In the previous post in my How to market yourself series, I described how to set up a website on a host’s server. Here I will tell you how to set up a WordPress blog on that server. Read my introduction to this self-marketing series here.
This article is about how to set up WordPress manually. If you don’t wish to do this or consider yourself “untechnical” please use the WordPress one-click install that most hosts have.
OK, so this information exists elsewhere on the internet, so why am I writing this post? Because WordPress is the best way I know to market yourself on the internet so this post is hugely important for this reason.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a robust and feature-full web publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards and usability. WordPress, as it says on it’s homepage, is both free and priceless at the same time.
This is about a WordPress.org blog. What’s the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com? WordPress.org is where you can download WordPress to use on your own hosting service and have your own specific website address (this is what I’m recommending). WordPress.com hosts WordPress blogs and therefore puts WordPress.com in your website address and gives you generally less control over your website, for example, the number and kind of adverts and affiliate links are restricted.
WordPress is the best Content Management System for simple “shop window on the world” websites for small and medium sized companies, in my opinion.
What’s good about WordPress?
It’s free. It’s easy to use. There is excellent support documentation and forums because, literally, millions use it. It’s database driven so you can transport it to another CMS if you really want to. Anyone can edit the site (with a username and password) from anywhere in the world. There are many different themes designed that you can dress it up in.
You can add loads of functionality to your website very easily, for example, search, sitemap, RSS feeds, comment forms, contact forms, galleries, etc. Believe me, I could go on.
Still not convinced? Have a look at these websites that use it: StyleWatch at People.com, Martha Stewart, PlayStation’s US blog, Stephen Fry and NY Times blogs.
So here’s the nitty-gritty.
How to install WordPress on your host server
Of course, there is great information on how to install WordPress on the WordPress site. But here’s what you do.
First download and un-zip the current version of WordPress.
Then, create a database and a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it. For those with cPanel go to MySQL Databases and do this. Write down the database name and the MySQL username and password. Finally add the user to the database.
Go to your version of WordPress you had just downloaded and in the folder named “wordpress” look for a file named “wp-config-sample.php”. Open it in your favourite text editor (eg. TextEdit for Mac; NotePad for PC), making sure you are editing in plain text, and look for these three lines at the top.
define(,DB_NAME,, "˜wordpress,); // The name of the database
define(,DB_USER,, "˜username,); // Your MySQL username
define(,DB_PASSWORD,, "˜password,); // "¦and password
Fill in the words you chose for your database name, username and password where it says 'wordpress', 'username' and 'password' in lowercase, keeping the inverted commas. Look back at your MySQL Databases page and make sure you have the database name and username exactly as it is there (there maybe prefixes added). Once you are happy with this Save As… “wp-config.php” back in the WordPress directory on your computer.
Now you have to decide whether you want WordPress to power your entire site or just a blog within the site. If you want your whole site to be a WordPress site then upload the contents of the “wordpress” folder but not the folder on the root directory of your host server. The root directory is sometimes called “public_html” or “html_docs”. If, however, you already have a site but just want to add WordPress as a blog then upload the whole “wordpress” folder to the root directory. You may want to re-name the directory “blog” so that the URL of the blog is forward slash blog after your website address.
Lastly, once the uploading is complete, simply go to http://www.mydomain.com/wp-admin/install.php if your whole website is WordPress, or http://www.mydomain.com/subdirectory/wp-admin/install.php if you put WordPress inside a sub-directory. (Replace “mydomain.com” with your own domain name and “subdirectory” with the name of the sub-directory you created, “blog” in our example).
Once at this page follow the prompts. You will be ask for your email address and website title, you can change these later. You will also be asked if you want to appear in search engines. I would check that option unless you want to view your website in isolation!
You will soon be emailed a password to access administration panels – keep a copy of this safe.
And now the fun really begins!
That was the famous 5 minute installation which took me at least half an hour the first time I did it and even now takes at least 10 minutes! Setting up WordPress on your host server is a task that prepares you for the process of owning and maintaining and constantly updated professional-looking website!
Good tutorial.. You forgot to mention that on Linux based hosting accounts, Cpanel managing systems have Fantastic plugin which can auto install WordPress on the hosting.
Great article Rob, I’ll been looking forward to part 4, although you seem to have made the installation look more complicated that it actually can be!?. My host includes “one click install”, and did loads of nitty-gritty for me, lol.
Hope you don’t mind me leaving a link for your readers, but I have a series dedicated how I Customized my WordPress Blog with installment #4 here:
http://www.andrewkelsall.com/how-i-customized-my-wordpress-blog-part-4/
Hello Web Design Beach and Andrew. Thank you for your comments.
Looking on the WordPress forums and documentation, a manual installation is generally preferred and advised to be better than a Fantastico “one click” installation.
One of the reasons of this is that the experience of editing a PHP file and creating a MySQL database teaches you a thing or two about maintaining CMSs.
One of the arguments for Fantastico was that it makes updating the CMS easier as well – WordPress updates every 3 months or so which means you had to go through a similar rigmarole to the manual installation for each update which was a bit of a bore. Not anymore though because of the excellent WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin which does this for you.
So I would still recommend new WordPress users install manually.
Real good tutorial. It really helps how to install wordpress, and your tutorial makes it much easier than the wordpress tutorial, because, you’ve summerized the most important facts and there not that much to read, so that I won’t need hours to read the wordpress tutorial, before I could install wordpress on my own. So I’ve really to thank you for this 🙂
wordpress is best CMS and best for beginer as I am, thanks for sharing
yeah, that’s a really good tutorial for beginners. thanks for sharing, this has really helped me
Good tutorial. I think wordpress is an extremely powerful platform and the install is super easy. I have begun using it for all my sites as my CMS driver. Makes life so much easier. I just have some problems with CSS and getting the graphics to display where I want them to go but thats CSS related and not WP related.
thank you for the article. i just about psesad your web site up in bing but now i’m glad i clicked the link and got to go through it. i’m definitely a lot more informed now.
Nice tutorial! I’ve been using blogger due to ease of setup but I’m a little annoyed with the limits on how it looks. Might give WordPress a try when I get my own website up & going.
Very nice article for folks just discovering the joys of WordPress. It works fine out of the box, but once you get it installed you’ll folks you won’t be able to stop tweaking it and fiddling with it until you get it juuuust right. Don’t even get me started on the joys of the many plugins…
I have been searching for something so lucid on wordpress for long, they are all dry technical stuff. This was such a nice read.
Thanks for posting this for novice like me. Waiting eagerly for part 4
Nice clear walkthrough…but I agree that on most hosts you can get a one-click install now…
Nice information, thank you! I love WordPress.
I love to use wordpress. Thanks for the update and information ! They are definitely useful to me.
Great write up indeed. I’ve been looking for a way to properly install WordPress with a helpful write up. This is just what I needed.
Thanks for the tutorial, it is something I can give my Dad so he can start blogging.
Hello, Amanda Ketten, I’m so glad that I have helped someone with this post. I know that there are extensive tutorials on the WordPress site but I’ve condensed it down a bit here. It’s not that simple; it’s not that complicated either.
basuki, yes WordPress is good for beginners
Stephanie Handscanner, you definitely win a prize for the best name on this site! Glad it’s helped you.
Volkan, I’m sure you are web site beautiful as well.
Graphics, yes WordPress and CMSs make life easier. One reason is you do not have to copy the header, sidebar and footer code for each page but there are many more good points. Keep coming back as I will be writing more about how to tweak the CSS and graphics to change your WordPress theme. Cheers!
TinyBird, you can transfer from Blogger to WordPress I believe. I think WordPress is the best.
Rich, you are absolutely right. It’s like customizing your favorite car with alloy wheels and go-faster stripes!
LED, thank you for your encouraging comment, I hope you liked parts 4 and 5, will try to write more soon.
Oli, thanks, I would still do it this way but there’s no harm in a one-click install.
Stef, no problem, come again.
Italian Restaurant, thanks!
UK Guy, glad I could help.
Dave Dugdale, I hope this helped your Dad. Funnily enough I had a comment on another post that it was going to be helpful for his Dad. Seems I’m helping everyone’s Dad at the moment!
Thank you everyone for the comments. Sorry I’ve been so slack in replying!
This tutorial is really helpful!
To those who are still contemplating on a blog platform, just go for WordPress; it rules!!!
Thanks FreelanceVenue, I agree with you, WordPress rules!
Thanks for this post. You have a lot of useful posts I will check out some more tomorrow.
We have a Blog on our site but its not not wordpress it’s a basic inhouse system provided by our hosting company.
Our Hosting company says that WordPress needs 24mb of PHP memeory to run and they only provide 16mb and you cant buy more. Do you think WordPress really needs 24MB? Do you think I should give it a try anyway see what happens?
Thanks
Alex
On the WordPress site they don’t specify PHP memory but WordPress does have a few memory issues for which there are a few fixes out there. I’ve had a few problems with it and I’ve got around them by adding a php.ini file on the server which specifies an amount of memory to be used by PHP and this can go up to 48MB so maybe it is an issue.
I would leave a post in one of the WordPress.org’s forums about this. Thanks for your comment Alex, I hope you find more of interest on this site.
Thanks for that Rob, I will go on their forum
Hi Alex I hope they sorted the issue out. I know the WordPress forums are really busy and sometimes a question gets overlooked but persistence will pay off.
Rob, Yes thanks we went ahead and installed it on our site anyway and it works fine. We’re currently designing our own bespoke theme as the default one isnt very good.
We also added an excellent plugin that gives us full control of the titles and descriptions – excellent for blog SEO.
I will email you the link to where you can get it.
Alex
Hi Alex, thanks for the link to that plugin. I’m planning to write a post about designing your own theme or modifying an existing one the problem is there’s so much to write about that it could be a very long post!
I’m a TOTAL beginner so please forgive this question-How exactly do I
“create a database and a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it. For those with cPanel go to MySQL Databases and do this. Write down the database name and the MySQL username and password. Finally add the user to the database.”
Hi Calandra, this really depends on your host. Ask them if you have cPanel or PHPmyAdmin or even if you have PHP on your server and the version of it. If you do have it then you’ll be able to perform this task through the back-end but your host will tell you if this is possible and how to do it. Hope this helps.
Thanks so much for the reply! I’ve managed to add the database…now I’m trying to upload the wordpress file.
I’ve been using Microsoft Publisher and Blogspot. It isn’t working out. For example, my website looks great from my end…on other computers…it’s a different story.
So I figured WordPress can really help me and it appears to be a wonderful alternative.
I’m a “grannypreneur,” so this has been pretty challenging…but in pieces, it’s all coming together.
I really appreciate the response. Your site is great-very helpful to beginners like myself-the information isn’t convoluted.
That’s no problem Calandra, are you using your Blogspot database for your new WordPress blog? If you are that is indeed an advanced undertaking. Don’t worry, together with your host and the information on the WordPress site you should work out how to do it. Come back if you have any further questions!
I did manage to add wordpress, but now I’m not able to install any plugins or my website files (which were originally in publisher) to my new wordpress domain. Any advice?
Hello again, Calandra, you need to give more detail about what problems you are experiencing and put it on the WordPress.org forum there are plenty who can help you there, although you may need to be persistent as it is a very busy forum.
You need to use your Blogspot database for your new WordPress blog and that should give you your old posts and comments. Also, you won’t be able to use your old plugins with WordPress. You should explain to someone what they did and find the WordPress equivalent plugin and install that.
I hope this helps.
Excellent tut! I am always trying to tell people – a self hosted wordpress blog is the way to go. Like you explained, there’s not much to it! People just overcomplicate things.
Going to bookmark in delicious so i can refer them 🙂
Yes, if people knew how easy and inexpensive it was a lot more people would do a self-hosted WordPress blog and wouldn’t go down other blogging routes.
I liked reading your blog…keep up the good work.
Great post, really read it thouroughly, thanx!
WordPress is great, no doubt about it. Very informative.
Thank you, Allister, I hope this may help someone set up a WordPress site!
It’sa fake WordPress logo.
Here you can find real WordPress logo.
Thanks for letting me know. I’ve changed it to an image with the correct logo. This article was actually written a while ago which is why I hadn’t realised about the faux-go.
Thanks for inspiring me to “have a go” to design our new site in WordPress. This is day 1 of the journey and so the site is just the template. I followed the installation instructions and all went well loading the files to 1and1 internet. I ran the installation link and it couldn’t comunicate with the server. At last today I have discovered the reason (steep learning curve). It was line four … /** MySQL hostname */ define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); I had to replace the localhost with the hostname that was in the sql admin area of the 1and1 control panel. Just thought I’d add this in case it save someone from pulling out their hair. Can’t wait to get stuck in now.
Hello Justin, thank you for your comment. I’m so glad I’ve inspired you to have a go with a self-hosted WordPress site! You certainly won’t regret it. I’m really sorry you had to add the fourth DB_HOST entry. 99% of the time you can leave that blank. Anyway, all the best and please let me know if you come across any other problems.