Installing WordPress For "Deadbeats"

Accessing Your Web Host

I'm going to show you how to setup WordPress. WordPress is the software that I always use for every single one of my affiliate sites. The reason is because it makes it very easy to modify, create, or whatever it is you need to do in affiliate marketing. If you've never built a website before or if you don't know any coding or other mumbo jumbo, Wordpress is going to help you get past all that.

In the previous section, you signed up for hosting and registered your domain name. If you haven't signed up for HostGator hosting yet, you need to do that now.

HostGator is what is known as a "cPanel host". The control panel you see here is called cPanel, and all cPanel hosts are going to look just like this. To get to this page, you need to locate the "Welcome Email" the host sent you when you signed up. Usually within a few hours, the host will email you information for cPanel. Once you have the cPanel information, log in and it will take you to this page.

Installing Via QuickInstall

Next you need to scroll down to the "Software Services" box. You're going to look for either the "Fantastico De Luxe" icon or the "Quick Install" icon. Both icons do the same thing, but different hosts may choose to use different software, so you might just see one or the other.

If you're using QuickInstall, go to the "Blog Software" tab and click "WordPress." Next you can click the "Continue" button.

When presented with the installation options, do the following:

Application URL: Select the domain name of your website (the one you just registered). You can leave the field next to the domain name blank.

Enable Auto Upgrades: Make sure this box is checked. It just makes things a lot easier.

Admin Email: You can just put your email address, but keep in mind that you're going to get a lot of different notifications from the WordPress software, so I just usually make up an email.

Blog Title: This one is important, and it's what your site is going to be about. Sometimes you can just use your domain name, but sometimes you also want to get creative with it. While you can change this later, try to be creative. Don't put in something basic like "Mountain Bike Site" or "Skin Tag Website." Try to put a little creative spin to it. You want to make your site unique. That said, it is important that the title contains at least the root keyword of your niche (ex: mountain bike, skin tag). For the skin tag site, I chose the title "Banish Skin Tags."

Admin Username: This is your login name that will also show up when you post on the site. You can use anything, but it's usually something like "admin" or your real name( if you're comfortable with that). Some people will just make up a pen name.

First & Last Name: These fields aren't really important, but fill them out for completeness.

Once all of that is entered, click "Install Now." This might take a minute or two. Just let it run. Don't hit the back button on your browser or refresh the page.

Save Your WordPress Login Information!

From here you're going to be presented with your login information. What I usually do is take that info and then copy/paste it in a blank text document that I can save to my desktop. Sometimes you may forget the username, and the password is pretty wild, so I recommend you save this information somewhere you will be able to find it.

After saving the login info, click the Admin Area link. That's going to take you to the login panel for your brand new WordPress website. Once you login, you can create the website, manage it, modify the way it looks, etc. And this is all done with clicking the mouse; you don't need to know any code!

Having Trouble Accessing The WordPress Dashboardd?

If the Admin Area link is not working, please note: Whenever you setup a new domain name, it can take anywhere from one hour to as many as 48 hours for your website to work across the internet. If you click the page and see a landing page or nothing at all, just give it a little bit more time. Once all that changes, you will then see the login prompt. This is what you'll see when it's installed correctly. But if after 12 or 24 hours it doesn't work, contact your web host. Sometimes during installation there can be problems.

You Only Need One Host

Please note that you don't always need to buy a new hosting plan for each website. You can actually host unlimited websites on HostGator. You do need to spend money for a new domain name if you want to create a second site, but those are only $9 a year. You DO NOT have to buy ten hosting plans and pay $10 a month for each website. You just need one hosting account.

I view hosting as an investment, a tool that you need to make money online. If you go back and are gold mining, you need tools like shovels, pick axes, sifting pans, whatever. Web hosting is your pick axe.

In the next section, I'm going to show you how to quickly configure WordPress in about sixty seconds.