WP Installation

Installing WordPress

You never know when the 1-click-installs won’t be available.
It’s always best to know how to install WordPress manually so you have a better understanding of the install process.

1. Purchase hosting
2. If domain not included with hosting, purchase a domain –  https://www.namecheap.com/
3. If you purchase a domain separately you’ll need to ‘point’ the domain to the host’s servers.
4. Download latest version of WordPress from www.wordpress.org/latest.zip
5. Use the FTP program to link to the hosting account. Recommended free FTP program for a PC and Mac – http://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client
   FTP or File Transfer Protocol is used to transfer files between client and server
6. Upload zipped WordPress file to root directory of your account on the chosen server
7. Unzip the file using Extract function in cPanel’s “File Manager”
   cPanel is found by logging into your hosting account through a browser
8. While in cPanel using “MySQL databases” create a database
   1. Create a database with a random name. Do not use the domain in the name.
   2. Create a user for the database, and not using the domain in the name.
   3. Use a high strength password including Capitals & lower case letters, numbers and at least one symbol. Avoid words, use a random string of characters.
   4. Record database name, user name, and password as we’ll need these later.
   5. Add user to the database, giving the user ALL privileges.
9. Using a text editor like Notepad++ we will now edit a PHP file
   NotePad++ can be downloaded at http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
   1. In the wp-config-sample.php file, we’ll need to use the database information we recorded earlier and edit the following.
      1. Define database – “DB_Name”
      2. Define user – “DB_User”
      3. Define password – “DB_Password”
      4. Define host – “DB_Host”
      5. Change $table_prefix from “wp_”. New prefix should end with a _
      6. Add SALT keys by copy and pasting from https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/
10. Close wp-config-sample.php and rename it wp-config.php
11. In a browser go to your domain and you should get a WordPress installation page. If you don’t, try www.yourdomain.com/install.php
12. Fill in a user name, make it unique and do NOT use “admin”, enter a strong password (record for future reference), your email address and site title.
13. Congratulations you now own a Website.

For the official line on install see http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress

Tweaks in wp-config.php to optimise your site:
Add or edit the following code:

define(‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’,?); – number of revisions to store
define(‘AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL’,?); – seconds between saves
define(‘EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS’,?); – days before files deleted
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’,’128M’);