How To Install WordPress Manually – Step by Step guide 2020

To install WordPress manually you should know WordPress well, If not then you should read What is WordPress and What are the benefits of using WordPress?

WordPress is the most widely used, and fastest growing content management system in nowadays. Most hosting companies make it even easier to install WordPress by including a “1-click install” option, but this usually isn’t the best choice over install WordPress manually. We will soon add another post about why you should avoid “1-click install” forever.

Install WordPress Manually

So, in this tutorial, we will learn the most secure and professional way to install WordPress manually using cPanel.

What is cPanel?

cPanel is an online Linux-based web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a website.

Let’s take a look at how easily we can install WordPress manually using cPanel.

Before installing WordPress

Let us assumes that you have already purchased a hosting plan from any hosting company that uses cPanel. We strongly recommend, and often use, Bluehost, Siteguard, InMotion, Hostmonster, and Hostsoch.

Step 1: Login to your cPanel

After buying the hosting plan the company will give your cPanel login URL, Username, and Password. Open the URL in your browser and log in, You will see like this.

Step 2: Creating A Database

First of all, we will set up our database and database user with all the Privileges.
So, Navigate to “Database” section of your cPanel, and click on “MySQL^® Databases”.

On the next page, you will see a text box asking for the database name. So, enter a name for your database and click Create Database. Most of the time, you will want to name your database with your website name, but it is good to use a confidential name for security purpose. Use lowercase letters to name it.

You can see the prefix before the actual database name, this is because we are using shared hosting to make this tutorial. You will need to know your database name for later use. It is better to note down it. After clicking this “Create Database” button you will redirect to database creation confirmation page, just click “Go Back” button to return to the main database page.

Step 3: Creating A MySQL user

To create a MySQL user scroll down to the “MySQL Users” section. Here you will see the same prefix too.
Enter a username and password for your database user. It is better to use the password generator to create a strong password and finally click Create User.

After the user is created, you will again be taken to a confirmation page. Click the “Go Back” button to return to the main databases page.

Step 4: Adding A User to MySQL Database

Time to add newly added a user to the database to use it. So, you have to give the user permissions to the user to use the database. Under the Add User to Database section, choose your user and your database from the dropdowns available there and click Add.

On the next screen, check the All Privileges checkbox to select everything and click Make Changes. Double check before making changes.

Hey, you just created your database is now ready to install WordPress manually.

Step 5: Downloading WordPress

To install WordPress manually we need to download the most recent version of WordPress to a location of your choice at WordPress.org

Step 6: File Manager Setup

To set up the wordpress.zip file, open the cPanel and click on “File Manager”

Inside your file manager, you will find a file named “public_html”. Open it for further setup. Now click on the “Upload” button given at the top of the screen.

On the next screen you have the cPanel “File Upload” interface, use it to upload the downloaded wordpress.zip file.

While it completed uploading the file you will see the progress bar automatically changed into green color then just click on “Go Back……”.

In your public_html folder, you can see the uploaded file, right click on it and select extract.

After clicking on extract a pop-up called “Extract” will come up then click on the “Extract Files” button.

Your zip file will extract like this. Don’t do anything until it completed extracting.

Results of extraction process will show like this. Just close it.

After extraction, you can see a “WordPress” folder inside your public_html folder. Open it and click on “Select All” button and then click “Move” button as you can see in the image below.

You will be able to see a pop-up called “Move” on your screen like this. Then you need to delete the “WordPress”  from the given path and make it like /public_html/ and click on “Move”.

Step 7 : Setting up wp-config.php file

Tme to find the wp-config-sample.php file in your File Manager and rename the wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php. To do this right click on it and select “Rename”.

Now Open the wp-config.php file in the Code Editor, it is time to start adding your database information to it. To do this right click on it and select “Edit”.

Locate the line that reads “define(‘DB_NAME‘, ‘database_name_here‘);” and add your database name.

Locate the line that reads “define(‘DB_USER‘, ‘username_here‘);” and add your database username.

Locate the line that reads “define(‘DB_PASSWORD‘, ‘password_here‘);” and add your database password.

Within the wp-config.php Then scroll down to find the section that reads “*Authentication Unique Keys and Salts”.

Now visit the WordPress Unique Phrase and Salt Key generator Click here > >. Copy the Unique Phrase and Salt Keys generated by the WordPress API and replace the default ones located in the wp-config.php file. See the image below. Once you are finished with that, hit “Save” and exit the Code Editor and return to the directory root.

Step 8: Run the WordPress Installation Script

Congratulations, you have just completed your first WordPress installation.

Now it is time to run the WordPress Installation Script by visiting this link Example.com/wp-admin/install.php {Change the Example by your own domain name}

Once you have arrived at the next screen, select the language of choice for your WordPress install and click “continue”.

You will then be brought to a page prompting you to enter all of your website’s information such as the site title, your username, your password, and email address.

It contains the following fields:

• Site Title: Enter the name of the site which you are going to create in WordPress.
• Username: Enter the username as per your choice while logging in the WordPress.
• Password: Enter password two times to protect your site.
• Your E-mail: Enter your e-mail address which helps to recover the password or any update.
• Privacy: It allows the search engine to index this site after checking the check-box.

If you are developing a new site at this address, so it may also be a good idea to tick the box “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”. So that Google, Bing, etc. don’t index your site before it is populated with content and ready to launch. Otherwise, it may leave bad impressions to the search engines. Because you don’t have any content yet. You will later able to change it from your Dashboard.

Once you have filled in all of the information, hit “Install WordPress” and you are all finished!

You will be asked to log in to your new site. Enter your username and password and this will let you to your brand new WordPress dashboard.

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That’s all, thanks for reading our “Step By Step Beginner Guide To Install WordPress Manually” ????