How to Install WordPress on Your Website

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You’re probably here because you’ve made the decision to start a blog.

HORRAYYYY!

You may have also decided that you want to start your blog with the best plan to eventually make money and so you need to figure out how and where to get it all set up through a hosted site.

Well, you have come to the right place.

I really struggled to get this sorted out in the beginning and it has been a goal of mine since I started to pass on a tutorial so that other newbies don’t have to pull their hair out trying to figure it out themselves.

This post will explain step-by-step how to get started with a WordPress blog, using SiteGround as the host in as little as 30 minutes. Start to finish. I PROMISE!

Are You Still Wondering What is WordPress?

If you are reading this and have no idea what I’m talking about, I would suggest you go back to my post on what is and why a self hosted site is best first and then come back here to build your website.

Why is SiteGround the best choice for Website Hosting?

Well, apart from their amazing support and rare down-time, free security certificates, the introductory rate is less than $4 per month!

I have been with SiteGround since the beginning and highly recommend them for website hosting. Not only does it host over 1.8 million domains, but WordPress .org recommends using them as well!

Great Support

First off, I am more than willing to pay for good support. There are obviously going to be things I don’t understand and need help with and when I really do need it, I want it to be on-demand.

SiteGround has an enormous support forum on every topic imaginable and if you can’t find what you are looking for there, you can hit up their 25/7 chat support.

I have used SiteGround’s support on three occasions now and they have been incredible for all three. In each case, they either fixed the issue for me or walked me through doing it myself.

Their popularity and dedication to customer support is continually rising and in 2018, they had a 98% client satisfaction rate!

In 2018, SiteGround achieved an amazing 98% client satisfaction rate!

WordPress Sites Run Super Fast on SiteGround’s Platform

Web speed and page loading times are a huge factor in bounce rates.

According to recent stats by Royal.Pingdom.com, the average bounce rate for pages loading within 2 seconds is 9%. Increase to 5 seconds and the bounce rate skyrockets to 38%!

With the GrowBig and GoGeek plans, SiteGround offers a premium plugin called SG Optimizer, that boast speed-gains between 20% and 500%!

Amazing Security

All plans come with a free SSL certificate, which is what the “s” is in your https:. This means that your site is secure.

This information will encrypt your website and your blog will display as safe in your user’s browsers and protect the sensitive personal data on your site.

I know that sometimes Google will not even allow you to view a site if the SSL certificate is not active. Rather than chance my readers getting bumped off my site, this is a must-have.

In 2018, SiteGround’s security report stated that they stopped 7 million brute-force attacks alone!

Rare Down Time

SiteGround boasts 99.99% uptime, and I can say that I’ve never been down as a result of their hosting.

They also do daily backups of your site which can be restored for free on the Grow Big or higher plans.

This came in really handy for me when the new editor program and app (which was not yet updated), crashed my epic post on Over 50 Blogging Tools and Resources.

Incredible Introductory Rate

With all these features, you would think that the plans would be pricey… I’m going to let you in on a little secret that I missed out on to SAVE YOU MONEY!

All three of the plans offered by SiteGround are an amazing deal (even at regular price), but if you snag the introductory offer, which is only offered once in the beginning, you will save huge!

I missed out on this and ended up paying over three times for one year what I could have gotten for the introductory price. Ugghhh. Lesson learned.

Simple Transfer from WordPress. Com Sites

If you are taking the leap to a self-hosted site and migrating over from WordPress .com, you are in luck!

SiteGround offers a WordPress Migrator tool that will help you to transfer your WordPress content quickly and with no technical skills required.

If you go with the GrowBig or GoGeek plans, they will even migrate it for you. Easy peasy.

You can see from all these examples that SiteGround is a great host to trust your site with! So, let’s get to setting up your blog!

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Setting Up Your Website with SiteGround

Thankfully, setting up your blog is a super simple process with SiteGround, they even have a WordPress Starter to guide you through it all!

1. Choose Your Plan
2. Choose and Set Up Your Domain Name
3. Install WordPress
4. Set Up WordPress with WordPress Starter

1. Choose a Plan

SiteGround has three plans to choose from. You can see from the pricing model that it’s a no-brainer to choose the introductory rate for whichever plan you need for as long as you can.

On the introductory StartUp, three years would be $142.20, compared to $143.40 for ONLY 1 YEAR! So, don’t make the same dumb mistake that I did. Uggh.

• StartUp plan which is good fo up to 10,000 visits per month and is perfect for getting started on a new blog. This is only $3.95 per month at the introductory rate ($11.95/month regular)
• GrowBig is good for 25,000 visits per month and includes unlimited restores from backups if needed and the WP Optimize plugin. This is $5.95 per month at the introductory rate ($19.95/month regular)
• GoGeek is best if you have a lot of traffic, up to 100,000 visits monthly. It’s $11.95 per month introductory rate ($34.95/month regular)

No matter which plan you start with, you can always upgrade later if you need to. Just click on the getting started button on your plan choice and enter in your information to purchase and set up your account.

2. Setting Up Your Domain Name

To have a self-hosted blog or website, you’ll first need to secure a domain name. Your domain name is your website address and is usually your blog or website name. For example, mine is http://www.everydayshessparkling.com.

There are a couple ways you can do this.

If you have a preference to purchase from a site like NameCheap or you already have registered your domain, you can do that first and then redirect the name to SiteGround.

SIDE NOTE: If you are not tech savvy, the support team can help you figure the redirect out.(This is what I did initially)

Knowing what I know now, however, I would choose to purchase the domain name directly from SiteGround so that you don’t have to deal with all the techy stuff to redirect. It’s really easy to do and makes life easier when it’s all in one place.

To set up your domain name from SiteGround:

1. Go to your User Area
2. Click on the Add Services tab

At the top, you will see a spot to Register a Domain Name. Enter the name you have picked out for your blog, choose an extension (.com,.org,.net etc.- .com is the most common) and click on Check Domain.

If it’s not available, they will offer you some alternate suggestions to try. If you are really stuck, try adding in a hyphen or changing the extension to a less popular one.

If the name is available, you will be directed to a checkout site to pay. I do encourage getting the additional domain privacy to make sure that your personal information is kept private.

3. Manually Installing WordPress on SiteGround

Siteground makes installing WordPress a really easy process. All you need to do is click on the Install WordPress icon in the cPanel and click on the Install button. This process may take a few minutes, depending on the speed of your computer and internet.

Here are step-by-step instructions on how to do this!

Find cPanel under your My Accounts Tab:

Click on WordPress Installer under WordPress Tools:

Click on the Install Now link at the bottom:

Once it is installed, SiteGround will ask you to choose a domain name to link it to (if you purchased it from SiteGround in the previous step, it will be here for you to choose) and will give you an opportunity to change your password. THIS IS IMPORTANT! You’ll want to write this down so you don’t forget.

Choose your domain name:

Change your admin password and write it down:

Once this is done, you can click on your new dashboard link to access your WordPress account. This is the link you’ll want to bookmark to get into your account for all your blog maintenance and writing.

If you somehow lose this link, you can always access it through your Admin Panel in SiteGround or you can manage all your WordPress preferences within the WordPress toolkit.

You can find your WordPress Toolkit in the cPanel, under WordPress Tools. Here you can change your password, manage your account and even delete the application.

4. Setting Up Your WordPress Account

Using SiteGround’s WordPress Starter for Account SetUp

This literally couldn’t make setting up your blog easier!! Anyone can do this!

Choosing and Installing a WordPress Theme

Once you have downloaded WordPress from the cPanel dashboard and login for the first time, the WordPress Starter will walk you though choosing a theme from thousands of free and premium themes that can be modified to fit your blog feel.

Next Add PlugIns for Functionality

The Starter wizard will then prompt you to choose what kind of functionality you want in your site including a contact form, shop to sell your products, and even a calendar.

Add Marketing Options

Next, you can set some marketing preferences to help boost your content through Google Analytics, a mail list and SEO (search engine optimization) tools.

All you need to do is make all your selections and the SiteGround WordPress Starter will automatically install everything you need to get started including plugins!

SAWEEETTTTTTTTT!

You’re All Set Up to Post on Your Blog!

Once you’ve completed all these steps, you shouldn’t have to access SiteGround unless you need to add domains, make changes or access their support.

You will only need the link that they provided at the very end of the WordPress set up process to start writing your content.

And that’s it! You now have a blog!! YAHOOOOOOO! Welcome to this crazy community that I have grown to adore!

While you are here, make sure to join my free Facebook community of bloggers called the Blogging Babes Collective! We work together to help each other build and grow our blogs and would love to share your new adventure with you!

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