How to Install WordPress Using FTP/SSH (cPanel/WHM)

Before installing WordPress make sure you read my Ultimate Tutorial on How to Start a Blog and Make Money!, I will show you the secrets and the thinking that you should do in order to be a success.

Now let’s see how to install WordPress, the simple and easy way. I will not post any referral links here, my goal is to make you a success!

If you google “how to install WordPress” you will find many ways and everyone is trying to make some bucks from referral links which is okay.

Personally I like installing WordPress the old school way, using FTP or SSH.

There is nothing wrong with using a Bluehost easy install of Softaculous, but as I told you, you can go the other way if you feel you don’t have time.

In this tutorial you will learn how I created my personal blog, sofiansabiri.com.

Let’s go!

Create a Hosting Account in cPanel/WHM

Ask a friend or someone who owns a VPS or a dedicated server to create a hosting account, this is what I did in 2011 when I started my first online business. If you want me to create a hosting for you for little service, you can contact me.

After you login to WHM using root user, create a new account.

Your account will have a username, password, email address and DNS servers to connect to your domain name.

I recommend you to have all your domains in one registrar like Godaddy and keep your hosting separated.

Link Your Domain Name to Your Hosting’s DNS

As a recap on your domain name, it should be:

• .com is king
• The shorter the better
• Avoid hyphens and numbers
• Easy to spell
• Understandable
• Contains one keyword at least
• Brandable

I recommend you to separate your domain name registrar from your hosting provider, to be free and be more organized.

Go to your domain name registrar and edit your DNS servers, here I’m using enom, so I logged in to my account and went to “DNS Server Settings“.

Set your DNS servers to custom and enter the ones corresponding to your hosting. Save.

Upload WordPress Files to Your Hosting

Using SSH (PuTTY)

Some hostings come with SSH enabled, if so use it to install WordPress, it’s much faster than FTP.

You can download PuTTY from the official website, enter your Host Name and Port, click “Open“.

Enter your login and password.

When typing your password nothing will appear, just press enter when your finish typing it, you will connect.

Change the user to hosting user account if you connected as root using su

cd to your public_html folder in your account’s /home/.

Download latest version of WordPress using the following command:

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.zip

Unzip the files using unzip command.

Move your files from the folder “wordpress” to the folder “public_html” using the command:

mv ./wordpress/* .

Now all your files are ready!

Using FTP Client (FileZilla)

Download the latest WordPress zip file from: https://wordpress.org/download/

Install FileZilla for free from the official website and install it.

Click on the first icon in the menu.

Click “New site” button.

Enter your Host, User, Password and Port.

Click “Connect“.

In the left side open your unzipped wordpress folder, select all the files and folders and right-click to Upload, make sure you have public_html open on the server side.

This will take a few minutes since FTP is slower…

Create the MySQL Database on Your Hosting

Connect to your cPanel account using your username and password.

Search for “database“, click on “MySQL Databases“.

Create a new database.

Create a new user.

Add your user to the database you created.

Select “ALL PRIVILEGES” and click “Make Changes“.

Now you created your database successfully, time to install WordPress.

Install WordPress on Your Website

Open your website on a new tab, you will be prompted with a list of languages. Choose your language and click “Continue“.

Click on “Let’s go“.

Fill in your:

1. Database Name
2. Username
3. Password (of user)
4. Database Host (usually localhost)
5. Table Prefix (you can change it)

Click “Submit“.

Click on “Run the installation“.

Fill in your Site information and your admin login details.

Prepare Your WordPress Blog

Now your website should be live.

You can login to your admin dashboard using the URL sofiansabiri.com/wp-admin

First update your theme from Appearance.

Go to Plugins and click on “Add New“.

Install the plugin Classic Editor and all the plugins I talked about in the ultimate tutorial.

Start blogging!

There you go, you just learned how to install WordPress the easy way, if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment down below!

Thanks for your time and don’t forget to share.