Installing Wordpress 2.7
Start off by downloading Wordpress from the official Wordpress download page. All the files come in a single zip file.
Open the zip file and extract the files. In most zip programs you can just drag and drop the files into a folder. Once they are extracted, copy them to your website via FTP. If you are installing locally, copy the files into your document root folder.
Before we start installing Wordpress, we need to create a database for it.
If you have access to PhpMyAdmin then login and select Databases.
Scroll down to the area named ‘Create new database’ and enter the name of your database. You can name it whatever you want but you need to remember what you named it for later. Click create.
If you don’t have access to PhpMyAdmin and your host provides a control panel, look for an area named ‘MySQL Manager’ or ‘Manage Databases’ or something along those lines. Go there to create the database. Remember which user has access to that database.
If you are installing on your local computer or have shell access, run the following commands to create your database.
> mysql
mysql> create database wordpress;
Where ‘wordpress’ is the name of your database. You may need to change to your MySQL bin directory to get to the MySQL prompt.
Now that the database is created, navigate your browser to your website. If you copied the files to a subdirectory, go there. You should see a page prompting to create a configuration file. Click the button to create the configuration file.
You will be prompted with a welcome screen that lists the information you will need. Click “Let’s Go.”
You will be prompted with a page to enter the database information.
Database Name: The name of the database we created earlier
User Name: User with access to database (often ‘root’)
Password: Password for the user
Database Host: localhost if the MySQL server is on the same server. Note that many hosts have a separate host for the MySQL server. Check your control panel for this information)
Table prefix: The characters that will precede every table name. This is mainly useful for people who use hosts that restrict the number of databases they can have. Users may install several web applications in the same database and using the table prefixes helps prevent name conflicts.
If you get the page “Error establishing database connection,” go back and make sure all the information in the previous page is correct. Note that root may not have a password set, in which case create a password or leave the field blank.
If all the database information is correct, you should see a page with the button “Run the Install.” Click the button to install!
Next, you should see a page prompting you for the name of your blog and your email. You can always change these later but enter your information.
There is also a checkbox to allow your blog to be searched by search engines. Most people want keep this checked, otherwise your blog won’t be listed!
Click ‘Install Wordpress.’
Next you will be see a page with your username and password.
Copy the password into notepad and click “Log In.”
Enter your username “admin” and your randomly generated password. and click “Log in.”
Once logged in, click the User menu item on the left side.
Click on ‘admin’ from the user list.
Enter a new password for the admin account.
Now that we have a password we can actually remember, let’s make our first post. Click ‘Add New’ under the ‘Posts’ heading on the left menu.
Enter your post title and body, and click the ‘Publish’ button on the right side.
Go back to the main site, if everything went to plan, you should see your blog with your new post!
Conclusion and further reading.
Wordpress is one of the best blogging web applications available today. There are a huge amount of themes and plugins to turn your blog into what you want it to be.
Check out our other tutorials on installing (and creating your own!) plugins and themes.
Visit the Wordpress ‘Extend’ section to find new themes and plugins.
