Host your own website – it’s all about choosing the right hosting provider!

Last week I wrote an overview of building your own website using WordPress. It included hosting and how choosing the right host could make the whole process super-simple.

This week I’ll focus on the hosting and installation side of things, as that’s where everyone has to start, but many can get swamped by the technical effort!

The key to making the set-up of WordPress easy is to choose a host that has a ‘one-click’ install option. However, it’s also important that the host has geared up their server to work well with WordPress – speed is essential!

One-click install

This is by far the easiest way to set-up a WordPress website. As mentioned last week, I use SiteGround to host tonicbox.co.uk and my clients websites.

If you use SiteGround yourself, you’ll have the opportunity to install WordPress upon initial set-up of your account (if you choose a WordPress hosting package). Alternatively you’ll find the one-click install for WordPress in the ‘Softaculous’ area within the cPanel dashboard.

Both of the above options will literally do everything for you.

During the install the following things were done:

• WordPress files uploaded to your server
• mySQL database and user created
• WordPress config file updated with database and user details
• WordPress admin account created

Now all you have to do is log-in to WordPress!

Manual install

If you have more technical skills and want to have more control over things like the name of the database, the user details, the admin account details, etc, you can opt to manually install WordPress.

To do this you’ll need to do the following:

• Download WordPress and upload it to your server
• Create a database and user account that has full access to the database
• Update the wp-config.php file with the database and user details
• Install WordPress and create an admin account

This process for this is very similar on most hosting packages and requires either cPanel or FTP access to achieve. If you’re using SiteGround you’ll find everything you need here.

You can host your own website!

That’s hosting and installation covered! If you’re stuck, give me a shout! Take a look at this post to learn more about why I think everyone should use WordPress for their websites. Next week we’ll look at themes – the backbone of every good WordPress website.