Introduction to Wordpress

So you’re new to Wordpress?

This is a simple guide to set up your site / blog with as little pain and frustration as possible.

To use Wordpress there are a couple of simple requirements, if you don’t know if your host has this available for you, contact them before attempting to install Wordpress:

  • PHP version 4.3 or higher
  • MySQL Database version 4.0 or higher

Hopefully by this point you’ve downloaded the latest version of wordpress. Extract it to your site route folder and using an FTP program upload it to your site. Many web hosts simplify the process for you by offering an automatic installation of Wordpress for you. If they offer this, take them up on it as its much quicker.

Next you need to create a MySQL database for your site. Use your hosting control panel to create the database making a note of the database name and the username / password used to access it.

You now need to open “wp-config-sample.php” in a text editor or HTML program (such as Dreamweaver) and update the database name, username and password with the details you’ve noted down.

You also need to change the “AUTH KEY”, “SECURE_AUTH_KEY”, and “LOGGED_IN_KEY” to a secret phrase or anything else of your choice. Personally I prefer the password generator provided by the GRC as it provides secure unique passwords which will take a really long time to crack.

Save the file as “wp-config.php” and upload it to the root of your site.

Time for the famous five minute install…

This is what the page should look like if everything’s run smoothly.

In a web browser (the best by far being Firefox) go to you website e.g. http://www.james-morrison.org/ and you will be asked to enter the blog name and your email address (your password will be emailed here). Your database is now installed and you are given a random password which you need to make a note of to login.

Thats installation complete - time to login and start building your site!