WordPress Installation

WordPress as a blog publishing system is famous for its ease of use and flexibility. Among all the features of the wordpress system, it’s easy and simple installation can be considered as one of its most important virtues. If you are a newbie and are looking to install the wordpress system for the first time, the basic steps are listed below.

In order to install the wordpress system, you first need to know a few things before you can actually begin with installation:

• For a proper installation, you need to have file uplading access (FTP) to your website’s folders on the server.
• You have to be able to access your web server either through shell or through FTP. You normally get FTP access when you apply for online hosting.
• You will need FTP software installed on the computer from which you intend to upload files to the server. Sometimes the hosting will have a web based file uploading system, in which case you can use that instead of FTP.

After you have sorted out the above mentioned points, you then need to do the following:

Ensure that your web hosting meets the minimum requirements needed to run the wordpress system. The server has to support PHP and MySQL. You need the ability to create a new MySQL database. Usually that can be done through your hosting’s online administrator interface (if your webhost company has it, log in and search around for a way to add a mysql database. Otherwise contact your hosting support and ask them to add a mysql database for your wordpress blog – remember the name of the database, you will need it later when configuring the blog)

Step by Step Instructions for WordPress Installation:

1. Download the latest version of wordpress and save it on your computer’s hard drive.
2. Simply unzip or extract the downloaded wordpress package on your harddisk.
3. Create a MySQL database for the wordpress on your web server.
4. Once you have created the database, have a look at the unzipped wordpress files. Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
5. Now that the file has been renamed, you should open the wp-config.php file in the text editor and then fill the required details of the database. (Right click on the file and select “Open With” in the popup windows menu. Then select to open the file with Notepad or Wordpad).
6. Now, store these wordpress files in the desired or decided location of the web server (usually the main folder of your website). If you wish to put the wordpress into the root of your domain i.e. (www.yourdomain.com) then you need to upload all the unzipped wordpress files directly to your server’s root folder (do not put the files into a “wordpress” sub-folder on the server, but rather directly into the root). Else, if you wish the wordpress system to be installed in the subdirectory of your selected website (http://abc.com/blog/) then, just create a folder with your desired name and upload the wordpress files into it.
7. Now, open a web browser and go to your blog’s www address. There will be an installation script waiting for you. It will guide you through the rest of the process.

If you have installed the system in the root directory, then the blog should be located on www.yoursite.com, else if you have installed it in a sub-folder, then it should be located in www.yoursite.com/subfolder/

After you have configured everything to meet your requirements, it’s time to download a good wordpress template. Unzip it, and upload all the files (and folders) from the zip file into your blog’s /wp-content/themes/ folder. Each theme should be placed in a sub-folder by itself. So the directlry structure would be /wp-content/themes/themename/(files are here).

That’s It, your wordpress blog is installed, configured and looking great.