Are you starting a project and wondering if you should install WordPress? If you want to start a blog, e-commerce store, review page, or virtually any other type of website, WordPress is a superb option. It is rightly lauded as one of the most powerful and user-friendly content management systems out there. However, due to the huge variety of ways you can build your WordPress site, and the many sites offering hosting solutions, it can be difficult to know how to get started.  

Fortunately, creating your first website doesn’t have to be a challenge. You can install WordPress in a matter of minutes, and start adding content to it right away. Even better, if you choose your web host carefully you may be able to simplify the process. Here at 000webhost, for example, we offer an auto-installer option alongside our free WordPress hosting.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll show you how to install WordPress on 000webhost using both automatic and manual installation methods. We’ll also run through some important steps to follow after installation is completed, to keep your WordPress site running smoothly. Let’s get started!

Why You Should Consider WordPress for Your Website

The WordPress home page.

WordPress is a top choice for new and experienced website owners alike.

WordPress is one of the world’s most-used and acclaimed content management systems, and it’s easy to see why. This versatile Content Management System (CMS) enables you to rapidly create pages, upload content, and customize the appearance of your website. What’s more, grasping the essentials of WordPress require no coding knowledge whatsoever.

Learning how to navigate WordPress is a quick and simple process, and the platform is powerful (and flexible) enough to suit virtually any kind of site. The following are just a few of the key benefits of installing WordPress:

  • The availability of themes and plugins. Building a website on WordPress is made easy, due to the plugins and themes the platform offers. There are plugins for everything from protecting your site from spam, to improving Search Engine Optimization (SEO), to speeding up your site’s loading times. What’s more, the thousands of themes available to choose from help you control how the content on your site is presented.
  • Better performance in search engines. WordPress makes it simple for you to increase your traffic and improve your Google search rankings. Plugins such as Yoast make it even easier to ensure that your chosen keywords are implemented in the most strategic places.
  • Flexibility and access to support. WordPress is open-source software, which means it can be altered, modified, and used freely. This opens up a lot of room to maneuver when it comes to adapting, scaling, and redistributing your WordPress site. Plus, reliable support is offered by WordPress, and the WordPress community forums are another valuable resource.
  • Excellent security. You’ll find that WordPress is a very secure platform to start with, and there are numerous free plugins to improve it even further (we’ll mention one a little later in this post).

If these benefits sound appealing, then WordPress is the way to go for your website. While it used to be known primarily as a blogging platform, it’s now a solid choice for small and large sites of all varieties. Before you can install it, however, your next step will be to choose a web host.

How to Choose a Quality Web Host For Your WordPress Site

The 000webhost homepage.

000webhost offers free, quality hosting for WordPress sites.

When it comes to choosing a web host, one size hardly fits all. Your web host will store your website’s files for you and make sure they’re always available online, so people can access your site using their browsers. Naturally, your first step should be to conduct research into what hosting providers best cater to the kind of WordPress site you want to create. You should also assess how much knowledge each host has about the WordPress platform specifically.

You can further refine your search by looking for hosting providers with certain characteristics. Any quality WordPress web host should provide your site with the following:

  • Optimal security
  • Fast loading speeds
  • A user-friendly control panel
  • Significant scalability, so your site can grow over time
  • A strong support system you can turn to for help
  • Plenty of space and bandwidth

For a more concrete example, check out our own hosting options. Our service meets all of the above criteria and is optimized specifically for WordPress. In addition to offering top-notch server security, 000webhost has a support team that is able to answer any questions or concerns you might have. You can enjoy further peace of mind knowing that 000webhost offers a simple tutorial for mastering the basics of WordPress.

Better still, 000webhost enables you to register a short domain and host up to two sites at absolutely no cost (and without advertising)! If you require more speed, bandwidth, disk space, or even additional websites to accommodate your growing needs, we have you covered there too. The Silver (Premium) and Gold (Business) plans include a variety of extended features, such as additional space and resources.

Another major plus is that you can install WordPress on 000webhost quickly and easily. Let’s look at the two primary methods for installing WordPress, both using our auto-installer and manually.

How to Install WordPress (2 Methods)

Below, we’ll present two different ways to install WordPress. You may want to read through both first, and then choose the one that is most relevant to your needs.

1. Use the 000webhost Auto-Installer

It’s incredibly simple to install WordPress locally, using the 000webhost auto-installer. This method is ideal if you want to get your site up and running quickly.

The first step is to sign up with 000webhost. When you have verified your email address and logged in, the 000webhost app page will appear. Click the Build Website button in the top left corner of the screen:

install wordpress on 000webhost

Next, click the Install Now button beneath the Build WordPress Site option:

install-wordpress-step-2

A WordPress install screen will now appear. Here, you can set your admin username and password, as well as choose the language of your site. When you are done, click Install:

WordPress Install Details Screen

When the installation process is completed, select Go to the configuration page. Once you enter your 000webhost credentials, you will have access to your WordPress dashboard:

wordpress-dashboard

It’s that simple! If you are a slightly more tech-savvy user, however, you may want the opportunity to further tweak your installation. In that case, you can also install WordPress manually to 000webhost.

2. Install WordPress Manually

Installing WordPress manually is a good way to learn more about how the platform works. Much of the information you glean from the process can also come in handy if you want to change your hosting at a later time. Additionally, the system you are using may not permit the auto-install function to operate.

First, you should download the latest version of WordPress from the official website. The downloaded files will be compressed into a .zip archive:

download-wordpress-latest-version

You’ll need to extract the files, then upload them to your hosting account using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). This may sound a bit intimidating, but the process is quite simple. FTP is a system that enables you to upload or download your website’s files in a secure and time-saving way. When it comes to choosing an FTP solution, we recommend FileZilla. It is fast to set up, easy to navigate, and completely free.

After setting up FileZilla, you’ll need your 000webhost FTP credentials, which you can find in the Settings > General section of the 000webhost app page. Look for your Hostname, Username, and Password:

000webhost Hostname, Username & Password

Paste this information into the corresponding sections of FileZilla to log in:

FileZilla Hostname, Username & Password

Then you’ll need to look for the public_html file in your web server, and upload your unzipped WordPress files there by copying and pasting them in.

The next step is to make sure you have a database for your WordPress site. Your database, as the name suggests, is used to store some of your site’s information. If you have chosen 000webhost as your WordPress host provider, a database will be automatically set up for your site. If not, you may have to set one up yourself before proceeding.

The final stage is to complete the famous WordPress 5-minute install. The steps in this streamlined process are fairly self-explanatory. You will be asked to enter in details (site title, password, email, username, etc), including your hostname and credentials from 000webhost:

5-Minute WordPress Installation

Once you have run the installation, you will be given the option to log in to your new site. With that, the manual setup will be complete!

What To Do After You Install WordPress

WordPress Post-Installation Steps

Once your site is installed, you can start building it!

It’s one thing to install WordPress, but quite another to ensure that it is configured to run smoothly and match your objectives. There are a few basic settings to configure, and plugins you may want to install in order to improve the functionality, speed, SEO, and security of your WordPress site.

Among other things, you may want to:

  • Adjust your site’s reading settings. Here, you can set whether you want your latest posts on your front page, or whether you’d like a static homepage (with your latest posts displayed on a separate page).
  • Optimize your permalink structure. Permalinks are web addresses that associate with your posts and pages, which link directly to your content. The plain permalink structure will include no information pertinent to the content. However, you can use the Permalink Settings in the Settings tab to set what you want to display after your URL (date, the post’s name, a combination of both, etc).
  • Set up caching on your site. This will ensure that it loads quickly, and improve the chances of visitors sticking around. Caching creates static versions of your website’s content (posts, pages, etc), which are rendered and served to browsers. Luckily, when you install your WordPress site with 000webhost, you’ll receive both page and browser cache plugins.
  • Choose a theme. Your theme is the graphical interface of your website and will ensure that the content of your page is presented in a way that best suits your needs. There are innumerable WordPress themes to choose from, catering to e-commerce sites, photography blogs, news pages, and just about anything else you can think of. Plus, installing WordPress themes is generally an easy process.
  • Install some plugins. Plugins to enhance your site’s security and protect your page from spam are always a smart idea. Wordfence Security is a free, highly-rated plugin that will place a firewall on your WordPress site, provide security alerts, and offer incident recovery tools. To better ensure that your site is secure from spam, Akismet is a great option, as it automatically filters comment. To ensure that your WordPress site is as easily accessible as possible, and thus boost your traffic, you may also want to consider an SEO plugin.

This may seem like a lot. However, the more time you spend tweaking and perfecting your site now, the fewer problems you’ll have to deal with over the long run. With a little effort, you’ll be able to get your new website started off on the right foot!

Conclusion

If you’re looking to build a website, you can’t go wrong with WordPress. As we’ve discussed, picking out a host and getting your website up and running isn’t nearly as daunting as it might first appear. With a few simple steps, you’ll be ready to start creating content for your new site in no time.

To recap, the first thing you’ll need to do is pick a hosting provider. Look for one with a solid reputation for security, performance, and support, such as 000webhost. Then you’ll need to install the platform, which is simple with our auto-installer option. After that, you just need to configure a few settings and start picking out your theme and plugins.

Do you have any questions about how to install your WordPress site, or choose the right hosting plan? Let us know in the comments section below!

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