How To Install WordPress Onto Your Website

This post on how to install WordPress onto your website is what works for me. I cannot guarantee that it will work for you.

How To Install WordPress Onto Your Website

I have a friend who blogs using the Weebly platform who would like to move her blog to WordPress. Having installed WordPress on a few client’s websites I decided to write her a set of instructions to start the process of moving her website to WordPress.

While you are busy setting up your WordPress site you can continue blogging. You will not complete the final move until you are happy with how it looks etc.

Before you can move a website to WordPress.org there are a few things that have to be done.

1. You have to have your own domain i.e. http://tandysinclair.com. A lot of blogs are hosted on a free platform and have an extension i.e. .blogspot or .wordpress. Before you can move your website you have to register your domain.  There is a nominal cost to do this and an annual fee involved in keeping your domain name.
2. Once you have registered your domain you need to ‘self-host’ your website. In order to do this you need an internet service provider (ISP). In South Africa I am charged a monthly hosting fee, but I am not sure how that works elsewhere.

Your ISP needs to do a few things, and give you some information.

1. Get your ISP to create a MySQL database. They will know what this is. Once they have created the database you need the following information:
   1. Host
   2. Username
   3. Password
   4. Database
2. You need the details from them on how to connect to your site from the back end:
   1. Domain URL (Universal Resource Locator)
   2. Domain name (which should be the same as your websites URL)
   3. Password
3. You will need the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) details
   1. Host
   2. Username
   3. Password
   4. Port

Once you have all of that

You need to download and install a FTP program. I use FileZilla and you can download that by clicking here.

Next you must download WordPress onto your computer. To do that, click here.

The latest version of WordPress will be listed. This is a .zip file. Once you have downloaded the file, extract the .zip file.

You are now ready to start the initial phase of the move

1. Open your website via the domain log in (i.e. the backend of your site)
2. Find the MySQL database and make a note of the following:
   1. Database name
   2. User name / login
   3. Password
3. Go to where you have extracted WordPress and do the following:
   1. Find the wp-config-sample.php file and open it in Notepad (or any text editor)
   2. Scroll using your arrow keys until you find: The name of the database for WordPress. Then do the following, leaving the single quotes in place:
      1. Replace database_name_here with the name of your database
      2. Replace username_here with your username
      3. Replace password_here with your password
   3. Now click File Save As and save the file as: wp-config.php making sure that you select the file type as All Files if you’re editing in Notepad. This must go in the same directory as the wp-config-sample.php file

4. Open up FileZilla (or the FTP client you prefer to use)
   1. Enter in your host name, username and password (I don’t enter the port number but you might have to)
   2. Connect to your site
   3. The window is split in two – the left is your computer and the right is your website/server
   4. Find public_html on your server and click once
   5. Find the extracted WordPress folder on your computer
   6. Click on the folder to open and select all the files
   7. Right-click and select Upload
5. Once the upload is complete you will need to do the following:
   1. Open your browser and enter the following:
      1. http://yourdomain.com/wp-config.php replacing yourdomain with your website URL. The WordPress configuration page will open.
      2. Select your language option
      3. Give your site a title. Mine is Lavender and Lime
      4. Enter a user name (I use the same as my FTP)
      5. Enter a password (I use the same as my FTP)
      6. Enter your email address
      7. Unclick the Allow search engines to index this site. You will select this option once you are finished with your move
      8. Click Install WordPress
      9. Click Log In
      10. Enter your username and password
      11. Click remember me, and log in

Your installation steps are now complete. I will blog soon on how to move your website to WordPress. Please note, this worked for me. I cannot guarantee that it will work for you. If you need help send me an email. 

What I blogged:

• three years ago – I Have Been Tagged
• four years ago – Whole Baby Tomato and Onion Chutney

Top of Page