Categories
Start a New WordPress Site

How to Install WordPress On Your New Web Hosting Account in Five Steps

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Start a New WordPress Site

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Start a New WordPress Site
This is a post in a series on starting a new WordPress website – covering registering a domain through to to publishing your first post and everything in between. To view the full list of posts in this series, please click here.

Now that you’ve registered a domain for your new website and chosen a web hosting provider, it’s time to install WordPress.

As WordPress is the software that will power your new website, it needs to be installed just like a regular piece of software on your computer, or an app on your phone. Except as we want this software, and your website to be visible to the world, WordPress needs to be installed on a web server. If this sounds a bit complicated, don’t worry, it really isn’t.

Guide to Installing WordPress On Your New Web Hosting Account

Unfortunately, depending on which web host you have chosen, the process of installing WordPress will be slightly different. However, in most cases the five step guide to installing WordPress below will see you though the process with ease.

In some cases your host might even install WordPress for you without you having to do anything. To check if this is the case, visit your newly registered domain and add ‘/wp-login.php’ to the end of the address and if you see a login screen, then congratulations, you have a brand new WordPress site to start working with.

  • To check if WordPress is installed, go to: http://yourdomainname.com/wp-login.php

If you see the WordPress login form, then you are good to go.

WordPress Login Screen

If you don’t know your username and password, check your inbox for an email from your web host or whoever installed WordPress for you for the details.

If WordPress has been installed, the real fun begins, so it’s time to skip this post and read about the essential tasks you must complete on a new WordPress site.

Five Step Guide to Installing WordPress

If you chose one of the hosts on our list of recommended WordPress web hosts that don’t install WordPress on your behalf, then in most cases you can install the software in just a few clicks.

In this demonstration I will be using HostGator, a low cost, entry level host for new bloggers looking to get started as soon as possible with little financial outlay.

However, this guide should work with any of the main shared hosts such as Bluehost or SiteGround, that are using the cPanel software to allow you to manage your account.

1. Login to the cPanel Control Panel

Look for the welcome email from your web host and find the web address and login credentials for the control panel or cPanel for your account.

cPanel Address

Click on the link in the email and log into the control panel.

cPanel Login

2. Locate the Installer

Once you are logged in to the control panel, you should see something like this, perhaps with different branding, depending on your chosen web host.

HostGator cPanel

Now we need to find the QuickInstall tool which will take care of the WordPress installation for us. You can either scroll down to locate it or hit the Crtl + F keys on your keyword and type in QuickInstall to let your browser find it.

cPanel QuickInstall

With HostGator QuickInstall is located in the Software/Services area, but it could be different for your host to if you don’t see it there, keep looking.

3. Select WordPress

One inside the QuickInstall tool, on the left hand sidebar, there should be a header section entitled ‘Blog Software’, which contains the WordPress link. Click on ‘WordPress’ to start the installation process.

cPanel QuickInstall WordPress

On the next screen, click on ‘Continue’ to proceed.

cPanel QuickInstall Continue

4. Install WordPress

One the next screen, you must enter a few details such as your email address, and the name of your site. Your application URL should be pre-populated with the domain you have associated with this hosting account, if not select it from the list.

When entering your username try and come up with something that will be difficult for anyone else to guess, and try avoiding things like your name or ‘admin’.

cPanel QuickInstall Settings

All of the settings can be changed at a later date, from inside your WordPress site, so don’t worry too much about these details at this stage, just get them done and click ‘Install Now!’.

5. Login to WordPress

Once you see the ‘Congratulations!’ message below, (even if the progress bar isn’t fully completed) you can log into your brand new WordPress website.

cPanel QuickInstall Done

Just click on the link in blue text and then use the login details to gain access to your new site.

cPanel QuickInstall Login

Once you’ve logged in, you will be taken to the WordPress admin dashboard for your new website.

cPanel QuickInstall Dashboard

Troubleshooting

If you have any trouble logging in, check your inbox of the email address you supplied when installing WordPress for your username and password.

If the password isn’t working or you can’t remember it, switch back to the browser window or tab where you installed WordPress from and click on the ‘Manage Installations’ button at the top of the page.

cPanel QuickInstall Manage

Then click on the settings icons and enter a new password in the form below.

cPanel QuickInstall Gear

Now try logging in again by visiting your site at http://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php

Conclusion

Hopefully you’ve now got a new WordPress website installed on your registered domain. If you’ve had any problems with any of this, please get in touch.

In this next post in this series on setting up a new website will be covering the essential tasks you must complete after installing WordPress.

See you on the other side.

Categories
Start a New WordPress Site

How to Connect your Domain Name to your Web Hosting Account

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Start a New WordPress Site

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Start a New WordPress Site
This is a post in a series on starting a new WordPress website – covering registering a domain through to to publishing your first post and everything in between. To view the full list of posts in this series, please click here.

You might’ve noticed that the best web hosts for WordPress also offer domain registration services. However, I recommend keeping your domain and web hosting separate and opting for two different companies to handle each of these services.

In this article you will learn how to link up your domain name and your web hosting space so that when someone types in your domain name, such as mydomain.com, it takes them to your web hosting space, and your new WordPress site.

Why Keep Your Domain and Hosting Providers Separate?

It might seem like extra unnecessary paperwork to sign up with two different companies and manage two different accounts when you could let your web host take care of registering your domain name.

But the main reason why I like to keep these two services separate is that when it comes to upgrading your web host, or changing hosts, being able to control your domain name independently of your web host makes it very easy to link it up to your new web host, without incurring any extra costs or delays.

If you’ve opted for a low cost shared hosting account from a web host such as HostGator, then hopefully you will need to change web hosts sooner than later, due to the success of your website.

Once your site gets more popular and receives more visitors it will soon outgrow the entry level shared hosting packages. While this low cost, few dollars a month packages are OK for getting started, especially for those on a budget, they won’t last you forever.

Also, if it turns out you aren’t happy with your web host, whether it’s an entry level shared host, or a premium managed WordPress hosting company, being able to instantly point your domain name to your new web hosting account is much more preferable than trying to haggle with the company you are leaving, asking them to help you reconfigure the domain you registered through them.

Another reason to keep the two separate is that sometimes a web host might offer a free domain registration when you sign up with them, only to later start charging you over the odds to renew it each year. With a specialist domain registration service such as namecheap, the renewal price will always be the going rate and inline with other competing services.

So with all of that in mind, you can see why it’s a better idea to keep your domain registration and your web hosting accounts separate.

How to Connect your Domain and Your Web Hosting

In this guide I will use my two recommended service providers for entry level websites:

  • Namecheap (domain registration)
  • HostGator (entry level low cost web hosting)

However, if you’ve gone with someone else, then this guide should still be able to help you out.

It’s also worth pointing out that when signing up for your web hosting, you might’ve had the opportunity to enter your domain details and let the hosting company links the two entities.  If this might be the case, enter your domain name now and see where it takes you.

If you see a holding page from your domain registration service such as namecheap then you still need to link your account.

NameCheap Holding Page

If you see a holding page from your web host, then the accounts are already linked and you can skip to the next post in this series which covers how to install WordPress on your web space.

1. Login to your Domain Name Account

If you still need to link your domain so that it takes you to your web hosting space, then head over to the service you used to registration the domain, such as namecheap.com, and login to your account.

From the dashboard, click to view the domains you have registered, and then click on the domain you have registered for your new website.

NameCheap Dashboard

2. Transfer DNS to Web Host Screen

NameCheap Transfer DNSOn the left hand side menu, click on the Transfer DNS to Webhost menu item.

The DNS server addresses are just the address of your web space on your hosting account. By entering these details into the form, it will tell the domain service where to send anyone who types your domain name into their browser, or clicks on a link to your domain.

3. Find Your Web Host’s DNS Servers

Before you can enter the DNS you need to find them. Your web host should’ve sent you them in the welcoming email when you signed up.

So go to your inbox for the email address you used to create the account with your chosen web host.

Look for the section of the email that mentions name servers and looks like this:

Your name servers:
ns1234.hostgator.com
ns2345.hostgator.com

Now copy the first line and switch back to your domain account.

4. Enter the Name Server DNS

On the form on the domain account settings page, enter the two name servers from the email into the first two fields on the form.

NameCheap Enter DNS

Although there is room for five name server addresses, don’t worry if you only have two. If you have more than two, add them to the form and hit the Save Changes button.

The changes may take some time to propagate, so don’t worry if your domain name is still pointing to the domain registration holding page.

5. Install WordPress

While you wait for the change to take effect, now is a good time to install WordPress on your web hosting account and get your website up and running and ready for its for post.

To find out how, read our five step guide to installing WordPress and get your website online today.

Conclusion

Hopefully you’ve now got a good understanding of why it’s important to keep your domain registration and your web hosting service separate, despite the overheads of managing two different accounts.

When it’s time to upgrade to another web host for better performance as your site gets more popular, or you need to leave your host due to poor service, being able to quickly complete the above steps to link your domain to your new web hosting account will prevent any unnecessary periods where your website is unreachable, and your domain appears to no longer be working.

If you have any questions about any of the above, please leave a comment or get in touch.

Categories
eCommerce

How to Build an eCommerce Store For Free with WordPress and WooCommerce

Setting up an online store with WordPress is very easy and best of all it can be done for free. I should point out there are some upfront costs involved, such as registering a domain name and getting a hosting account. However, the process of turning an existing self-hosted WordPress site into an eCommerce store can be achieved without any additional financial outlay.

By following this guide you will be able to add eCommerce functionality to your WordPress site and start an online store today.  If you are yet to setup a WordPress site of your own, please check out our guide to installing WordPress.

Choosing an eCommerce Plugin

In order to enable your WordPress site to function as an online store, you are going to have to install a plugin. There is a handful of leading free eCommerce plugins for WordPress and for this guide we are going to be using WooCommerce.

Why WooCommerce? It’s a very robust, powerful and easy to use eCommerce toolkit for WordPress, making it a good choice for beginners and expert users alike. This free plugin been developed by the WooThemes team and there are many additional addons available to enhance both the plugin itself and your online store. These complimentary addons are created by the plugin’s developers and third parties. They include features such as:

  • Integration with additional payment processing services,
  • Advanced product shipping management
  • Create products with recurring payments
  • Advanced reporting
  • Bulk product imports

To view the many extensions available for WooCommerce visit the store.

The downside of WooCommerce is that although the plugin is free, if you want to add more features to your store, there is a good chance you may have to pay for an additional extension or plugin to bring the desired functionality to your site. However, the free version has everything needed to begin selling items online from your WordPress site.

Building an eCommerce Store with WooCommerce

The first step is to install the free WooCommerce plugin on your site. The easiest way to do this is to login to your WordPress admin area and then go to Plugins > Add New on the admin sidebar menu.

Install WooCommerce

Then perform a search for the term ‘woocommerce’. There will be a lot of results returned but the plugin we are looking for should be listed first and will look like this:

Install eCommerce Plugin

Click on ‘Install Now‘, and then ‘Activate Plugin’ on the next screen. Once the plugin is installed and activated, it will prompt you to do a couple of things. The first is to create the necessary pages for your online store. To do this, simply click on the ‘Install WooCommerce Pages’ button and they will be created for you.

WooCommerce Install Pages

Theme Issues

At this point you may see a message notifying you that ‘Your theme does not declare WooCommerce support’.

Depending on the WordPress theme in use, this might be a problem or not. If you are starting a new site, a quick way to rectify this is to activity the free ‘Twenty Twelve’ theme which should be installed on your site.

To do this go to Appearance > Themes and then look for a theme called Twenty Twelve and click ‘Activate’. If it’s not there, click on ‘Add New’ and do a search for ‘Twenty Twelve’ and then click on ‘Install Now’ from the results. If you are tied into your existing theme then you can press ahead and wait until it becomes apparent whether it really is a problem or not. A further option is to purchase a theme built for use with WooCommerce.

Creating Your First Product

The plugin has now been setup and your site now has eCommerce functionality. That was pretty easy I’m sure you’ll agree. Now it’s time to the start adding your products to the store.

Now the bad news with WooCommerce is there isn’t an option to mass import products into the system (unless you buy this extension) so you will have to add each product by hand. However, the good news is that creating products is done in almost the same way as creating a new post.

To get started and create your first product, locate the ‘Product’ menu item on the left side menu and then click on ‘Add Product’ from the sub-menu.

Creating a Product

The ‘Add Product’ page should be familiar to WordPress users as it is based on the ‘Add New Post’ page. The main difference is that it contains a few extra meta boxes beneath the main post editor. If you scoll down the page you will see a meta box entitled ‘Product Short Description’.

WooCommerce Short Product Description

This is the area where you should write the product description as it will be displayed at the top of the product page. However, this placement can vary depending on what WordPress theme you are using. To be sure, enter a quick bit of text in this box and hit the ‘Preview’ button in the right of the screen.

Any information you add to the main editor on the Add/Edit Product page will be displayed further down your published product page, under the ‘Description’ tab. To see this in action, quickly add some text to the main post editor.

WooCommerce Product Description

This information, should now be displayed on your product page like so (although again, this can depend on which WordPress theme you are using, for this example I am using the free Twenty Twelve theme):

WooCommerce Product Preview

So now you’ve got a product page that includes the main description, then a further piece of text listing more details about the product. Now it’s time to add the product images.

Adding Product Images with WooCommerce

The first image you want to add should be the one that shows your product in the best light. Once you’ve selected your image, locate the Featured Image box on the Add Product page and click on the ‘Set Featured Image’ text.

Now you can drag and drop the image you want to use into the Media Library or select from an image you’ve already uploaded to your site. This is the image that will be displayed in the product listings pages and also as the main image on the individual product page so make sure it’s a good one.

Once the image has been set, you can preview your product to see it in action.

WooCommerce Product Preview 02

Now depending on your theme, you might notice some smaller blank images boxes beneath the image you just added when previewing the product page. WooCommerce allows you to add multiple product images to each product page and this is where they are displayed.

Switch page to the ‘Edit Product’ page and locate the ‘Product Gallery’ box which should be above the ‘Featured Image’ box we just used. Here you can add additional images that can be used to illustrate your product description.

Click on ‘Add product gallery images’ and then upload or select the images as before. You can select multiple images by holding down the Ctrl key when clicking on them.

WooCommerce Product Gallery

You should also give the individual images relevant Title and Descriptions before clicking the ‘Add to Gallery’ button.

To preview the product gallery you will have to publish the product rather than just clicking the preview button. But when you are ready to publish the product you should see something like this:

WooCommerce Product Preview 03

Due to the way the gallery images are displayed, for presentation purposes, adding three or more images to the gallery is a good idea.

Product Taxonomies

WooCommerce adds its own product taxonomies to your WordPress site. These are the Product Tags and Product Categories. They work like the regular WordPress categories and tags, but they are only shown for products. You will need to think carefully on how you are going to use the product tags and categories as they can be used by shoppers at your store to find products.

One use could be to enter the product type in the category filed and the brand in the tag field. Such as:

  • Product Category: T-Shirts
  • Product Tag: Nike, Running,

With the above approach, a shopper could click on the T-Shirts category on your store and see all the products in that category, and the same with the Nike or Running tags. You can have multiples of each, although best practice often recommends that a product should only be in one category, but can have multiple tags. You can also have subcategories too such as Clothing > T-Shirts.

Whatever you decide, just try to be consistent across all your products. You can go back and edit these at a later date so don’t worry too much at this point.

Product Data

Now that the first product for your online store it taking shape, it’s time to look at the product data.

WooCommerce Product Data 01

Here you can enter the information that allows you to run your WordPress eCommerce store, including the pricing details and shipping details. What you enter here will be based on the products you are planning to sell online so once you’d got the information you need about your products, start filling in the fields.

WooCommerce has some pretty good features here such as being able to set a sale price and also the date range for when that reduction will be applied. You can let WooCommerce manage stock levels from the ‘Inventory’ page.

Product Data Options

When you’ve entered the product data, such as price and quantity you have in stock, the product should be ready to go.

Product SEO

If you are using an SEO plugin such as WordPress SEO then you can add some additional information to your product that will be displayed in the search engine results pages when someone is using Google to find a product that you sell. This is worth doing for each product and can increase the number of people who find your store when searching online.

WooCommerce SEO

Just fill in the ‘SEO Title’ and ‘Meta Description’ fields and you should be done. The former is used for displaying a title for your site in Google, while the latter is what is displayed as the snippet underneath the title in the Google listings. The more interesting and compelling you can make the description, the more likely a searcher will click through to your site and maybe purchase something.

Publishing your First Product

With everything setup, you should now be ready to publish your product and make it live. You can edit any of the product details later or even un-publish a product so changes can be made in the future.

To set your product live, locate the ‘Publish’ (or Update) button at the top right of the screen and press it; congratulations, you’ve just created your first eCommerce store with its own product.

Example of WooCommerce Product

Managing Orders

WooCommerce makes it very easy to track orders made at your store. Simply go to the ‘WooCommerce’ menu on the left side menu of your admin area and then click on the ‘Orders’ sub-menu item.

Manage Orders with WooCommerce

From there you can see any orders that have been made and then do what is necessary to fulfil them such as shipping them out. Out of the box WooCommerce can handle basic payment collection using PayPal so once and order has been completed you can do your part of the transaction.

WooCommerce Settings

From the Settings sub-menu, you can configure how you’d like your store to function. There are a lot of options and settings but they are all pretty self-explanatory and are well-documented with tooltips that provide additional information.

Tooltip Example

One setting you might want to enable right from the outset is the new order email notifications. To set this up, click on the ‘Email’ tab and then click on ‘New Order’ from the sub-menu.

Enable the option and then enter your email address. Now you will get an email when a customer makes an order, allowing you to respond as soon as you can.

Setup Email Notifications

And that is it. You should now have an online store setup with at least one product that can manage orders and accept payment via PayPal.

Conclusion

As you can see, WooCommerce is very easy to setup. It has all the features you need for building a basic online store, without outlaying any money. For the extra functionality that is required for creating an advanced eCommerce store, there is a large selection of extensions available that bring professional web store features to your WordPress-powered shop.

If you have any questions about setting up your first online store with WordPress, please leave a comment below or get in touch.