Five Tips For Stress-Free WordPress Installation

WordPress is the most popular tool for building creating websites due to its simplistic design and ease of creating web pages. The fact that it contains thousands of themes, plugins and templates means a website can be set up quickly and easily; the famous tagline stating that one can be created in as little as five minutes.
That said, the most important aspect is actually being able to install it, which can actually be trickier than expected. Here are some things to keep in mind when installing WordPress:

#1. Begin with an industry trusted web hosting company and domain name.

This prevents potential stress and headaches in the long run. Take the time to research a good hosting company that provides the security and enabled backup options that are right for you,such as WestHost! You will require an FTP client and SSH privileges as features of your hosting site. You should also research hosting companies that allow you to increase PHP size as well as port forwarding options. This will enable you to modify your .php file for specifications unique to your site in the future should you need to.
Depending on your cPanel the layout of your installation may look different, but basically all WordPress installs are relatively fast and intuitive. It is also recommended that you use a basic text editing program such as Notepad or Atom to edit the .php file required in the next steps. Familiarizing yourself your cPanel means that if you you need to update or modify any of the features of WordPress, you’ll be ready.

#2. Download the latest version of WordPress to your hard drive.

This is where you need to make sure that your hosting company has the minimum requirements to run WordPress. One of the perks of installing WordPress to your site is the ease of uploading it to your cPanel. There are 3 different ways that you can upload WordPress: FTP, File Manager, or by using SSH.

#3. Creating a user and a database is the next step, and can be considered the most difficult.

This is where privileges are required to create a database for WordPress to store its data. This user will need to have ALL privileges accessible. It is important to keep a note of the username, password and database name so that if you need to recover any information from the WordPress site you can easily access and update the database. You will also need this information when accessing the WordPress .php file as well as the WordPress installer.

#4. Editing the wp-config-sample.php file.

This step is not the most difficult one, but it does require the most attention to detail. You will need to modify this file with your database information and hosting address. This is an important step if you are considering hosting your database through a different port too.
However, this step is completely optional as the installer renames and creates this file for you, so it is completely up to you if you wish to modify this file. The WordPress installer creates this file with the information that you supply. One of the benefits of modifying this file is that there are many options that you change and customize for your site, again using your preferred text editor. This will also be where you update and add your security keys in order to prevent any opportunity for vulnerabilities in your site. You can also enable your debug features and well as error logging features for your WordPress site. It is recommended that you increase the memory size allocated for PHP.

#5. Running the installer in the URL.

That’s it! Fill in the blanks on the WordPress prompt. This is where you put the details of your hosting name and database where WordPress can store the data.