How To Download WordPress, FTP Upload, Installation and Basic Setup.

If your Host has One-Click WordPress Install you should use that and you don’t need this article!

If not:

WordPress has become a very widely known Content Management System for websites. It is free and easy to use and with the information in this book, you can create your own website.

WordPress is easy to use. It handles text and images very easy and if you want to optimize for search engines WordPress is definitely the way to go!

You can find tons of templates for WordPress on the web. This means you can completely redesign Your site in less than a minute!

In this guide you will learn:
1. How to download WordPress.
2. How to Install WordPress.

Prerequisites

Before trying to download and install WordPress, make sure you have the following:

1. A computer (of course!) running Windows XP, Windows Vista, Win7, Win8 or newer).
2. Your access codes from your hosting provider. You need codes for FTP access and database (some kind of SQL) access.
3. Maybe you need Winzip. But don’t worry now. We will come back to this
4. Hosting. You need somewhere to upload your WordPress installation. You need hosting. You can choose to host it yourself which this manual does not cover, or you can buy hosting from a hosting company. They will supply you with disk space, an SQL based database, a control panel and some access codes.
5. Some kind of FTP software. I prefer FileZilla as it is very easy and very FREE! Go to http://filezilla-project.org/download.php and download the latest stable FileZilla for Windows. There usually is a big green button and there is a link like this (the version number 3.6.0.2 changes): FileZilla_3.6.0.2_win32.zip Use whichever you want.

If you download using FileExplorer you get this:

Click save and chose a location. It could be My Computer, Select C: and next Program Files. (Or any other place you like – just remember it for later use).

It might also look like this:

Click Save and select a location and you get this:

Click Open Folder and you get something like this:

Double click the red Filezilla icon and go with the instructions. FileZilla is now installed.

Download WordPress

There are thousands of sites offering download of WordPress, but the only true source of download is http://wordpress.org/download/.

You can download it as a normal .zip file or as .tar.gz. It is the same WordPress but in two different containers.

Zip is generally for Windows and tar is generally for Unix systems.

I presume you are on a Windows platform and then you just click the blue button (Download WordPress 3.x) and save the file somewhere on your hard drive you can remember. Let’s assume you save it in the directory called “Downloads”. It will be saved as “wordpress-3.x.zip” where 3.x is the version number which changes regularly.

Normally Windows can unpack a zipped file, but if not you have to go to: http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm and download and install WinZip.

Here are a few examples of how it might look. Computers are different so it might look different in your Windows.

In both of these images we have located the download directory and the last image shows how to Right Click and Extract files from the Zip archive.

After this Windows will ask for a location and I know that I would save my unpacked and almost ready WordPress installation files in a place where I can find them easily so I enter “C:\wp” (without “”) and click finish.

Prepare Installation

So we have to open FileExplorer and find C:\wp (or whatever you chose to name it).

From the File Explorer it would look something like this:

Easy! Right?

Upload WordPress

You need some kind of FTP program to upload WordPress. In this example, we will use Filezilla. You can see the details in the Prerequisites chapter.

In the first box (where I have entered: web14.gigahost.dk) you have to enter the address of your host.

In the second box, you enter your user name as provided by your hosting company.

In the third box, you enter your password as provided by your hosting company.

In the fourth box, you enter the port number as provided by your hosting company. If you don’t have any you can try port 21 which is the default for FTP connections.

Click Connect.

If you encounter problems check under Settings/FTP that you are using the appropriate mode. (Passive mode is recommended).

In the left column, I have selected the WordPress folder (c:\WP). And In the right Select all files (Ctrl + A), right-click and click Upload.

The upload will take a few minutes.

Create Database

The process is different at different companies, and some hosting companies have the database created for you in which case you will have received information including the database name and you can skip this chapter.

If not you have to log in at your hosting company using the credentials provided by them and create your own database.

In general, you log in, go to your database administration, create a database and in some cases also a database user.

There will be a “Create new Database” button or link somewhere. After clicking this you will be prompted for the Database name and Password which you enter. The process is very simple.

Your hosting company can provide help or you can find more help here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress.

Your hosting company is the only one that has the exact information on how to do this, so contact them if you are in doubt.

WordPress describes different processes and you should be able to find one that matches your needs.

Installation

Now you have uploaded WordPress and to proceed with the installation you open a browser and enter the name of your site:

Click “Create a Configuration File”. Then you will see this:

Make sure you got:
1. Your database name.
2. Your database username.
3. Your database password.
4. Your database host URL.
5. Your table prefix if you want to run more than one installation in a single database. If you want a little more security use something else than WP_ and use a database name that isn’t obvious.

My provider demands a prefix on my database (fonsbo_) which I have to enter. Enter your database credentials here and leave the Table Prefix as it is (WP_).

(You have one database and this database contains a number of tables.)

Click submit.

If everything was entered correctly you get this:

And you click “Run the Install”.

Next, you will see this:

Here you enter the name of your site (You can always change this later) and you have to create your first homepage user. I recommend you do not use Admin. This will make it easier for hackers as this is the first name they will try. Remember to enter your email.

And we are ready to log in!

Click Login and you will see the standard WordPress login page:

Here you enter the name and the password of the user you just created here.

IMPORTANT:

When you log in to WordPress you can do it by entering your site name in your browser followed by “wp-admin”:

www.YourDomain.com/wp-admin

A few tools to test your blog:

General test:
http://www.IsMyBlogWorking.com

HTML test:
http://www.Validator.w3.org

WordPress Help
http://wordpress.org/support/