How to Install WordPress Using Softaculous Installer?

You can install WordPress in many ways before you kick of your website online. The easiest and recommended method is to install through the one click application offered by your hosting company. Different hosting companies offer different software for one click installation of packages like WordPress, phpBB, Joomla, Drupal, etc. Sotaculous is one of the popular applications used for one click installation in many of the hosting companies like SiteGround, HostGator, etc. In this article, let us explain step by step process of installing WordPress using Softaculous.

Install WordPress Using Softaculous

There are three basics steps in installing WordPress using Softaculous.

• Finding WordPress installation package in your cPanel
• Customizing and installing WordPress
• Testing and cleaning up admin panel after installation

Let us discuss each steps in detail. Learn more on how to install WordPress manually, install beta version, on Mac using MAMP, on Bluehost subdomain and on subdirectory.

1. Finding WordPress Installation Package in cPanel

First login to your hosting account and go to the cPanel section. Search for “Softaculous” in cPanel to locate the Softaculous app.

As you can see in our example, the app is available under “Software and Services” section. Open the app and navigate to “Blog > WordPress” section.

You will see the current version available for installation, ratings and other options. Scroll down and click on the “Install Now” link to start the WordPress installation process on your domain.

2. Customizing and Installing WordPress

The next screen will show all options relevant to WordPress installation grouped under different categories. Be sure to fill up all the details carefully and if you have any doubts, ask your hosting company before proceeding further.

2.1. Software Setup

Fill the following details under “Software Setup” setup section.

• Protocol – ensure to select http, https, with www or without www option.
• Domain – select main or subdomain
• Directory – enter the directory name if you want to install WordPress on subdirectory level like “mysite.com/subdirectory”. Otherwise leave this field empty to install on the selected domain or subdomain.

2.2. Site Settings

Here you need to enter the name and description of your site. Also you can choose to enable multisite installation if you need. You can update these settings in the dashboard after successful installation.

2.3. Admin Account

Enter the admin username, password and email. This is most important section because you need to use these credentials to login to your WordPress admin panel each and every time for updating the content. Remember, it is not possible to change the admin username through the frontend though you can do it through backend.

2.4. Choose Language

The next step is to select the language for your installation. This will change the menu and other descriptions in the admin panel to the selected language. This language selection does not affect the language of your site.

2.5. Select Plugins

This is an optional section and may not be available with all hosting companies. In this example, you will see an option to install the plugin “Limit Login Attempt”. We recommend not to select this plugin as you can decide later on plugin selection from admin panel.

2.6. Advanced Options

The “Advanced Options” section will be in a collapsed mode. We strongly recommend you to expand the section and modify the automatically generated database and table prefix details. Leave the backup location as default.

Click on the “Install” button, after filling all required details. The installation will start and you will see the progress of the installation on the screen like below:

After successful installation, the success message will be shown like below along with the URL for login to your admin panel. You will also receive an email provided in the admin account section with the login information details. However, the admin password will never be shown anywhere, so ensure to remember the password.

3. Clean Up Installation

Click on the “Administrative URL” link to login to your WordPress admin panel. There are plenty of actions you should do before launching your site. Here is a checklist explaining the steps to be done on the new installations before launching a site. The minimum things are to be delete the themes, plugins, posts, pages, comments and install the required themes and plugins for your site.

When you are doing the preparatory work, choose “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” option available under “Settings > Reading” section. This will ensure the junk content on your site is not indexed by Google.