There are many types of sites that can be created. Discussion forums (like the site you’re currently reading from), blogs, membership sites etc. and each of those site types has a multitude of different platforms that you can use (to cut out alot of time and/or money having the site coded from scratch). For this training we’ll be using WordPress.
1. Login to Your Hosting Control Panel
Most hosting companies use a control panel called “cPanel.” If your hosting company does NOT use cPanel, you will need to contact them and ask them if they provide any way to automatically install WordPress. Most hosting companies will. If they do not offer cPanel or auto installer software, then you’ve probably chosen a bad hosting company. You can still get WordPress installed though if you know how to use FTP. If that is the case, you can install WordPress manually by following these directions: http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress
Most likely you will have cPanel hosting and that cPanel hosting will offer some sort of auto installer software. If you’re not sure then contact your hosting company, tell them you want to install WordPress and ask if they offer a way for you to install it quickly and easily. Most will say yes and if it isn’t already showing up in your cPanel account, they will install it on the server so that it does show up.
A few popular auto-installers are softaculous and fantastico, but there are many others. As long as it installs WordPress for you, it really doesn’t matter what it’s called. Once you find the WordPress installer in your cPanel account the process is very easy. The information that will be asked from you will vary slightly from one hosting company to another, but many will be the same, like:
2. Choose Protocol
Set this to either http:// or http://www. It really doesn’t matter which one you choose as long as you do NOT choose https:// or https://www.
3. Choose a Domain
This is the site you’ll be installing WordPress on.
In Directory – This is the directory on your site that WordPress will be installed on. If you want it to be installed on yoursite.com/blog/ (for example) then enter “blog” (without quotes). If you want it to be installed on the root (i.e. yoursite.com) then leave this field blank. Most people will want to install on the root (i.e. yoursite.com).
Database name – You can leave this at whatever default your hosting company enters here. If it is blank just give it a random name… like wp943 (for example).
Table prefix – Again, you can leave this at whatever default your hosting company enters here. It is usually something like wp_
Site Name – This will be the title of your site … used in the title tag. Don’t worry too much about this. It can (and probably will) be changed again in the future from withint your WordPress admin panel.
Site Description – Again, don’t worry too much about this. It can be changed later.
Admin username – It’s a good idea to use something that is hard to guess for security reasons (like “admin876912)
Admin password – Choose a strong password.
Admin email – Obviously this is your email.
Once you’ve installed WordPress you should be able to login to your WordPress admin panel by going to yoursite.com/wp-admin and entering the username and password that you selected when setting it up.
That’s pretty much it for the Website Setup & Configurations part now you can go to the next step which is WordPress Customization.
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