Installing WordPress CMS
Ok. We configured the hosting and everything is ready for the WordPress installation. To install WordPress CMS, you have to:
- Go to HawkHost.com
- Click on SUPPORT AND CLIENT AREA (right side menu – IMG 1).
- If you’re not logged in with your credentials, log in first.
- Click on “SERVICES” (IMG 2)
- From the list, click on your product (IMG 3)
- In this interface, you have a bunch of buttons. The idea is to login into cPanel, so the quickest way to do this is to search in the left side menu, in the “One Click Login” section, and to click on “cPanel”. You will be redirected to the cPanel. (IMG 4)
- To quick install WordPress CMS, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and in the Softaculous Apps Installer, choose WordPress. (IMG 5)
- Press on “Install Now” button.
Here is a gallery with the “how-to” pictures:
WordPress Installation Dashboard
Ok. We successfully completed the first steps. Now you should be in the WordPress CMS installation dashboard (see the ss).
Here are the main parts of this interface:
Softaculous cPanelI. Choose Installation URL:
WordPress Installation 11. URL structure
a. Website protocol: Avoid HTTP. Not only no one is using HTTP nowadays, but also Google (and not only) will penalize your site not being secured. So, you must choose HTTPS.
b. With or without www in the URL?
Well, from my past experience, yes: You should use www in the URL, even if you have a small site. I personally choose the www in URL, because I like to think it gives much authority to the website. There are more important factors, but you are on the stage where simply you don’t need this information. Anyway, if you’re just curious, you can learn more here:
2. Installation URL:
If you have more than 1 domain or more subdomains under 1 domain, you must choose just one from them. This will be your website address. I will choose test2.***.com.
Note*: From security reasons, I will hide/blur the personal information.
3. “In Directory”:
You can install WordPress directly on your domain (the WordPress site will be accessed when you type www.yoursite.com) or in a folder (the WordPress site will be accessed when you type www.yoursite.com/wp/). I left blank that field, without wp, or any other folder address.
4. WordPress CMS version:
You should choose the most recent WordPress version. Ok…here are the pros and cons…something like:
“What if the newest WordPress version is not a stable one?!” – Ok, you can choose the most recent one before the last version.
Today (26.12.2021), the latest WordPress version is 5.8.2. If you don’t trust this version, you can choose 5.7.4 (most recent, before 5.8.2).
II. Site Settings
Site Settings SoftaculousHere we have two important sides: The left one, where you’ll put the site name and the description, and the right one (more important), where you insert the Admin login details.
One of the most hidden tricks is to save the data on your local computer, in a text/whatever document. Under these two sides, you have another two: Choose the language (here you’ll setup the language of your WordPress Admin dashboard) and “Select plugins” where, depending on your hosting provider, you can choose what plugins to install from the begining.
III. Advanced Options – You shouldn’t touch this if you don’t know what you do
In this field, you will connect the “brain” of the site with the “body”.
- Database name – Here you will type the name of the database to be created for the WordPress installation.
- Table Prefix – Usually, inside the database, the table prefixes starts with “WPprefix_ +table name” – wp_options, for example. You can change that prefix with your desired one: wp36, ck31, and so on. Remember: When you’ll have to migrate your WordPress site, don’t forget to change the table prefix in the .sql command you’ll run to change the old addresses with the new addresses.
- Other settings for your site (notifications settings, auto-upgrade settings, etc). For the Backup field, you can choose the location of the backup (usually on the Local Folder).
IV. Default WordPress theme
WordPress Default Theme Fresh InstallationWordPress provide their own free theme. Depending on your hosting provider, you can also get other free themes as well. But…you already know…What is free, it may cost a lot.
So, my advice is to go straight to the “Install” button and press it. Before that, if you didn’t save all the customs information inserted above (database name and other site settings), you can use the “Email installation details” to receive this custom information (insert your active e-mail address in the field). After that, press INSTALL, and your WordPress site will be ready in a few seconds.
Here is an image with the information above:
WordPress Installation 1Let’s the party begin!
In the next several sections we’ll ‘supe’ up our WordPress installation with lots of bells and whistles, including Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Sitemaps, Cached Pages, SEO Tools, a Contact Us Form, Amazon Affiliate integration, and more.
– Important Note –
If you don’t see your new site after a few hours, don’t be alarmed. Just be patient. Sometimes it can take up to a full day for the DNS to propagate around the Internet. The other thing you can do is flush your DNS cache from your computer.
To do this on a Windows PC you would go to:
‘Start’ -> ‘Run’ -> then type: ipconfig /flushdns
Then hit ‘OK’. This helps, but is not always foolproof. If you still don’t see your new site after one day, you should review the above instructions and make sure you have done everything exactly as it has been laid out above. For troubleshooting, the main things to double-check are:
- make sure you’ve identified the correct hosting name servers from your web host and that you’ve set them correctly at your registrar
- make sure you’ve added the domain name (or subdomain) into your hosting account domain management tool – i.e. your web host needs to know your site’s domain name
- make sure you’ve installed WordPress into the ‘root’ directory – i.e. you should have deleted the word ‘wp’ during your WordPress installation. You can check this by visiting your domain name and then adding ‘/wp’ to the end – i.e. – if your site comes up here, you should uninstall and then re-install WordPress in the ‘root’ directory