Blog

In this guide, you will learn how to install the WordPress CMS platform onto a GoDaddy hosting account.

WordPress is arguably the most popular blogging/CMS platform used online. It makes sense that if expert bloggers are using this web software on a daily basis, that aspiring bloggers would want to use it too. And for good reason!

WordPress is perhaps the easiest to use platform on the market. It’s so simple in fact that you don’t need much technical knowledge at all. If you can use a computer and navigate the internet the it doesn’t get much harder than that.

Installing WordPress On GoDaddy doesn’t need to be a chore, and while it’s not quite as easy as BlueHost or HostGator, it’s quite easy all the same. Let me take some of the magic away from it and explain a few things.

Installing on GoDaddy is a fairly easy process, and although there is no Fantastico to help you with installing the program, they do have a fairly advanced hosting management system complete with a third party apps installation section. While this isn’t the only way to install WordPress, it is the path of least pain for now.

The first step is to login to your Go-Daddy hosting account. Go to http://www.godaddy.com and login to your account.

You’ll need to click on “Hosting”, then “My Account Hosting”. Then click on the “Manage Account” link shown in the image below.

This will open the Go Daddy Hosting Control Center. From here you can control many aspects of your hosting account, but specifically the one part we’re interested in today is the “Your Applications” button up the top. Go ahead and click that as shown in the image below.

Installing WordPress is quite simple with GoDaddy’s Hosting Connection platform. This is basically where they showcase third party software such as WordPress, Joomla, DotNetNuke, Drupal and many others. You can install different flavours of blogging software, forums, message boards, eCommerce solutions and more depending on your needs.

WordPress can be found by clicking on “Blogs” on the left hand side, then the WordPress link in the menu that expands. From here it will load the WordPress information in the center pane including compatibility information, system requirements and what version you are about to install. Click on the Install Now! button and we’ll get started.

Pretty much everyone knows what an End User License Agreement is, click on “I agree” (after you’ve digested it of course, heh.).

Now starts the 4 step process for installing WordPress on GoDaddy hosting.

The first page you are presented with is the select hosting domain page. The idea is you can have multiple domains and only one hosting account. Here we select which domain to use for the installation. Click continue once you’ve selected your domain.

Step 2 is to setup new hosting if you require it. I’m going to assume that in this case, we’ve already setup the hosting account for your domain with GoDaddy. The process will automatically skip here if it’s not required for that domain.

Step 3 is how we want to configure the installation. This is the most important step as it details the passwords we are using and where we want to install the blog. Before we do that though, we need to take care of the MySQL database information that WordPress needs to run the blogging platform.

Give your database a descriptive name, but not the same name as what you want your blog to be called. You will also need to provide a password, though theoretically you probably won’t ever need to access the database directly unless something goes pear shaped.

Go Daddy are pretty strict with their passwords (for good reason). They usually require a password with numbers and letters combined and at least one capital letter. Click on next when you are ready as shown below.

Choosing the installation directory is something quite important to consider. If you are installing this blog onto an already existing website, it might pay to install into a sub directory. Otherwise if the blog itself is the website, you will need to leave this text field blank in order to install at the root directory of your account.

It’s at this point that you learn what the FTP path to your blog is. This can be helpful for uploading themes and plugins later on. Click next when you are happy with the details.

Now we get to setup the administration side. Choose an appropriate administrator name. I’ve just chosen “admin” below for demonstration purposes, but I would highly recommend choosing a unique name to be your administration user. This just adds one more barrier for anyone trying to brute force your blog’s administration interface.

Once again, pick an appropriate password (different to the password your chose for your database). Input the email address you wish to be the administration email (you can change this later), and the title of the blog (also changable later). Click on Finish when you’re done.

And you’re done! Well.. almost. You will get a screen as shown below which informs you an application installation request for WordPress has been submitted. WordPress is pretty basic for installation when it comes to web applications so they generally process it quite quickly, this is more of a verification at their end.

You’ll receive a couple of emails from GoDaddy once your installation is complete.

Now you know that your installation of WordPress is done, navigate to your blog’s main page to check everything is up and running.

If that is all good you can proceed to login to the WordPress back end. Add a /wp-login to the end of the URL. This is the login page for your administration access to your new site which you might want to bookmark for easy access.

Good luck in all your blogging endeavours with WordPress and GoDaddy!

Hosting Comparison

For an in-depth comparison on which hosting company to go for, check out my post comparing BlueHost, GoDaddy, and HostGator.