WordPress

How to Install WordPress

In this post we will make the next step in setting up our online shop. We will install WordPress publishing platform onto your website.

How to install WordPress

If you followed out instructorial post and registered your website with Hosting Ireland, you would have received a welcome email from them telling you how to log into your cPanel.

If this is your first experience at setting up a website, what you need to know is that cPanel is the fundamental control panel for your website. You can manage your website contents from cPanel, change the underlying settings and create new email accounts. Here is also where you need to be to install WordPress onto the website you have just set up.

Step 1: Select the right version of PHP

Once you land into the cPanel main dashboard you are likely to see something like this:

Scroll down to the section titled “Software” and select “Select PHP version” icon:

Click on the icon as indicated above to find yourself on the following screen:

At the moment of writing this post, the very latest version of PhP is 7.2. having spoken to our technical support, their advise is to go for the version of PhP that is one step older than the most recent version. In our case the most recent version is 7.2 so I selected 7.1 for my website.

Click the “update” button at the bottom of the page and return to the main cPanel page.

Step 2: Install WordPress platform using Softaculous

Once you are back to the homepage of your cPanel, click on the Softaculous icon to install WordPress:

Once you are in the Softaculous panel, you will wither see WordPress as the first icon on your screen as you can see from the screen I have:

If by some chance the WordPress icon is not on your front page, simply put it into the search field in the top left hand corner to find it.

Hover over the WordPress ison to either select the “install” button or click into it to learn more:

Click “Install now” button to work through the setup process as following:

In the first section you need to make sure that the protocol you are using is https://

If you are unsure why you should have https:// (i.e. SSL Certificate) for your website, don’t worry – here’s a post I wrote earlier to cover this question in detail.

One word of warning to make sure I save you at least two hours of frustrating Google search is to clear the “In Directory” field. “Why” would be a reasonable question where.

Why clear the “In Directory” field I hear you ask?

Because this way you will install your wordpress into the root directory of your website. Let’s make it simple on ourselves right now (I mean why make life complicated in the first place, but that’s a question for another post… or another blog entirely!). So in the spirit of making life simple – clear that field and install your WordPress into the root directory of your website.

Message me if you need help understanding what a “root directory” is – I’m here to help!

Step 2 continued: next screen in setting up WordPress

Scroll down to see the next two sections of the setup screen:

On the screen above you can see that you need to fill in the site name and side description. The default settings are pre-filled for you, but as an artist, it’s a good idea to change them to something more personable.

In our case our main site name is SoapsAndRoses.ART and the description is changed to our slogan of “Living life as a form of Art”. You can change it later once you log into your WordPress dashboard, but if you have your details ready, then now is the time to fill them in!

When is comes to selecting your admin account, whatever you do – make sure you come up with a memorable and unique account name.

Just to make it absolutely clear, this is an important security point: Make sure your come up with a unique name for your admin account! (AND a unique password)

SoapsAndRoses.business

I cannot stress it strongly enough – this is where you choose a name for your account that will allow you to log into the WordPress dashboard to do all of the work on you site.

This is also the name that any potential hacker will try to guess to get into your site. If you think it is not going to happen – it will and it does. And even if it doesn’t – why create a situation in which someone can just walk into your website and take over?

You won’t give the codes to your home security system to anyone – why make it simple for a breakin to your website.

So set up an admin name that is:

1. Memorable to you
2. Not an “Admin”
3. Should be reasonably difficult to guess outright

You can see that the login password for your admin WordPress account is suggested to you. Personally, I would use that suggested password as a starting point and then add something to the end of the middle of the beginning of it to make it easier to remember. In short – make it yours and then make sure you save it somewhere safe or even better – memorise it. (Lecture over!)

Fill in the email address you would like to use for for people contacting you as your site administrator. In our case we have our unique contact email address set-up previously to information@soapsandroses.com (or information@soapsandroses.co.uk).

Moving further down the screen the installer will offer you to choose the theme for your site. Again – this is something you can choose at a later stage.

Leave the advanced options as they are for now and click on “Install”. You can go and make yourself a cup of tea while you are waiting because the set up may take a few minutes depending on the speed of your internet connection.

You can pat yourself on the back for successfully installing WordPress when you seen the following screen:

Congratulations! You can now move on to designing your website!

I’ll talk about the best free WordPress themes for creative e-commerce shops in my next post.

Hope you found this useful.

SoapsAndRoses.Business