Self Hosted WordPress Tutorial Part 2

In the first post of this WordPress Tutorial Series we looked at getting your domain registered and your host set up. So hopefully by now your DNS has propagated and you are ready to set up your domain.

To get started with the next few steps you first will have to log into your Cpanel account. With most hosts you can do this by going to

www.yourdomain.com/cpanel

and then use the login details you were given in the welcome email of your host. Whatever you do, never misplace those, otherwise you might not be able to login again.

The following screen shot will show you how Cpanel admin looks like partially and you will want to look for the “Fantastico” Icon on the bottom left.

Once you find the Fantastico Icon, click on it and it will open up a new window as seen on the next image

This is the home view within Fantastico and in the left hand side column you will see “WordPress” under Blogs. It is the 6th one down.

Click on the WordPress line and it will open up another window. in the next part we need to decide whether we want the blog installed on a sub domain or on the root.

In this view you can see a title called “New Installation“. It sits just above the yellow text bar I have put into the image so you can find it better.

Click on it!

Now you will have an option as to either install the blog on the root domain, or a sub domain. let me explain what the differences are.

A root domain is when you leave the field empty and therefore it will install the WordPress files onto your domain name. It will read http://www.yourdomain.com

A sub domain means that you still have your original domain as before (like the one you registered but your blog would then sit on an extension and will read

http://www.yourdomain.com/blog to choose this option you will need to input blog into the field of the directory name. Alternatively you could choose something else.

The following is what you will see in the admin section after the last image above.

Install WordPress (1/3)

Installation location

Install on domain: here you should choose the domain you registered with GoDaddy

Install in directory: see notes below

Notes: Leave empty to install in the root directory of the domain (access example: http://domain/). Enter only the directory name to install in a directory (for http://domain/name/ enter name only). This directory SHOULD NOT exist, it will be automatically created!

• Admin access data
• Administrator-username (you need this to enter the protected admin area)
• Password (you need this to enter the protected admin area)
• Base configuration
• Admin nickname
• Admin e-mail (your email address)
• Site name
• Description
• E-mail account configuration
• E-mail account username
• E-mail account password
• POP/SMTP server
• POP/SMTP server port

Some of the fields above will automatically be populated for you.Others might be filled in by yourself. Just remember to click the Install WordPress Button at the end.

Then in the new window that opens you will see a success message if you did it all right. Also, make sure you send yourself an email with all the installation data and keep it safe. You have an option to do this as well in the new window after you click the Install WordPress Button.

That’s it, you just installed WordPress on a brand new domain and in the next part we will go into changing your theme and uploading files via FTP.