Introduction to WordPress

What is WordPress

WordPress is a free open source content management system that is written in PHP and MySQL. It is a tool to create websites and blog easily and quickly.

WordPress Installation

For beginners the installation seems a bit tedious. But its not. Follow the steps below to install wordpress on local machine:

  • Go to wordpress.org and download the latest stable WordPress bundle.
  • The downloaded file is a compressed file named as "wordpress-version-number.zip". Extract the downloaded file and put the extracted wordpress folder in your wamp www folder. The directory should be like wamp/www/wordpress.
  • Now, create a database for you wordpress website. You can choose any name. For time being, I named my database as 'wordpress_db'.
  • Go to wordpress folder. You will find a file named wp-config-sample.php. Rename it as wp-config.php and open it.
  • wp-config.php file is a configuration file for wordpress. After opening it replace the following with your own settings: 'database_name_here' with 'wordpress_db'. In case if you have named your database something else then use that name. 'username_here' with 'root'. 'root' is the default username for wamp database. If you have created any other username for your database then use that name. 'password_here' with ''. Default password is nothing for wamp database. If you have set any password for database then use that password. There are more settings for configuration file but right now its enough for wordpress installation.
  • Open localhost/wordpress in your browser. It will ask for the language. Choose the language and click continue.
  • You will see a welcome page. Fill in the form details like Site Title, Username, Password, Your E-mail. For time being, remove the tick from the checkbox 'Allow search engines to index this site'. It is helpful for live sites.
  • After filling out all the details wordpress will be installed and show you a page with login button. Click on the button and enter login credentials that you filled in the form earlier in step 7.
  • Congratulations you have successfully installed the wordpress.

The same procedure will be used to install the WordPress on a live server. Instead of using wamp/www folder, you have to place your wordpress folder on root of the server.

WordPress Basics >>