the Blog Software heading in the left-hand sidebar of the page. When the name is clicked, a brief informational screen will be shown with a Continue button at the bottom. After clicking that button, QuickInstall will provide the options to initiate a WordPress installation.
The first thing that has to be done is selecting a domain name for the installation. If the site will be using WP as the entire website for that domain, a sub-domain should not be provided in the text box next to the domain name selection drop-down box.
All that remains now is to provide a title for the blog in addition to admin information. This information can be changed later, but it is extremely important to enter a valid email address for the Admin email or else the site won’t be accessible.
After clicking the Install Now button, it will automatically install WordPress. The site will immediately be live after installation is complete, but the admin login information still needs to be retrieved. The login name and password for the administrator account on the WP site can be found in the mailbox of the email address that was provided.
Installing WordPress Manually
For people who have never manually installed a website script before and are not experienced with website design in general will definitely want to consider finding a web host that uses QuickInstall. This is true even though WordPress actually offers fairly easy installation steps because these steps can be quite confusing for people that are not familiar with website administration.
The first step is to download the software package. To do this, simply visit the homepage of WordPress.org, and a download button for the most-recent version release will be found there. The file that is downloaded is compressed, so it will have to be unzipped with software like WinZip or WinRar.
Next, a database must be created through the hosting account cPanel. This is actually a three-part process that requires the database to be created first. Next, a user has to be created that has full database privileges. Finally, the user must be assigned to the WP database.
The next step involves editing and renaming a file that is included with the software package, but this step can actually be skipped to save time and to keep the installation as simple as possible. The database information is supposed to be entered into the wp-config-sample.php file while also renaming it to wp-config.php. However, when this step is skipped, the WordPress installation script will actually ask for this information and generate the file automatically.
Using FTP to Upload WordPress
Now that a database exists for the site, the actual software can be installed on the web server, but it will first need to be uploaded. This can be done in a variety of ways, but since there are so many files included with WordPress, uploading is best done with FTP.
FTP can be another confusing aspect for inexperienced site owners, while it may be a simple aspect for others. For those who do not understand FTP, just think of it like the file browser on a normal computer, except the files are actually located on the web server and file transfers can be made from a local computer to the server. This is done with FTP software.
Free or shareware FTP software can be found through search engines for people who have never used it before. To access a site with FTP, simply provide the cPanel login information for the hosting account and the domain name for the site. However, the domain name for the site should have an ftp prefix, so example.com would be accessed as ftp.example.com instead.
Once a connection is made with the site using FTP software, the entire WP package needs to be uploaded to the site. This includes all the folders as well as the individual files in the main folder and all sub-folders. Slow connections may have difficulty setting all of these files to upload at the same time, so it can be helpful to do these file and folder uploads in a few different pieces.
Completing the Process of Installing WordPress
After the script is uploaded to the site and a database exists, it is time to run the WP installation script. To run the script, simply visit it in a web browser. It is named install.php and it can be found in the wp-admin directory of the site.
Using the domain from the previous FTP connection example, the script for this site would be found by visiting http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php in a web browser. The actual address for this script could be different if the WordPress script was not installed in the base directory of the domain name.
This script will automatically take care of the rest of the installation similar to the way QuickInstall is able to do so with the entire installation. If the steps for editing the file with database information was skipped, this information will still need to be provided when this script runs to get everything started. WordPress.org offers even more detailed instructions and troubleshooting information for anyone having problems installing WordPress with this information.
