How to easily install WordPress on your new domain name?

Installing WordPress can be a challenge to users not familiar with basic web hosting fundamentals. In this post I will try to explain how to install WordPress without tears.

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform and CMS. According to W3Cook, WordPress is used on 52% of sites that use a content management system. WordPress allows you to write your blog posts in a very easy to use editor, and it manages all the other functionalities like comments, users, managing media etc. The editor in WordPress also allows you to upload and embed videos and images into your blog’s content.

Installing WordPress is quite easy once you get to know the web hosting fundamentals. I am assuming that you already have a domain name and you have it setup on your web host.

First, you have to create an FTP account. For this, just login to cPanel and click on FTP Accounts. Follow the simple instructions to setup an FTP account including a username and password. Now you need an FTP Client. I use CoreFTP. It is free and very easy to use. Setup your FTP account on CoreFTP.

Download WordPress from their site. The current version is 3.6. Save the file on your computer.

Now login to your FTP account using CoreFTP. Then upload the WordPress (tar.gz or zip) file to your public_html directory.

Login to CPanel. Open the link that says File Manager. Go to your public_html or www directory and click on the file you just uploaded through FTP. Click on the file and then click on Extract. This will extract the file in your current directory. Now go to the wordpress directory and then click on Select All. Then click on Move File. Then, move all files to the public_html or www directory. This will install wordpress on your root directory instead of installing it on a sub-directory.

Once you have done this, its now time to create a database for WordPress. Login to cPanel and click on MySQL Databases. Create a new database and create a new user. Add the user to the database. This step is quite simple, as all the instructions are on the cPanel page.

Now open CoreFTP and login. Then, go to the public_html or www directory (public_html and www are the same directories). Download the file that says wp-config-sample.php. Open it and change the database information including the database name, user and password. Keep the quotes as they are. Now rename the wp-config-sample.php you just downloaded to wp-config.php. Upload this file to the public_html or www directory.

Now navigate to http://yourdomainname.com/wp-admin/install.php. This step will begin the installation and create the database tables. It will also allow you to create an admin username and password.

Thats it. WordPress is now installed on your server. Now navigate to http://www.yourdomainname.com/wp-admin/ and start administering your WordPress installation!