Installing WordPress

At this point, you should be able to type your domain name into a web browser and reach the site (even though there is nothing installed on it yet).

Sometimes it will take your domain name registrar up to 24 or even 48 hours to completely transfer the name server settings, but you will often be able to reach the site immediately or within a couple of hours.

To be sure, try visiting your cPanel through your new domain name (it won't work if it isn't transferred to your server yet).

When you can reach the Control Panel through the new domain name, you can proceed with installing WordPress.

Look for the Software/Services section of icons in cPanel, and click on Quicklnstall:

In the top-left of the Quicklnstall page, look for the menu called Blog Software, and click on the WordPress link:

Next, click on the Continue button:

You will now need to provide some initial information so WordPress can be installed. Start by selecting the domain name from the drop-down list. The text box to the right of the domain should remain blank, unless you are trying to install WordPress to a subdirectory on that domain.

I typically choose to disable Auto Upgrades and simply perform them manually with each new version release (to ensure new upgrades do not cause conflicts with old plugins on the site, which could break the site without me knowing about it).

Provide a title for your site, which I often set as my target keyword phrase for the whole site. Then provide an admin username as well as your first and last name. Click the Install Now button when you are ready to proceed.

You will then see a progress bar start at 1% and build up to 100%. Once it is done, WordPress is installed and running on the domain name.

You will also be provided the link for the administration area and your login information. You will need the password provided here to be able to login to the site for the first time. In case you close that page, the password is also sent to you in an email using the admin email address you have provided for the installation.

Other notes and/or important information may be included by WordPress here as well. Currently, they are packaging WP-Super-Cache with WordPress to increase performance, but this information could easily change as new versions of WordPress are released (this is current as of version 3.6 of WordPress).

I've included a screenshot of this page from my installation. I've still included all of the login information below, just so you can see the important parts that you'll need to retrieve from your own installation (I didn't want to blur this out for this picture). With that said, the login information below won't work to login to my site - I've simply changed it after logging in for the first time, which you should also do with your own site (ie, don't use the default password).

Once you have WordPress successfully installed and running on your domain name, just login to the Admin Area using the information provided here. We'll be working directly on the site starting with that page in the rest of this lesson.