The following will be an in-depth article on how to set-up a WordPress Site. There are a few things that you really will need. Really you need a hosting service and a domain to set it up under, beyond that you are golden. I am going to give you a step by step, here goes…
Download WordPress
Create Your Database and Database User
Create the Database
Create the Database User
Go back within the MySQL Databases section and then add a database user, I normally call this whatever the database title is plus user, or something that makes it easy to identify. You will also be asked to create a password for this user, I always use the password generator for security purposes. Once created it will lead you to the screen that says something to the extent of: Added user “xxxxxx_xxxx” with password “xxxxxxxxx”. Be sure and save these as well as you will need them. Once done, go back and add the user to the database. It will bring you to a screen where it will ask what privileges you would like the user to have. I personally always give the user all access. At this point you are done in c-panel, so go ahead and close that and head back to the domain where you uploaded WordPress.
Create a wp-config.php file
Once back at the domain you will see that it now says “There doesn’t seem to be a wp-config.php file. I need this before we can get started.” – Go ahead and click through to create it. You have the database name, the username and the password as they where what you saved when you set them up within c-panel so go ahead and enter them in now. If done correctly you will be lead to a screen where it will say “Run the Install”, so make it happen.
Finishing the Installation
WordPress words of advice.
Once I am in the dashboard for the first time I have a tendency to change a few things real quick. I go to settings > general in the left navigation and quickly change the tag line to what I want as well as the timezone to where the site is located. Any changes here and you need to go to the bottom of the page and hit save. I also always go to settings > permalinks real quick and set that to postname for a nice and SEO friendly permalink structure. That is it, you are ready to make a monster, have at it.
I also created a short little 10 minute video which shows how to do this step by step. Very simple and goes through exactly what I have written in the above article.