Make a Website Great

Because many Web hosts provide a “one step” installation feature for popular Web scripts, installing WordPress is usually a very simple process. In this post I walk you through installing WordPress through Fantastico and cPanel, both of which you should have if you followed my advice on signing up for Web hosting.

cPanel is a hosting account management software, and if you signed up with a hosting company that supports it, you should have received a link your login page. (For more information on logging into cPanel see this post.)

Go ahead and log in, and on the page that comes up you should see an icon called “Fantastico De Luxe“. Find this icon and click it:

Fantastico is a Web based software package that simplifies and automates the installation of Web scripts. On the page that comes up you’ll see a list of scripts that are available for installation with Fantastico. Select the “WordPress” option:

Once you do that you’ll see Fantastico’s panel for WordPress on the right. Click the “New Installation” link:

The next screen is where the real action takes place. You’ll see a form asking you to fill in the details of the installation:

Here’s what you’ll need to fill in:

Install on Domain – Choose the domain name of your WordPress site. If you’ve set up only one domain under your hosting account, then you’ll only have one option.

Install in Directory – If you leave this blank (recommended), your WordPress installation will live under the root of your domain, i.e. if your domain name is examle.com, then your WordPress site will be accessible from http://example.com. Otherwise, if you specify a directory, say “test”, then WordPress will be accessible from http://example.com/test.

Administrator Username – This is the username of the site’s administrator, i.e. you. For security purposes, choose something not as easily guessable as the standard ‘admin’ username.

Administrator Password – This is your password. Choose something very difficult to guess. Include digits in your password.

Admin Nickname – This is how the admin user will be referred to and displayed by WordPress. So for example, if your nickname is ‘Stimpy’, then posts by you may say something like “Written by Stimpy”.

Admin Email – This is your admin user’s email address. Make sure it’s correct because if you forget your password, this is where a reset will be sent.

Site Name – A headline for your site. Some WordPress themes (a theme controls the way a WordPress installation looks), including the default theme, display this in the site’s header.

Site Description – Like the site name, only instead of a headline, it’s a slogan or a more detailed, yet short description.

Don’t sweat over the site name and description, as they are easily changeable from within the WordPress admin panel.

After you fill everything in, click the “Install WordPress” button. A screen detailing what’s about to be done will appear. Click the “Finish Installation” button there, and presto, you have a WordPress site.

Point your browser to the site’s domain to see your new WordPress site. To log into the administration panel go to http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin. (Replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain of course.)

The default theme is somewhat ugly, but don’t worry, WordPress makes it easy to change it into one that’s more attractive.