How to install WordPress

There are four realistic ways to get WordPress running on a website: the one-click installer built into cPanel (Softaculous), a second cPanel tool called WordPress Toolkit if your account has it, a manual install where you create the database and upload the files yourself, and WordPress.com, which is a different, hosted product with a similar name. For anyone hosting with Hostworld, the one-click installer is the one to use. It takes a few minutes, sets up the database for you, and is the method this guide covers in most detail.

This picks up once you already have a working hosting account and a domain that resolves somewhere. If your domain is registered elsewhere and isn't pointing at Hostworld yet, sort that first: your registrar needs Hostworld's nameservers, which are ns1.serverworld.uk, ns2.serverworld.uk, ns3.serverworld.uk and ns4.serverworld.uk. Installing WordPress before the domain is pointed correctly just means you'll be looking at the wrong site when you check your work.

Before you start

• Know your cPanel login. On Hostworld shared, reseller and WordPress hosting, WordPress is installed through cPanel, not through a VPS control panel. If you manage a VPS in Virtualizor and want cPanel on top of it, that's a separate install and a different guide.
• Check the target directory is actually empty. This is the step people skip and regret. If you're installing at your domain root (for example example.co.uk, not example.co.uk/blog) and there's already a site, a placeholder page, or leftover files from a previous attempt sitting there, the installer will refuse to proceed until you deal with them. More on this below, because the way people "deal with it" is sometimes the wrong way.
• Decide where WordPress lives. At the domain root, in a subdirectory, or on an addon domain. If you already run one script (WordPress or anything else) at your account's root, a second one can't go in the same place: it needs its own folder or its own addon domain.
• Have your admin details ready. A site title, an admin username that isn't "admin", a strong password, and an email address you actually check. The installer asks for all four.
• Back up anything already on the domain. Not because the install is likely to go wrong, but because the one genuinely destructive option in this whole process is a single checkbox, and it's easy to tick without reading it properly.

Method 1: The Softaculous installer in cPanel (recommended)

Softaculous comes bundled with cPanel and appears under the Software section, usually with WordPress listed as a featured app. You pick the domain, choose the protocol, decide whether to install at the root or in a subdirectory, fill in the site name and admin details, and click Install. cPanel and Softaculous create the database, write the configuration file and unpack WordPress for you, so there's nothing to type at a command line.

The one thing to get right is the "In Directory" field. Leave it blank and WordPress installs at your domain root. Type a folder name and it installs in a subdirectory instead. If that folder already contains files, most commonly an index.php left over from an earlier attempt or an existing site, Softaculous stops and tells you the files already exist. At that point you get two options: connect over FTP and delete what's there, or tick an "Overwrite Files" box that appears on the form. Ticking it will replace whatever is currently in that folder. If there's a live site sitting there that you meant to keep, this is how you lose it. Delete manually if you're sure, back up first if you're not, and only tick overwrite once you know exactly what's in the folder.

The related trap is trying to install a second script into your account's root directory when one is already there. Softaculous won't run two root installs at once. Create a new folder for the second one, or put it on an addon domain, so the two don't collide.

We've written the full click-by-click version of this, including what the form fields are actually called on Hostworld's cPanel: how to install WordPress in cPanel.

Method 2: WordPress Toolkit, if your cPanel has it

Some cPanel accounts also have a second, separate WordPress tool called WordPress Toolkit, distinct from Softaculous's own WordPress manager. It became free to use on any cPanel account from cPanel version 100 onwards, so on a reasonably current cPanel you may see both options. Either can install and manage a WordPress site; they don't share settings with each other.

If both are available and you use them on the same site, don't turn on automatic updates or automatic backups in both at once. Neither tool checks what the other is doing, so if they both try to update the same site at the same time, whichever one gets there first wins and the other's job simply fails silently. Pick one tool for ongoing maintenance and leave the other alone.

Method 3: Install WordPress manually

Some people prefer to install WordPress without a one-click tool, usually because they're moving an existing site with a specific configuration, or because they're on hosting without Softaculous. It's the same end result, just more steps, and the steps are worth doing in order because skipping one is the usual reason people get stuck on a blank screen.

Step 1: Create a database and a database user

Through cPanel's MySQL Database Wizard (or the equivalent tool on whatever control panel you're using), create a new database, create a new database user, and add that user to the database with full privileges. Write down the database name, username and password exactly as you enter them: this is where most manual installs go wrong, not in the WordPress files themselves.

Step 2: Download and unzip WordPress

Get the current WordPress package from wordpress.org and unzip it on your own computer, or download it directly to the server if your hosting has a way to do that.

Step 3: Upload the files

Upload the extracted files to the correct folder on your hosting, either over FTP or through cPanel's File Manager. As with the one-click route, upload to the domain root for the main site, or to a subfolder if you want WordPress somewhere else.

Step 4: Rename and edit the configuration file

In the folder you uploaded, find wp-config-sample.php and rename it to wp-config.php. Open it and fill in the database name, database username, database password and database host you created in Step 1. This file is what tells WordPress which database to talk to, and it's the step people forget because the sample file looks like it should just work as it is. It won't.

Step 5: Run the install script

Visit the domain (or subfolder) in a browser. WordPress detects there's no configuration recorded yet and runs its own setup screen, asking for a site title, an admin username, a password and an email address. Submit that and the install is done.

Done properly, this takes about five minutes if you've done it before. The honest figure for a first attempt is closer to fifteen or twenty minutes, almost all of it spent double-checking the database details in Step 4. If that sounds like more fuss than you want, use Method 1 instead: it's the same result with the database step done for you.

WordPress.com is not the same thing

WordPress.com and the self-installed software described above (sometimes called WordPress.org to distinguish them) share a name and a codebase, but they are different products. WordPress.com is hosting: Automattic runs the servers, handles updates and takes care of security, and you sign up for a plan rather than installing anything. What this guide covers, and what runs on Hostworld's cPanel hosting, is the free, self-installed software where you control the hosting, the files and the database yourself. If you've bought hosting with Hostworld, WordPress.com isn't something you need or would set up here: you're already doing the self-hosted version.

Installing WordPress locally, for development only

Worth a brief mention for completeness: it's possible to run WordPress on your own computer using a local development stack such as LocalWP, entirely offline. This is a developer or testing option, not a way to run a live website, and it isn't relevant to hosting a real site with visitors. If you want a place to build a site before pointing a domain at it, that's what a Hostworld hosting account is for.

What next

Once WordPress is installed, the next sensible step is making sure it's actually backed up before you start adding content, themes or plugins. If you haven't already looked at how backups work on Hostworld hosting, our backup guides cover that. If you're setting this up as part of moving a site from somewhere else, our WordPress guides cover the rest of that path, including migrations. For anything Softaculous or WordPress Toolkit won't let you do, or if the "files already exist" error won't clear even after you've checked the folder, open a support ticket and we'll take a look.