SiteGround is one of the recommended hosting companies by official WordPress community. Sometimes back they raised the price heavily and then reduced again to reasonable rate to back in the competition. In our earlier article, we have explained how to install WordPress in SiteGround primary domain. Since the StartUp plan supports only one website, many users think they can install WordPress only one time. However, you can create subdomains and install WordPress under the same hosting plan. In this article, we will explain how you can do that.
Subdomain and Subdirectory
Before we start explaining, it is necessary to understand the difference between subdomain and subdirectory. Checkout our article that explains the complete details on this topic along with SEO advantages. Once you decided subdomain installation is the one you prefer, then read on further to setup WordPress.
Install WordPress in Subdomain
The entire process consists of five steps in SiteGround.
1. Creating Subdomain in SiteGround Site Tools
First step is to create a subdomain under your primary registered domain.
- Login to your SiteGround hosting account and go to “Websites” tab.
- Click on the “Site Tools” button below the site you want to create a subdomain.
- This will take you to the dashboard section of the custom hosting panel called Site Tools.
- Click on “Domain” menu on the sidebar and then navigate to “Subdomains” section.
- Enter the subdomain name you want to create in the “Create New Subdomain” text box and click “Create” button.
- You will see a “Subdomain … is created” success message along with a button showing “Install Application”. However, do not install application at this point on your subdomain.
2. Installing SSL for Subdomain
Open your subdomain in a new browser tab to check the status. You will see an under construction page like below indicating the site is in making.
Check the subdomain website address in the browser’s address bar. In our case, it shows the secured pad lock symbol. But in most cases, it will show “Not Secure” warning. We have a wildcard SSL and hence the subdomain is automatically assigned to a trusted certificate with the primary domain. However, if you do not have wildcard SSL, then you may see “Not Secure” message as the subdomain uses HTTP protocol. You may also find the page shows privacy error indicating connection is not secure and SSL certificate is missing.
If SSL is missing, go to “Security > SSL Manager” section in your hosting panel. Select your subdomain, SSL as “Let’s Encrypt” and click on “Get” button.
This will add your subdomain in the queue and start installing the certificate. Though this happens instantly, sometimes Let’s Encrypt SSL installation may take time. Make sure to check the status under the “Manage SSL” section and confirm that your subdomain has a valid certificate. You can also open the subdomain in a browser tab and confirm it connects with secured HTTPS and shows the padlock icon.
3. Installing WordPress in Subdomain
After installing SSL, go to “Devs > App Installer” section and select WordPress from the application dropdown list.
You have to fill up details in few sections to finish the installation.
- Under “Application Setup” section, select your subdomain as “Domain” from the dropdown. After that select your preferred language for the admin panel and select “Main folder” as installation path. Alternatively, you can choose to install on subdirectory and enter the folder name. This folder will be created under your subdomain and WordPress will be installed in that directory.
- Enter your username, password and email for logging into our WordPress admin panel under “Admin Info” section. These are the credentials you need for logging into the WordPress administrator dashboard.
- We recommend you to uncheck the add-ons items for installing starter site and multisite option.
Verify all the details provided and click on “Install” button. It will take few seconds to install WordPress in your selected subdomain and you will see a “WordPress is installed on your subdomain” success message.
Note: As you can see, there are no advanced options to change the database name or DB username when installing WordPress. You can find these details under “MySQL” section.
4. Login to WordPress Admin Panel
After successfully installing WordPress in subdomain, scroll down to see your subdomain is listed under “Manage Installations” section. Click on the login icon to automatically login to your WordPress site without entering username and password.
Alternatively, you can go to “yoursubdomain.com/wp-admin/” URL in the browser address bar and login with the details you have provided in “Admin Info” section. Note that you can either use the email address or username to login to your WordPress admin panel.
5. Fixing Not Secure Problem
Most of the time you will see “Not Secure” in the browser address bar when viewing your admin panel. This happens even though you have installed SSL certificate on subdomain.
There are two settings you need to change to fix this issue:
- Go to “Settings > General” section in your WordPress admin panel. Unfortunately, SiteGround assigns the WordPress Address and Site Address fields with HTTP version of your site. Change these address fields with HTTPS version and save your changes. You will be logged out and need to login again to the HTTPS version of your site.
- In SiteGround Site Tools section, go to “Security > HTTPS Enforce” section. Again, we noticed SiteGround does not enable this feature for the newly created subdomain. You can enable this option to fix mixed content issue on your site. This is required especially when you want to show advertisements like Google AdSense on your subdomain.
Now, open your subdomain and check it connects with secured HTTPS connection.
Note: SiteGround will install SiteGround Security and SiteGround Optimizer plugins by default without your permission. If you do not like, go to “Plugins” section and deactivate/delete them from your site. Similarly, you need to clean up the junk posts and comments after installing WordPress. Checkout our complete checklist for cleaning up new WordPress installation. The best option is to put your subdomain under maintenance mode using a plugin. You can make the site publicly visible after cleaning up and ready with the published content.
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