Want to create a blog on WordPress?
Here is the complete beginner’s guide to help you start your blog and see the bottom section to learn how to use WordPress.
All this information is free, feel free to take action and start building something new.
- Part 1: WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org: Everything You Need to Know
- Part 2: How to Buy Hosting for Your WordPress Blog
- Part 3: << You are here >>
- Part 4: Basic Setup After Installing WordPress
- Part 5: How to Install WordPress Plugins
- Part 6: How to Choose a WordPress Theme
- Part 7: How to Install a WordPress Theme
- Part 8: 14 Tips to Secure Your WordPress Site
- Part 9: Pro Tips to Speed Up WordPress and Reduce Loading Times
This guide is for beginners who want to learn how to install WordPress on Bluehost. I share the specific steps to help you create a blog with WordPress.
I have used Bluehost for my sites and client sites and what I like about them is that they don't over promote themselves.
They’re simple, they’re innovating new things to make WordPress management easier, and they’re one of the best.
Many of you may not know that Bluehost is one of the officially recommended hosts by WordPress, and this is important.
What I like about Bluehost is that they have scaled their servers for optimal performance when running WordPress.
They offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage , premium support, and everything you might need to run a successful WordPress blog. Recently, Bluehost has made some great improvements in WordPress management, including the fact that you can use free SSL , WordPress will automatically install, and they’ve made WordPress more secure on their servers.
Sign up for Bluehost now (free domain name)
A Complete Guide to Creating a WordPress Blog on Bluehost
The self-hosted WordPress platform is one of the best platforms to start blogging and make money.
We have shared a complete guide on how to start a new blog which you can refer to to get started.
So why choose Bluehost?
Bluehost offers standard cPanel hosting which comes with Fantastico. Fantastico is one of the easiest ways to install WordPress or you can use the manual WordPress installation method . However, I recommend using Fantastico because it is really easy and effective.
If you are still wondering if Bluehost is the right choice for you, I recommend going straight for it. There are certain technical requirements that any WordPress web hosting service must meet, and Bluehost more than meets the eye. It can easily handle any low to medium traffic website. Having said that , I always recommend using a WordPress caching plugin when using shared/VPS hosting.
Assuming you already have a Bluehost account (if not, get one here ), you’re ready to continue with this tutorial.
Bluehost has completely revamped its web hosting service to make it WordPress-oriented. Unlike before when you had to create a blog manually, now Bluehost will automatically install and set up WordPress for you. If you follow the guide above and purchase hosting + a free domain from Bluehost, it will automatically start installing WordPress for you.
This may take 5 to 50 minutes. If you see a screen like this
If you have problems, log in to your Bluehost dashboard. This is what the new Bluehost dashboard will look like in 2025:
Click "Log in to WordPress" to automatically log in to your WordPress blog dashboard.
I’m working on some videos to help you through the process. For now, this will help you get started with WordPress on Bluehost.
Manually install WordPress on Bluehost:
Now, if for some reason you deleted your existing WordPress installation or want to install WordPress on a new domain (addon domain), you can follow the above-mentioned steps.
- Log into your Bluehost hosting dashboard
- Click Market
- Click Add Site
- Enter details
Click Next and select the domain where you want to install WordPress.
Click Next and WordPress will be installed on your selected domain in 5 minutes.
That's it!
Create your WordPress blog on Bluehost
Things to do after installing WordPress on Bluehost:
There are a few things you should always do once you’ve installed WordPress (on any host) .
This brings us to the next lesson in this series:
Part 4: Essential Things to Do After Installing WordPress
Let me know if you run into any issues along the way. And let me know what you think of Bluehost. Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!
In the next section, you’ll learn how to install WordPress manually. You might only need to do this in certain scenarios and on certain hosts. Either way, it’s useful to know when the automatic installation fails and you want to install WordPress without the automated software.
How to Install WordPress Manually
There are several things we need to prepare before we begin the process. Here is a list of things you should prepare.
- WordPress software: Download the latest version of WordPress from the official download page.
- FTP access to your hosting account
- cPanel access to create the database along with the database user and password.
- So I am assuming that you have everything ready and have downloaded WordPress as well.
Create a database and a database user:
I believe this step is the only one that can be confusing for non-technical users. So follow this step-by-step guide with screenshots to create your first database and associate a username and password to it.
This is a setting that we will need to change in Wp-config later in this manual WordPress installation tutorial.
Almost all hosts with cPanel offer a MySQL Database Wizard, which makes things even easier. Log in to your cPanel, clickMySQL Database Wizard under Databases , and create a database.
Creating a Database for WordPress Installation
Click Next and provide a username and password for the newly created database. My suggestion is to use the password generator there to create a strong and complex password.
WP database user and password
After clicking Create User, the next step is to grant permissions to the user. On the next page, click Grant all permissions to the newly created user and then click Next.
Granting database user permissions
That’s it, you have created a database and username for your new WordPress installation.
Make sure to write down all the details in a notepad: DB Name, DB Username, and DB Password as we will need it in the next step.
Complete WordPress manual installation tutorial:
So, I think we are ready to move on. From here, there are 2-3 different steps we can take to continue with the manual installation of WordPress.
You can directly extract the .zip file and edit the wp-config file as shown below and upload the complete WordPress folder to the root directory of your domain (Public_html) or you can use the cPanel File Manager to extract and edit the contents of the wp-config file.
Anyway, the only step we need here is to change the wp-config contents and upload it to the correct folder on FTP. You can use a free FTP client like FileZilla to do this.
But to keep this tutorial simple and easy to follow, I will be using the web hosting cPanel.
Upload WordPress to your cPanel:
Now, under your cPanel, go to File Manager and upload the WordPress zip file you downloaded. After uploading the WordPress.zip file, click Extract and extract all the contents to the public_html directory. (Note: It should be the first WordPress installation on your cPanel).
If it is an add-on domain, unzip the files into the directory you specified for your add-on domain. This is usually the public_html/addon-domain name.
To simplify this step, I extracted all the contents under the public_html directory.
Under your cPanel hosting, you can go to File > File Manager and browse to the public_html directory and upload the WordPress.zip file.
Typically, a file extractor will create a directory called "WordPress" and extract all the files under it.
Because we are installing on our primary domain (www.domain.com) instead of (www.domain.com/WordPress), we will use the move command to move all of the files directly into the /public_html directory.
Use your file manager again to browse to /public_html/WordPress, select all the files and click Move at the top, then move all the files to public_html.
Edit the WordPress wp-config file:
Now, the next step is to fill in the database information in the wp-config file. You can copy the wp-config-sample.php and rename it to wp-config.php. Now, select wp-config.php and click Edit:
In this file you must change the following things:
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'database_name_here');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'username_here');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password_here');
/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
Now, replace database_name_here, username_here and password_here with the details we created in step 1. In most shared hosts like Bluehost, Dreamhost and HostGator, Db_host is usually left as Localhost. After adding these details, click on Save Changes.
Execute the WordPress Manual Installer script:
So far, we have completed all the basic setup required to manually install WordPress.
Now, all we need to do is run the WordPress installation script, provide a user and password for your wp-admin and do some basic setup. This is the last thing you need to do to get your WordPress blog up and running:
Visit this URL:
http://domain.com/wp-admin/install.php
(Replace domain.com with your actual domain name here).
First choose the language for your WordPress installation:
On the next screen, enter the username and password for your WordPress installation.
Try to avoid using admin as username and use a complex password. Once everything is set up, you can log in to the admin dashboard via the following link. Replace domain.com with your actual domain name:
http://domain.com/wp-admin
Now, here are some basic posts and steps you should follow in order to move forward:
- 11 basic settings after installing WordPress
- How to Install a WordPress Plugin
- How to Install a WordPress Theme
- Essential WordPress Plugins for Every WordPress Blog
And don’t forget to bookmark our WordPress guide which will provide you with all the essential guidelines you need to use WordPress.
Here are some carefully selected articles to help you learn more:
Don’t forget to share this guide with your network on Facebook and LinkedIn!
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