In this article I will show you how to install WordPress in cPanel in just 5 easy steps. WordPress is one of the most fastest growing Content Management System software on the market. It is also probably the easiest and most powerful CMS nowadays.
With WordPress you can create a blog in just 5 minutes, a presentation website and even an online store. Due to its fast growing community, there are tons of plugins and themes with which you can customize your website as you like. You can additionally enhance your WordPress website security by installing plugins that do just this.
Let’s start ( How to install WordPress in cPanel)
Download WordPress
Download the latest WordPress package to your local computer from https://wordpress.org/download/ and click on the Download WordPress button to begin downloading. To this moment, The latest version of WordPress is 6.0.2
If you don’t want to download the latest version, you can simply go to https://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/ and choose older versions of WordPress. After successfully download to your computer, Unzip the downloaded package to a folder in your local computer. However, I don’t advise you to download older WordPress versions.
Install WordPress in cPanel
There are 3 ways of install WordPress in cPanel (uploading any files to a hosting account),
- Upload via FTP
- Upload via File Manager
- Upload via SSH
The first two are the most used. Use the method you are comfortable with.
I’m going to use FileZilla (it’s free) to show you how to easily upload WordPress to cPanel. The FileZilla client can be downloaded from here.
As soon as the FileZilla instalation completes, open the client and let’s get to work.
Insert your FTP credentials: host (www.example.com), username and password and click Quickconnect. Usually they are the same credentials you are using to log into cPanel. If you cannot log in via FTP, you’d want to contact your hosting provider and ask them for more information.
Go to public_html folder and create a new directory for your WordPress website. For security reasons, I suggest choosing a strong folder name to protect yourself from bots and crackers.
It isn’t necessary to install WordPress in a specific directory, you can as well copy-paste all the WordPress files into public_html and install it like this. But for the sake of security and folder management I would suggest creating a new directory.
Drag and drop. Locate your recently downloaded WordPress folder and simply drag and drop all the files into your newly created directory on your public_html.
Congrats! You’ve just uploaded your WordPress website via FTP!
Let’s go to the next step.
Create MySQL Database and User
Once you’ve uploaded the WordPress folder to cPanel, you have to create the database in which WordPress will store its information.
- Log into cPanel
- Go to Database section and click on MySQL Databases icon
- Create a database from the “Create a New Database” section. Choose a name that is fit for your website and insert it in the form. I will go with “wordpress” because it’s a WordPress website that I’m installing.
For security reasons, you might want to scramble your database name a little bit, because a database named “wordpress” is more vurnarable than a database named “wp9823”. For the sake of simplicity, I will go simple with “wordpress”.
Create an user for your database. From the same MySQL Databases panel, scroll down a bit to MySQL Users section. Choose an username for your database. Again, for security reasons I would recommend choosing a complicated username and a very strong password. I will go with “wp” just to show you how it looks.
If you cannot think of a strong password, you can click the “Password Generator” button to create a random strong password. But be careful to save your password somewhere secure so you don’t lose it.
Add an user to a Database. From the “Add a user to Database” section, choose your user and database from the dropdown menus and click the “Add” button.
Now you can see that a new window has popped out and you must choose the privileges for your user and click the “All Privileges” checkbox and click “Next Step“.
Congrats! Your database is all set and we’re ready to go install WordPress on cPanel!
Configure wp-config.php
The wp-config.php file contains all the database information WordPress application needs to know.
You must configure wp-config.php to ensure the correct database information is associated with the WordPress instalation.
The wp-config.php file can be found inside your WordPress folder, usually at public_html/yourwordpressfolder/wp-config-sample.php.
As soon as you locate the file:
Right click on it, and select Edit.
When the file opens, look for the following information:
- Replace database_name_here with the name of the database you created earlier
- Replace username_here with the username you created for the database you created
- Replace password_here with the password of the database that you created
- When done editing, make sure you save and then close the file
Congrats! You’ve just set up the configurations. Let’s go further, you’ve got one last step until you complete the installation!
Run and Complete the Installation
Open a browser window and access the installation page to run the installation script. Depending where you installed your WordPress, you will find it at either of the following urls:
http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php
http://yourdomain.com/yourwordpressdirectory/wp-admin/install.php
Note: Create an administrator account. Make sure you choose a strong password.
You are now good to go!
Thank You for reading this article on How to install WordPress in cPanel
