How to Install WordPress on Your Hosting

WordPress runs a large share of the web because it is free, flexible, and does not lock you in. This guide installs it on a MyDomains.tech shared hosting plan using the one-click application installer included with every plan, which does in one form what would otherwise be a database, a file upload, and a config file.

You will need your hosting active and your control panel login, both of which are in your client area.

Control panels differ in how they arrange things, so this guide names what you are looking for rather than a precise sequence of clicks. If you cannot find something, ask us — that is faster than hunting, and it tells us the panel needs better signposting.

Step 1: Sign in to your control panel

Sign in to your client area, open your hosting service, and follow the link to your control panel. The client area signs you in, so there is no second password to find.

If you have not bought hosting yet, the plans are on the web hosting page.

Step 2: Open the application installer

Look for the section covering applications or software — it is usually labelled something like Applications, Auto Installer, or Website Apps. Inside it you want WordPress, then the option to install a new copy.

Ignore the long list of other applications alongside it. You want WordPress specifically.

Step 3: Choose where the site lives

Two fields decide the address of your finished site, and this is the step people most often have to undo.

• Domain — pick the domain you want the site to answer on.
• Directory or path — leave this empty if the site should live at example.com, which is almost always what you want. Filling it in puts the site at example.com/whatever-you-typed, which is right only if you are deliberately installing into a subfolder.

Installers often pre-fill this with something like wp. Clear it unless you mean it.

Step 4: Set the site name and admin account

Give the site a title — it appears in the browser tab and in search results, and you can change it later, so do not agonise over it.

Then set the admin account, which is worth more care because it is the target of essentially every automated attack against WordPress:

• Username — anything except admin. That one name accounts for the overwhelming majority of brute-force attempts.
• Password — use the generator and let it produce something long. Copy it somewhere safe before you continue; this screen does not come back.
• Email — an address you actually read. This is where password resets go, and a wrong address here is discovered at the worst possible moment.

Step 5: Install

Start the install and wait. It takes a minute or two, and the installer creates the database, unpacks the files, and configures everything as one operation.

When it finishes you get two links: your site, and your admin login at example.com/wp-admin. Sign in once now to confirm the credentials work.

Step 6: Turn on HTTPS

A new install is usually served over plain HTTP, and browsers mark that “Not secure”. A free SSL certificate comes with your hosting plan and is normally issued automatically within an hour of your domain pointing at the server.

Once it is active, go to Settings → General in WordPress and make sure both WordPress Address and Site Address begin with https://. Save, and sign in again if it logs you out — that is expected, because the address changed.

If the certificate has not appeared after a few hours, the usual cause is the domain not yet resolving to your hosting. Connecting your domain to web hosting covers that, and contact us if it still will not issue.

Step 7: Clear out the defaults

Every fresh install ships with sample content and more than you need switched on:

1. Delete the sample post and page (“Hello world!” and “Sample Page”) under Posts and Pages.
2. Delete themes you are not using. An inactive theme still needs updating; an un-updated one is a way in.
3. Delete unused plugins, for the same reason. Deactivating is not the same as deleting.
4. Turn on automatic updates under Dashboard → Updates, at least for minor releases. Out-of-date WordPress is the most common cause of a hacked site by a wide margin.
5. Set your permalinks under Settings → Permalinks to Post name. Do this before you publish anything — changing it later changes every URL on the site.

Step 8: Check it from outside

Open your site in a private browsing window, or on your phone off wi-fi. You are checking three things: it loads at the right address, the padlock is there, and it is your site rather than a parked page or somebody’s default.

If something went wrong

• The site shows a directory listing or “Index of /” — the install went into a subfolder. Reinstall with the directory field empty (step 3).
• “Error establishing a database connection” — usually a half-finished install. Remove it from the installer and run it again rather than repairing it by hand.
• You cannot reach /wp-admin — check the address is https:// and that you are not still on an old cached HTTP redirect. A private window rules the cache out.
• The site loads but looks broken after enabling HTTPS — some page builders store full http:// addresses inside their content. Re-saving the affected page usually fixes it.

Need help?

We install WordPress for customers regularly, and we would rather do it than have you fight it. Open a ticket from your client area with your domain name. If what you actually want is a finished site rather than a blank WordPress, we design and build landing pages too.