Building a Wordpress website from scratch

This guide is being developed to help people install, setup and run their own WordPress website.

fyi: I have moved away from CPanel (but this guide remains)

Below I mention CPanel hosting, I have moved away from C-Panel hosting and prefer setting up my own self-managed server (read more on setting up your own server on Vultr for $2.5 a month or read here to setup server on Digital Ocean here or $5 a month). Once you have a server you can secure it, add an SSL certificate and setup advanced security.

New WordPress Articles

Rough Install Steps (C Panel)

Buy a CPanel Domain -> Install WordPress -> Install a Theme -> Built a Structure – > Add Your Content -> Extend the Site.

Technical Background and Prerequisites

Don’t be put off by the early technical stuff, once WordPress is installed it gets a whole lot easier.

What is WordPress

WordPress is a free open source Content Management System (CMS) that you can download for free from https://wordpress.org. Alternatively if you don’t want to self host WordPress you can pay https://wordpress.com to create a WordPress Hosting account and site for you. I prefer to self host WordPress (on your own domain) as you have more control and features when compared to hosting on https://wordpress.com.

Installing WordPress onto an online server or local pc?

You can install WordPress onto a web server on the internet or you can install it into your local PC (Mac, Windows or Linux).

Is your online web server WordPress ready

Choosing a web host – What features do you have with your hosting plan?
PHP – PHP is a popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development.
MySQL – The world’s second most widely used relational database management system
FTP – The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used to transfer computer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based networ
CPanel – cPanel provides front-ends for a number of common web applications.
CPanel Overview
- CPanel – Features Overview
- CPanel – FTP Access – This will allow you to upload and backup files.
- CPanel – MySQL Databases – WordPress or custom CMS’s need databases.
- CPanel – phpMyAdmin – This is like an online version of Microsoft Access.