Wendy Cholbi

Technology-to-English Translator

How to install WordPress

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When you're tinkering with technology, you need a pretty big toolboxIn all my WordPress how-to posts here, I’ve never covered how to actually install WordPress.

I haven’t taught any classes that cover WordPress installation, either.

Why would I leave out something so obviously needed?

Well, partly (only partly!) because you can pay me $99 for a basic WordPress installation package (quick note: That $99 price isn’t changing, but the prices for the Bonus and Bonanza packages are going up quite a bit next week, and if you were on my Invitation List you’d already know that).

One of the other big reasons I haven’t covered how to install WordPress is that most good web hosting companies have installer scripts — they’re usually called things like “one-click install,” “quick WP install,” or something similar. And these installers can vary quite a bit from host to host.

So if someone asked me to teach them to install WordPress, I’d just tell them “go ask your web host for information on their WP installer script.”

Until now.

See, two things happened that made me realize that I needed to write at least one decent WordPress-installation tutorial.

Stuck in the middle

The first thing was that Pamela Wilson and I created a free e-course called Love Your Website to explain how to set up a domain name and a web hosting account, and at the same time we released a paid product called Site Setup Kit to teach people how to use WordPress to create and maintain a unique website.

I’ve been tremendously gratified at how well both offerings have been received. People around the world have told us that the e-course explains technical terms for Regular People, and our Site Setup Kit owners have already gotten to work creating beautiful sites.

But we had left a gap between the two! Love Your Website walks you through getting a domain and a web host and leaves off right before WordPress installation, and Site Setup Kit starts out assuming that you’ve installed WordPress and are ready to learn how to use it.

So I shouldn’t have been at all surprised to find that our readers were asking us how, exactly, to install WordPress.

It’s as if we handed out toolboxes that were each missing a hammer. D’oh.

You deserve better

The second thing was that I struck out in search of a friendly WP installation tutorial on the Knowledge Base of a large and fairly decent web host. I found a video tutorial for using their quick-install script, and I’m sorry to say that it was just terrible. It was full of jargon, not very explain-y, and assumed a higher level of tech knowledge than “beginner.”

There was no way I could send my Site Setup Kit owners a link to that tutorial! I knew I could do better. And I also knew that you deserve better than a confusing jargon-y guide.

If you ask for a hammer, you want a hammer, not a 328-piece ratchet-and-screwdriver set that requires an engineering degree to decipher.

So I wrote not one, but two tutorials explaining how to install WordPress, on two different web hosting systems. They don’t have video, but each step is illustrated. Here you go:

  1. Installing WordPress on a DreamHost web hosting account is specific to my very favorite web host, which I use myself for all my websites. They created their own one-click installer (which actually takes more than one click but is still pretty easy to use).
  2. Installing WordPress on any web hosting account that uses cPanel will work for quite a few decent web hosts, since cPanel is the industry standard in web-hosting control panel software.
There you have it. I hope you’ll let me know if these tutorials work for you!

How to point your GoDaddy-registered domain to your DreamHost account

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So you’ve got a shiny new domain name registered at GoDaddy (or maybe you’ve had it languishing there for awhile… I won’t tell, I promise!).

Now you want me to install WordPress at your shiny new DreamHost account.

How do you get GoDaddy to play nice with DreamHost?

There’s just one little-bitty change you need to make inside your GoDaddy account. Ready? Here are the steps:

1. Login to GoDaddy.

If you click the “My Account” tab on the right edge of the green navigation bar, you’ll see a screen that looks like this one:

GoDaddy "my account" screen

The first tab on this screen, beneath your name and customer number, is “Products.” If you have domains registered at GoDaddy, you’ll see a line labeled “Domains.” If you have purchased any other products from GoDaddy, such as email, security certificates, or online storage, you’ll see those listed here as well.

2. Click the green Launch button to the right of Domains.

This click takes you to the Domain Manager, which lists all the domains you’ve registered through GoDaddy:

GoDaddy domain manager

You can bulk-edit multiple domain names by checking their checkboxes, but we’ll assume you’re starting with one domain name.

3. Click the domain you want to use for your WordPress blog.

Now, you’ll see the “Domain Manager” screen with all kinds of details and links.

The only thing you want to pay attention to right now is the link called “Nameservers.”

There’s a link, with an icon that resembles a shiny oil drum, near the top of the page. There’s (probably) another link at the bottom of the page called “manage.” Either of these will take you to the same place.

Domain Details screen, shown when you click on "manage details" for an individual domain in your GoDaddy account

4. In the popup window, fill in the DreamHost nameservers.

(Of course, these instructions will work equally well for a non-DreamHost hosting account, but we’re going to stick with the simple here.)

You must click the button that says “I host my domains with another provider.”

Then you must fill in the following blanks (and yes, it is perfectly OK to leave Nameserver 4 blank):

Nameserver 1: NS1.DREAMHOST.COM
Nameserver 2: NS2.DREAMHOST.COM
Nameserver 3: NS3.DREAMHOST.COM

These nameservers are not case-sensitive. I’m using all-caps just for clarity.

Finally, click OK.

Pop-up window where you fill in the DreamHost nameservers

At this point, the popup window will disappear.

You’ll probably see a status message from GoDaddy that says you need to wait a few minutes while the changes are implemented. This is totally normal.

You can feel free to log out of GoDaddy at this point, because technically, you’re done. Or, you can stick around and refresh the page after 10 minutes or so to make sure the Nameservers section of the Domain Details screen (figure 2) updates and correctly shows the DreamHost nameserver information.

You did it! Go you!

And now, when I install WordPress for you, it will show up correctly (instead of the page that says “this domain is parked at GoDaddy” which is not exactly the perfect advertisement for your business, is it?).

Any questions? Leave a comment here, or contact me.

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