Our step by step guide will help you setup and own everything that you need to run a WordPress website.
Ingredients:
Domain Name
When building a website, you first must make sure that the coast is clear and the domain name you want is indeed available.
A domain name is a memorable name with which people can find your website. (find out more about ‘What is a domain name‘)
You don’t actually ‘buy’ a domain name – you can only rent them from a domain registrar – but as long as you continue to pay your domain registrar you can continue to use the domain.
I use Knight Hosting for all my domain registrations – They’re affordable, reliable, ethical and UK based.
Visit Knight Hosting and go to ‘Store’ and ‘Register a New Domain’ – You’ll see a large search box 
Type the domain name you want and search.
If your domain is available you’ll see big green writing ‘Congratulations’ 
Click ‘Add to Cart’ – Don’t check out yet – We need to add Web Hosting!
Web Hosting
Once you’ve got your domain name in your shopping cart you need to rent some space on a server connected to the internet to store your website and email.
I also use Knight Hosting for all my website hosting. They have UK based servers which is vital for SEO if your business is located in the UK. They also offer amazing 24×7 support and include a Free SSL through Lets Encrypt!
On the left-hand menu click the Shared Hosting
For a startup website – the KHS-MICRO is more than suitable.
If you purchase this per month its £1 a month, £11 per year (saving £1 a year), or £21 for two years and get your domain registration included, or £30 for three years and again get your domain registration for free.
Stepping through the checkout procedure you will need to enter your personal details to store these against your domain name – Some of this information is publicly available, and it is checked against your name, business name, and address – so you need to enter real information.
When you’ve finished and paid for your domain name and hosting you’ll have a number of emails from Knight Hosting – confirming domain registration and your hosting package and you’re ready to move onto the next step… Setting up WordPress.
WordPress
Your new domain name may take a little time to register (up to 24 hours)
Once it is active visit my-brand-new-domain-name.co.uk/cpanel (change the domain name to your actual domain and put /cpanel at the end)
You will see a login box. This is the username and password that you got in your email from Knight Hosting
A very complicated screen appears – with lots and lots of different options to click…. which at first look can seem very scary…
At the moment you don’t need to worry about a lot of them… Ignore Files, Database, Domains, Email (we’ll come back to that in another tutorial) and Metrics…
Security
Under Security, you’ll see Let’s Encrypt™ SSL
This will set up a Free SSL Certificate that protects your visitors while they are browsing your new website.
Under the “Issue a new certificate” click the link labeled +issue –
When the certificate is issued – head down the list to
Software
Now find the ‘Softaculous Apps Installer’
Softaculous is an automatic software installation package that allows you to easily add over 400 different web applications from blogs, forums, image galleries, wiki’s, games e-commerce.. and WordPress is the one we’re interested in…
In the middle of the screen, you should see ‘WordPress’
Clicking on WordPress gives you a page that talks about what WordPress is – and the all-important ‘Install Now’ button
Once you’ve clicked the Install Now button you will be given a page which needs the important information that will run your new website.
Software Setup
- Choose protocol – as you’ve already installed your SSL Certificate with Lets Encrypt this should be set to https –
- Choose Domain – If you have more than one web address setup on your site then they will be shown in a drop-down list – Normally you would only have one.
- In Directory – IMPORTANT! – You need to make sure this field is blank. It will automatically have wp in it. Delete this entry!
Site Settings
- Site Name – This is the name of your site that – it is good to use your business name and business type e.g Affordable Websites – Web Design Specialists based in Lancashire
- Site Description – Use your business description – this is used in your appearance on Google Search results
- Enable Multisite (WPMU) – If you are operating a single website you do not need to enable WPMU.
Admin Account
- Admin Username – This is the account username you will use to log into your website
- Admin Password – This is a secure password you will use to log into your website
- Admin Email – This is the email address you want to be associated with your website, used for alerts, password reset, subscriptions and updates.
Advanced Options
- Auto Upgrade – Enable this to allow WordPress to apply automatic updates and keep itself secure.
- Backup Location – Select Local Folder.
- Automated backups – Once a Week
- Backup Rotation – 4
These settings will keep your WordPress website secure and ensure you have a recent backup should anything happen to your site.
Before you click the Install button –
enter your email address into the box underneath and you will receive an email with all the details relating to your WordPress installation. This is really useful if you lose your username/password.
If everything goes to plan – and if you’ve followed the above steps it should do – you’ll get a ‘Congratulations’ page..
On this page are 2 links – the first takes you to your new website.. the second logs you into the WordPress admin page…
Your website is now live and ready for you to add content….. which I will cover in an upcoming blog post.
If you have any problems or have any questions please let me know.
Of course, if this seems a little complicated or you don’t want to do this yourself, we’ve got some amazing offers running to get your business online for a really affordable price. Please do not hesitate to contact me for more details.