Joomla is a common choice in CMS platforms; while the learning curve is a bit higher than WordPress, the functionality and versatility of the platform are truly impressive.

Installing Joomla on your hosting provider is a fairly straightforward process and can be done both manually and with a helpful script installer.

Installing Joomla with a Script Installer

The quickest and most painless way to install Joomla is with a script installer like Softaculous, which I’ve demonstrated over on this page. You’ll find some screenshots and details there, but in short:

1. Log in to cPanel and locate Softaculous or your host’s script installer of choice (usually at the bottom). Select Joomla.

2. Click “Install”.

3. Fill out the required information. Note that “in directory” should be blank. “Database name” does not matter and can be changed to anything you wish. Configure the admin account with a username and password you will remember.

4. Push “Install”. You’re done!

Manual Joomla Installation

I’m not sure why you’d want to, but if you’d like to install Joomla manually, here’s how you go about it.

1. Go to joomla.org and download the .zip file.

2. Upload the joomla_3.zip to the directory you would like to use and extract the files (should look like this when you’re done).

3. Back at your main cPanel screen, locate and open MySQL Databases.

4. Create a new database.

5. Create a user for the database, and use the password generator to create a really strong, hard-to-guess password. Don’t forget to copy and paste this password, because you’ll need it in a few seconds.

6. Add the user you’ve just created to the database you’ve just created.

7. Give this new user access to everything by selecting “All Priviledges”.

8. Go to your site’s URL (i.e. camsecore.com), and you’ll see the following screen. Here, you’ll need to enter some basic information, including a user name and password for your admin account that is easy to remember but hard to guess.

9. Enter your database information (for the database you had just created). This is where you’ll need the password that was generated for you.

10. Click “Install”.

11. Click the “remove installation folder” button. You don’t need it anymore!

12. Go to your site, and it’ll look like this. YUCK! That’s ugly, isn’t it? You’ll need to choose a template to install, or have a developer make you a swanky new design.