Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 5: Downloading and Installing WordPress Blogging Software
Author: Jim | Filed under: 30-Day BloggingOur servers are all set up and ready to work for us. This morning, you should have found that your domain names now connect to your servers after configuring your name servers. Now that we are ready to go, let’s bring our blog to life! 
The Anatomy of a Blog
When you look at a blog on the internet, chances are what you are seeing is based on a script to run the service. Essentially, bloggers need a convenient control panel online where they can enter their posts on the fly. The top services include: WordPress, MovableType and Drupal. All 
of these services are basically packaged scripts that you upload to your server and run completely online. This means that you can run everything online form anywhere in the world… convenient, eh?
Why WordPress?
The one thing that WordPress takes a lot of heat for is its utter lack of search engine optimization. However, you can fix this easily with a free plugin called “All In One SEO” (we’ll touch on it later). I would argue that WordPress is the best platform simply because it is one of the most used and it is more flexible and easy to understand than the other systems. Because WordPress has become the industry standard, we are going to be using this script to manage our blog efficiently.
Downloading the WordPress Platform
Luckily for us, the leading blogging script is also completely free to use. It is available in zipped format on their website at WordPress.org, and the new version 2.7 is really an awesome package. Go ahead and get on over to the WordPress.org Download section and grab your copy. Then, unzip it somewhere that you can find it on your computer.
NOTE: If You Are Hosted With A Company With cPanel, You Must Ignore These Installation Notes And Use “Fantastico” To Auto-Install WordPress in CPanel!
Uploading the Script to Your Website
To do any type of transactions to and from your website (e.g. uploading or downloading), you will need what is called an FTP client. FTP stands for “file transfer protocol”, but just think of it as an alternative way to access the files stored on your server. To use this, you will need a few things which your web host will provide to you:
- Host: The location of your files, mine is simply “jimvesting.com” (which in actuality means “ftp.jimvesting.com”)
- Username: The username you use to access your admin section of your hosting. In cPanel, mine is “jregan”
- Password: The password you use to access your admin section of your hosting. I’m not giving THAT away!
- Port: Most likely 21, you can simply assume this to be true in almost every case
Download an FTP client (a free one!) online and plug in those values. Then, you will be connected to your server and will see all of your files just like you were browsing your own computer files! I recommend FileZilla (what I use) or CuteFTP for this service. Please note that in many cases, if you have a root access to your files, you won’t see them until you click into a folder called “public html” or something close to this.
Find whatever is the root of your files (where you will typically see a cgi-bin folder and/or an .htaccess file), and simply upload all of the wordpress files right there! You want to do this so that you are uploading the actual files within the wordpress folder, not uploading the entire folder to your root. Otherwise, you will only be able to access your blog from yoursite.com/wordpress! Here is a screenshot of what we are going for: SCREENSHOT.
Installing WordPress
Once the files are uploaded, it should be quite easy to set this thing up. You now need to simply need to set up a MySQL database through your hosting admin account, and then follow the directions in the online built-in installer for WordPress. I can help out if you post a question below, but otherwise I would recommend following along with the official WordPress installation guide.
If you do this correctly, you should now see a nice default blog theme when you enter your domain name. For an example, see the progress of Jimvesting.com! We’ll work out the kinks and get you customized soon… so stay tuned!
-Jimvesting
Related Posts
- Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 4: Linking Your Domain Name to Hosting Account
- Creating A Blog – Part Four: Selecting and Installing Your Blogging Platform
- Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 7: Purchasing and Installing Your Theme
- Day 21: Installing and Adding Plugins to your WordPress Blog
- Creating A Blog – Part Five: Choosing Your Theme and Installing Plugins
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Don’t you do anything to the config.php file? I remember that I hired someone to fix my wordpress installation and he said my config.php file info was wrong.
Twitter: @jimvesting
April 27, 2009 at 2:17 pm #
That is a common problem if you have a server (i.e. HostGator) that has cPanel and you choose to install it manually. If you have cPanel, you need to install it with Fantastico.
Very useful tutorial for those new to wordpress. I wish I had something like this when I’ve been launching my first blog
Twitter: @motorbeam
April 28, 2009 at 5:16 am #
I would recommend one click installation with fantastico.
The bad thing about that is that the WP version is not always up to date on those services. Manual installation is superior, and not too hard.
Cpanel installation is just one click. By the way I am little unfortunate in case of FTP. I use my college internet and they have blocked FTP so my only option is Cpanel.
really great instructions that are easy to follow. When I signed up with GoDaddy, it was just a one click installation and even the WP upgrades have been a one click upgrade. It was really good for a beginner like myself to have that type of service as I knew nothing about installing things on servers.
I will admit, Godaddy install was a breeze. One click, then a few fields to fill in, and it was done (almost).
It took a while before GoDaddy created the database and had it available on the server, but it gave me enought time to have a cup of coffee.
great – easy instructions. I am managing a wordpress blog but didn’t do the initial setup and didn’t have an FTP upload program on my computer – thanks for the link for the free ones – this will help me a lot.