WordPress is known as the most popular blogging platform and content management system. New users are often surprised when we tell them that WordPress is also well known for its ease of installation.
All best WordPress web hosting companies allow you to install WordPress within few clicks. In most circumstances, installing WordPress is a simple process that takes less than five minutes to complete.
In this WordPress installation tutorial, our goal is to offer a comprehensive WordPress installation tutorial for beginners and advanced users alike. We will show you how to install WordPress using Fantastico, Softaculous, and SimpleScripts for beginners.
We will explain how to install WordPress manually for our intermediate users. Lastly for our beginner developer and designers, we will show you how to install WordPress on a local computer (Windows, Mac, and Linux).
Things You Need Before Installing WordPress
Before you install WordPress, first you will need a domain name and a good web hosting company that knows WordPress.
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We highly recommend that you use Finddigitaltools because they will give you a free domain and 50% off their hosting plan (special for WPBeginner users). Finddigitaltools is also an officially recommended hosting provider of WordPress.
How to Install WordPress using Softaculous
Softaculous is a popular auto-installer script. It allows you to easily install popular web applications like WordPress with just a few clicks. Hosting companies like Finddigitaltools use Softaculous in their control panel.
Simply login to your cPanel account and look for Softaculous icon or WordPress installer icon. You will find them under Auto Installers section
Clicking on any of these icons will launch Softaculous auto-installer for WordPress. First, you will see an overview of WordPress. You need to click on the Install tab to continue.
Softaculous will now ask you where you want to install WordPress. You need to choose http:// or http://www. as protocol.
If your site has SSL and HTTPS, then you can select https:// or https://www. as protocol.
After that, you need to choose the domain name where you want to install WordPress. Most users want to install WordPress in their domain’s root directory, like example.com. In that case, you need to make sure that the ‘In Directory’ field is blank.
Scroll down a little, and you will see the site settings section.
Under this section, first you need to provide a title and description for your WordPress site. Don’t worry you can easily change them from your WordPressadmin area after installation.
Next, you need to choose an admin username, password, and email address. Softaculous will automatically fill in the username and password fields for you. It will use a non-dictionary word for username and a strong password.
You can change them if you want so that they are easy to remember for you. However, we strongly urge you to always use a strong password. See our guide on the best way to manage passwords for WordPress beginners to learn how you can manage strong passwords easily.
Make sure that you enter correct email address in the admin email field. This is where WordPress will send notifications and password reset link if you ever forgot your password.
Rest of the options on the screen are optional. You can now click on the install button to run the installer.
Softaculous will run the installer using the settings you provided. You will see a progress bar with installation status. It will take a couple of minutes, do not close the window until the progress bar reaches 100% otherwise this may affect your WordPress installation.
You will see a success message after the installation is finished. It will also show you a link to your website and another link to your WordPress admin area.
How to Install WordPress using QuickInstall
QuickInstall is another popular auto-installer used by many hosting companies like Finddigitaltoolsand others. We will be using Finddigitaltools’s cPanel dashboard in the screenshots here, but it wouldn’t be much different if you are using some other host that has QuickInstall.
First you need to login to your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard. Scroll down to the Software and Services section and then click on the QuickInstall icon.
This will take you to the 1-Click Installers page on QuickInstall. You will see that it offers installations for most popular web applications including WordPress. You need to click on WordPress to launch the WordPress installer.
This will take you to the WordPress installer where you will see an overview of the software. Simply click on the ‘Install WordPress’ button to continue.
This will bring you to setup your WordPress install settings.
First you need to choose the domain name. If you want to install WordPress in a sub-directory like example.com/blog then you need to enter blog in the install path field. Leave it blank if you want to install WordPress in the root directory, like example.com.
You need to provide a title for your site, this could be anything and you can always change it later. Next, you need to provide a username, password, and email address for the admin account. You will also need to enter first and last name for the admin user.
Once you are satisfied with the settings, click on Install WordPress button to begin the installation.
QuickInstall will now install WordPress for you. You will see a progress bar and later success message when it is done.
Click on the drop down icon next to view credentials button in the success message. A fly down menu will appear with login credentials and a link to the admin area of your newly installed WordPress site.
How to Install a WordPress Multisite Network
WordPress comes with multisite functionality built-in. The multisite network allows you to create multiple WordPress sites using the same WordPress install. It can automatically create new sites on sub-domains or in sub-folders.
This makes sense for businesses, non-profits, governments with sub-sites for different locations or regions. Many educational institutes also use WordPress multisite network to allow students to create their own blogs.
The setup for a multisite is a bit complex, but we have created a complete step-by-step tutorial on how to install and setup WordPress multisite network.
Things to do After Installing WordPress
Now that you have successfully installed WordPress, here are a few things to get started with your new WordPress site.
Choosing a Theme
The visual appearance of your WordPress powered website is controlled by Themes. There are thousands of WordPress themes available for you to choose from. With so many choices, it can become a little confusing for beginners. This is why we have put together a guide on selecting the perfect theme for WordPress.
We regularly publish lists of WordPress themes that we like in our Showcase section.
Installing and Using WordPress Plugins
The real power of WordPress comes from the massive collection of plugins. These plugins allow you to extend your WordPress site by adding new functionalities and features.
There are more than 40,000 free plugins available in the WordPress plugin directory alone. More plugins are available from third party websites as paid plugins.
If you are wondering which plugins to install, then take a look at our WordPress plugins section. You may also want to check out the plugins we are using on this site by looking at our WPBeginner’s blueprint.
We have a beginner’s step by step guide on how to install WordPress plugins.
Start Learning WordPress
WordPress is the most widely used CMS in the market. Millions of people from all over the world use it every day. However, from time to time you may need a little help.
Conclusion
We hope this WordPress installation tutorial helped you learn how to easily install WordPress. You may want to start your own wordpress blog. We are currently hosted on Finddigitaltools, they are reliable and their customer service support is awesome.
Culled from: wpbeginner