Install WordPress on Your New Web Site in 5 minutes

(Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes)

Installing Wordpress can be quite easy, a matter of minutes.

There are two common ways:

1. Install using a hosted script such as Fantastico on Bluehost. If you use an automatic script such as Fantastico, be very vigilant about keeping your site upgraded because Fantastico controls your upgrade data instead of WordPress. Also, you may run into issues with paths, which will affect how files and images are stored. Read more about this in the article “Fix For Not Being Able To Upload Images Properly In Wordpress” by Josh Kohlbach
2. “Manual” install creating databases and passwords. Installing manually takes a little longer, but you will learn a few basic website operation skills that will pay you back later.

I recommend using the manual install, but I’ll provide instructions for both, starting with manual install.

[Update: 1/16/2010] If you chose Bluehost.com as your shared hosting provider, I recommend you use their Simple Script system. Here’s a screencast for Simple Script WordPress installation.

Manual install

1. Log in to bluehost.com cPanel for your account. For this tutorial, we’re going to refer to your account name using the fictitious “sitename.”
2. Scroll down to the “Databases” box, and click on the first (leftmost) icon captioned “MySQL® Databases”
3. Create a database with a name using letters and numbers. For example, “word1″ which will result in a database named “sitename_word1.” Bluehost always prepends your login name to the database name to ensure your database has a unique name.*
4. Create a database username using letters and numbers, for example: “usr1,” which results in “sitename_usr1.” Make sure that the password is easy to remember, but has a lot of mixed letters, numbers and characters in it.
5. Write down your database username, database name and password on a piece of paper. You’ll need these again soon, then you can tear the paper up and throw it away.
6. Scroll down to “Add User to Database,” and use the drop down menus to add “sitename_usr1″ to “sitename_word1″ database, giving the user ALL rights on the next screen (Check the top middle box).
7. You’re now done with database, so you can return to cPanel and log out. You did write down your database, username and password, right?
8. Download the latest version of WordPress and unzip the wordpress.zip file. You can stash the unzipped WordPress directory on your desktop for convenience.
9. Browse the unzipped WordPress directory (probably named “wordpress“) to find the wp-config-sample.php file. You need to make a few changes in this file.

   Edit wp-config-sample.php in a text editor (like WordPad) and change the database name, the database username and the password to match the names and password you created in cPanel (and which you wrote down on that piece of paper). Typically, you will see lines like:

   17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

   // ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** // /** The name of the database for WordPress */ define('DB_NAME', 'mydatabasename');   /** MySQL database username */ define('DB_USER', 'myusername');   /** MySQL database password */ define('DB_PASSWORD', 'mypassword');

   Where it says “mydatabasename” you’ll write (say) “sitename_wrd1“… or whatever you have written on your handy paper. Do the same for DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD.

   For now, skip all the authentication variables (AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, etc.). Starting on or near line 50 is where you can change the database table prefix from it’s default value of “wp_” to whatever you like.

   50 51 52 53 54 55 56

   /** * WordPress Database Table prefix. * * You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique * prefix. Only numbers, letters, and underscores please! */ $table_prefix = 'wp_';

   Renaming the “wp_” table prefix to something else slows down hackers and increase security. Save this file as “wp-config.php.”

10. FTP all your WordPress files to your server’s public_html directory. If you are using an “addon domain,” say “mycooljunk.com,” this will be the public_html/mycooljunk directory.
11. Now give the URL to your website in a browser, and follow the very simple instructions to setup Wordpress and login. Once you are logged in, you are free to change your password for the Wordpress website to something easier to remember. Or leave it as is, because Wordpress gives you a very secure default password.

Believe it or not, I can do all of the above in less than 5 minutes! It’s not difficult, but there are a few moving parts, so you should be able to get it done in an hour or so.

Fantastico install

1. Login in to cPanel at bluehost.com
2. Click on the bright blue Fantastico icon near the bottom of the cPanel front page.
3. Select “Wordpress” from the menu of available software.
4. Fill in the boxes on the left pane of the browser window. Use “admin” for both name and nickname for logins. Use an easily accessible email address to get started. I use my gmail.com account for convenience.
5. Log in to your new Wordpress blog using the information you gave Fantastico, and save the email you get. You may need it later.

I personally don’t use Fantastico because I like to be able to fix any (rare) security issues directly in Wordpress without waiting for the Fantastico script to update.

You can find both of these procedures shown graphically in my mega-giant Wordpress MindMap.

To see how fast Wordpress can be installed, check out OneMinuteWordPress.

[Update: 1/16/2010] Again, if you chose Bluehost.com as your shared hosting provider, I recommend you use their Simple Script system. Here’s a screencast for Simple Script WordPress installation.

Similar Posts:

• More WordPress Simple Security: 5 Plugins to help you lock out unwanted visitors
• Getting started — finding a web hosting provider
• How To Fix FTP Connection Error on Localhost WordPress
• WordPress Simple Security — Replace the “admin” account
• Dealing With PHP Memory Issues For Self-Hosted WordPress Blogs

Tagged as: Database, Hosting, Installation, URL