WordPress is the best platform to run your website on these days. In fact, it accounts for over 28% of the internet since it is the most popular choice. After registering your domain, setting up web hosting, and linking them together it's the perfect time to install WordPress. In this article, we are going to be installing WordPress on our main domain.
This article is part of the process in creating a website.
Installing WordPress
Estimated time: 10 minutes
- Go To SiteGround: Login to your SiteGround account.
- cPanel: Then go to the "My Accounts" tab on the top menu, and click the "Go to cPanel" button.
- WordPress Installer: Under the "Wordpress Tools" section, click on the "Wordpress Installer" icon.
- Install Link: On the next screen, you will see the installer page. Scroll down a little bit and click the "Install Now" link.
- WordPress Setup: On the next screen, you will see the protocol and the choose domain options. You should be starting a new website with the secure https protocol, and SiteGround gives you a free Let's Encrypt certificate.
- Select "https://" or "https://www." from the drop down menu for the protocol (it's your personal preference). Next, select your main domain from the domain drop down list. This is the domain name that you registered at Namecheap, and also created the add-on domain for (for example: empoweredowl.com). This is not your SiteGround web hosting domain (for example: empoweredowlhost.com).
- Other Settings: For the other options, here are the recommended settings:
- In Directory: leave blank
- Site Name: put in the name of your website, you can change this later
- Site Description: put in the tagline of your site that appears on the top browser tab, you can change this later
- Enable Multisite (WPMU): leave it unchecked
- Admin Username: you want this to be a random set of letters and numbers (for security reasons, never put admin, test, or the name of your site here); something random like "gwr9yc" is ideal, and keep it in a safe place so that you can use it later
- Admin Password: create the password for your account, and keep it in a safe place so that you can use it later
- Admin Email: your email address for the website which is ideally a 3rd party email address like Gmail
- Select Language: preferred language of the website
- Limit Login Attempts (Loginizer): leave unchecked, we will be using another plugin for this capability
- Contact Form by WPForms-lite: leave unchecked
- Choose a Theme to install: None
- Advanced Options: keep the defaults
- Install: When you have the settings set correctly, click the "Install" button at the bottom of the page. You will need to stay on the next screen until the installation completes, which should only take a few minutes.
- Successful Install: When it completes, you will be taken to a screen where it says it installed correctly. Click the "Return to Overview" link at the bottom. On the next screen, you can scroll down and you will see the installation of your domain and WordPress in a table.
- Website Check: If enough time has passed since you linked your Namecheap main domain nameservers to your SiteGround web hosting account addresses previously (it could take up to 48 hours), you can go to your main domain and see if it's live yet. If it is live, you will see some sort of website with your main domain name, and possibly a post about " WordPress Resources at SiteGround".
- Problems: If you have some unexpected errors or problems arise, in order to address them, you may need to submit a ticket with SiteGround support or use the live chat. You can do this by logging into your SiteGround account and at the top, click the "Support" tab, then you can use the different options that fits your problem to get someone to help you. I often use the live chat and they have my problem solved in under 5 minutes.
After installing WordPress, it's best to go ahead and change your WordPress settings.