Step Three: Installing WordPress

Yes, this could have easily been step two, but I figure having a theme picked out, and a vision of what your site will be at the end, will be good for you to have through this more technical portion of the tutorial.

Kelley’s site is set up on Westhost, so this lesson will reflect that. I want to make it clear, however, that there are many other options for hosting your WordPress site - I choose Westhost because they have proven reliable to me over many years.

The purpose of this post is to help you gain FTP access (so you can upload files to your host) and to get your Westhost site ready for a WordPress installation. I will then direct you to WordPress.org for the actual installation instructions, since they do a smashing job of explaining things.

First things first: You need FTP access.

You will need this even if someone else installs WordPress for you, or you won’t be able to upload widgets or plugins.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and it acts as a “bridge” between your computer and your host’s computer to upload and download files. This used to be sort of complicated, but there are a number of very straightforward solutions to FTP nowadays.

Here is what I suggest:

1. Install the Web browser Firefox if you have not already.
2. Install the Firefox plugin, fireftp.
3. In Firefox, go to Tools, and you will see a link to fireftp.
4. In fireftp, click “Manage Accounts”
5. Account Name: any name you want
6. Host: yourdomainname.com
7. *Login: the FTP Username your host has provided you for access to your account
8. *Password: the password your host has provided you for access to your account

* This information will be in the email Westhost sent entitled “IMPORTANT! Hosting Account Information…” Your FTP Username will be username@yourdomain.com if you purchased the personal starter plan that I recommended.

So, if I had a Westhost Personal Starter Plan for www.deltina.com, this is how I would set this up:

Account Name: Deltina
Host: deltina.com
Login: deltina@deltina.com
Password: ********

9. Now, click on “Connect.” What you will see are the files on your computer to the left, and the files on your host’s computer (the files that make up your Web site) on the right.

10. On the right side, double click www, then double click on the name of your site. This will bring you to your main directory. You should see a couple files called index.html and poweredby.png. If WordPress is already installed, you will also see WordPress related files and directories that we will discuss later. Please note that this step is specific ONLY to a Westhost hosted site, your main (or “root”) directory may be someplace different with a different host.

Next, ready your site for the WordPress Installation.

There are a few requirements that must be met in order for WordPress to work properly on your site:

1. You need to install MySQL.
2. You need to install PHP.
3. You need to install phpMyAdmin

But DON’T PANIC, none of these tasks are difficult if you are using Westhost or another user-friendly host.

To accomplish these steps, go to your Westhost site manager.

Instructions for getting there are in the email you received from them about your account. To access your site manager, go to www.yourdomainname.com/manager and use the username and password they provided. Westhost has excellent documentation on how to install all of it’s site applications, including the ones listed above.

Finally, you are at a point where you can go to WordPress.org and follow their detailed installation instructions.

And do not fear, they are very straightforward - you can do it!

Next step: Customizing Kelley’s theme…