Installing WordPress

Let's talk about installing WordPress.

We're not talking about doing this from scratch. We're talking about installing through your host company's website. What you'll encounter is that most companies feature a cPanel. cPanel is something a lot of companies use because it's open source. However, they may have their own proprietary installer. Regardless, they're all going to work similarly to the one featured in the video.

The Two Main Installers

As you scroll through all of the different options available with any particular company—things like email and databases—you'll notice there is an installer. One of the two, Softaculous (the one you see here, Fantastico being the other)—that's what the majority of installers will use. However, a company like GoDaddy may have a proprietary installer that they use instead. But they're all going to work primarily the same way.

Follow Along

We're going to click on the Softaculous installer, and once it opens, we're going to fill out a form and then install it.

1. I'm going to click the Install Now button. When I do, it takes me to the form mentioned above. There are a couple of things I need to fill out before it does the installation for me.
   • First, under Software Setup, you'll see the version of the software that you want. 5.0 was a big release for WordPress, so you may want to use an older version.
   • We also have to put in the protocol itself, meaning, is this a secure site or not.
   • You may have multiple domains going to this particular website. Which do you want the main one to be? Or, you may have multiple sites with the same host. You have to pick the main you want to apply to this installation.
   • Lastly, inside of Software Setup, we'll have to choose the directory we want to place this in. This step is important since it helps organize your server. So, you’ll want to keep the entire website in its own folder, away from things like your email or your Google Analytics.
     • Sometimes when typing in a URL, you'll notice it autocompletes as the company address + /wordpress. That’s the name of the folder that they gave it here. You can name your folder anything. I tend to call it “www” or “site”—it doesn’t matter, just put in what works for you so that you know where your website is on the server.
   • Under Site Settings, you’ve got site name and description. We talk about this as the title and subtitle of the site. And of course, this is not only important for SEO, but it shows up in the title bar of your browser when people are visiting your site.
   • The most important part of this process, of course, is the Administrative account. This account is the one that rules everything about the website. So you want to have one administrator account, and you want it to be for the person (even if it’s not you) who controls the entire site. That means not just the content, but they also control the appearance of the site as well as how it functions.
     • The email address you put in should be for that particular person, especially if it’s not you, because it then sends them the account so that they know how to log in (they can change their own password later on). 
   • Next step, choose your language. This is the language you are going to be working in when you work in WordPress.
2. So once you’ve picked all of those things, you can scroll down to the bottom and you’ll notice that there’s a giant Install button. Click on that.
   • It may take some time to actually get through, but what it’s doing is installing all of the php documents. It’s creating the css documents, as well as the database for you so that all of the stuff is being done in the background. All you had to do is fill out that form.
3. Once it’s installed, that’s it! Congratulations! You’ve just created a website.
   • There are two links here. This link is where your website is stored. There’s the address. That’s on the internet – anybody can see that now. You also see the login. You can always go to whatever your address is and input /wp-admin to log in if there’s no click for login on the landing screen itself.
4. That’s installation. Ta da!

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