How to Add a Wordpress.Org Blog with HostGator

HostGator has a nice CPanel, but if you're not familiar with how it works, it may as well be Greek. I'm not the greatest techie on earth, and so when I wanted to add WordPress to my website it took me several days to figure out how to do it. Once I figured it out, it was so simple. HostGator even has a program called Fantastico to do it for you!

I figure others have the same problems that I had, and so I'm doing a series of basic steps that I took to get my sites up and running.

#1- Follow the link in your welcome email from HostGator that opens your CPanel and sign in.

#2- You're now looking at CPanel. Scroll to the bottom of the icons and look towards the right. You should see a blue smiley face labeled Fantastico De Luxe. Click this icon.

#3- You should see a screen with a big white block on the right with some babble on it. To the left is a list of programs. Look down the left side until you see WordPress (it should be the second group with the label "blogs").

#4- Now, in the right hand column (the big white block) you'll see "WordPress" in big letters at the top. There will be some more babble in the block- just look until you find "New Installation". Click it.

#5- In the new screen you'll see "install on domain" followed by a drop down list of the domains you have hosted by HostGator. Choose the domain you want to add WordPress to.

#6- Directly below where you choose the domain, is a box labeled "directory". Now, if you want to build a single website with WordPress, leave this blank. If you want to build multiple websites on the same domain with WordPress, enter the name you want. For example- your site is MySite.com. But you want a blog at MySite.com/myblog. MySite.com is the "root directory", but when you build this site you enter "myblog" into the directory slot (or whatever you want to call that section).

#7- Fill in the rest of the information. Admin Access Data is simply what you want your login and password to be for getting into your WordPress account. Base Configuration is your screen name (you can use your real name if you want), email address for important information, and the title of your website. You'll need to fill in your email information as well.