I get asked fairly often by friends and family to install WordPress on GoDaddy-hosted sites, so I thought I’d post a how-to here. This guide is aimed at beginner’s who don’t care to tinker with it beyond the default settings. More advanced users may be disappointed.
Important: Before you begin, make sure that your GoDaddy-hosted account is set up as a Linux account.
To check this, log in to your GoDaddy account, then click the “Hosting” menu, then click “Hosting Management.”
Now scroll to the My Accounts area of the page, find your domain, and make sure it says “Linux” somewhere under “Plan.” If it does, you’re all set. If not, you need to call GoDaddy and see if they’ll switch you over to a Linux account.
With that out of the way, let’s get started!
Note: Click on any of the images to make them larger.
Step 1: Download WordPress
Easy enough. Go to http://www.wordpress.org and grab the latest version of WordPress.
Step 2: Upload the files to your GoDaddy site
The easiest way to do this is through GoDaddy’s File Manager. Log in to your GoDaddy account, then click the “Hosting” menu, then click “Hosting Management.”
Next to your domain (under Products > Hosting), click the big green “Launch” button to launch your hosting control panel.
Now, click the “Content” tab, then click “File Manager.”
Once in File Manager, make sure you are in the root (“html” by default) folder of your site. Then, click the “Upload” button.
Click the “Browse” button.
Locate the WordPress file on your computer.
Click the “Upload” button.
After the WordPress file finishes uploading, locate the file and check the box next to it. Then, click the “Unarchive” button.
Under “Select Destination,” make sure it’s set to the root folder (“/”).
You’ll now see a “wordpress” folder in the root folder of your site.
The next step is to move the files out of the “wordpress” folder and place them in the root folder of your site; so, go into your “wordpress” folder. From the “Page Size” dropdown menu, select “50″ so you can see all of the files at once.
Then click the check box to select all files, and then click the “Move” button.
Choose the HTML folder from the left-hand side, and click OK.
Note: This guide assumes you want your WordPress files in the root folder of your website. If that’s not the case, simply place them in the desired folder instead of the HTML folder (if you wanted your site to be http://www.website.com/foldername, for instance).
Congratulations! All of your WordPress files are now where they need to be. The next step is to set up the database.
Step 3: Create the MySQL database
Assuming you’re still in the File Manager, click the “Databases” menu, then click “MySQL.”
Click the “Create Database” button at the top.
Enter the following information:
Description: this can be any text you want to describe your database.
MySQL Database/Username: This is the name of your database and the username that you will use later to let WordPress access your database.
Password: Enter something that would be hard to guess or hack!
You don’t need to enter the read-only database and password, and you can leave the MySQL version set to 5.0. Click the “OK” button at the bottom.
The database is now “pending setup.”
I’ve found it takes about 15 minutes GoDaddy to finalize everything. This would be a great time to take a break…grab some coffee, a snack, play Plants Vs. Zombies…whatever. Once the database is set up, there is one more piece of information we need…so keep checking its status.
Important: Note all of the information you entered on this step, as WordPress will need it!
Once the database’s status changes to “Setup,” click the little pencil icon next to its name. Write down or copy what is says next to “Host Name.” I’m not going to show you mine, so just copy whatever yours says. 
We’re officially done with the database, and almost ready to start using WordPress.
Step 4: Go to your site’s URL and complete the WordPress setup
Open a new tab in your browser and type in your website’s URL (like http://www.andrewblock.net/). If all goes well, WordPress will complain that there is no configuration file, and will offer to create one for you. This is the easiest way, so click “Create a Configuration File.”
On the next screen, click “Let’s Go!”
On the next screen, use the information from when you created your database. The username and database name are the same (what is called “MySQL Database/Username” by GoDaddy). Also enter your database password. For the Database Host, enter what you grabbed from the “Host Name” after you created the MySQL database. When you’ve entered all the information correctly, click “Submit.”
On the next screen, click “Run the Install.”
You’ve nearly reached the final step! Simply enter a nice, descriptive title for your WordPress site, a username, a strong password, and your email address. Click the “Install WordPress” button when you’re done.
Just click “Log In” on this screen:
Log in to WordPress using the username and password you just created.
You did it! You can now see the sweet WordPress dashboard and start blogging using the best blogging platform in the world.
Questions / issues / problems? Something I forget to add? Let me know in the comments below.
