How to Install Joomla – The Complete Joomla Installation Tutorial for Beginners (Step by Step)
Are you looking for the best Joomla installation tutorial to show you how to install Joomla for beginners? This Joomla installation tutorial is actually for you! It’s written to guide you on the different ways to install Joomla (beginners).
Table of Contents
What do I Need to Install Joomla?
Before Joomla could be installed and used, there are a few things you need which would enable you install Joomla.
The following are what you need to install Joomla:
- A copy of Joomla software
- An active web hosting account or a local webserver
- An active domain name
- An SSL certificate (optional)
A copy of Joomla Software
You’ll only need a copy of Joomla software, if you are installing Joomla locally or manually.
An Active Web Hosting Account or a Local Webserver
You’ll need an active web hosting account, or a local webserver (localhost) to install Joomla. This is where your website files and folders will be stored. If you’d like your Joomla website to be available for anyone to visit online, then you’ll need a website hosting account to install Joomla on. But, if you’d like to install Joomla locally, then you’ll need a local webserver.
You can signup with SiteGround or InMotion hosting to get started with Joomla installation on a live webserver.
An Active Domain Name for Your Joomla Website
This is a unique name your website users will use to find your Joomla website on the internet. You’ll need a domain name if you are installing Joomla on a live server. But if it’s on a local webserver, there’s no need to purchase a domain name.
An SSL Certificate (optional)
You’ll need an SSL certificate for your Joomla website if your Joomla website is available on the internet. An SSL certificate will help you transfer sensitive data, in that it becomes invisible for third party users. A Secure Socket Layer certificate (SSL) is optional!
Your Joomla website could be vulnerable to attacks if it wasn’t properly configured during the installation processes. Let’s see the next section of this Joomla installation tutorial which would show you how you could secure your Joomla website during installation.
How to Secure your Joomla Website During Installation
Before you begin the installation of Joomla, we recommend you see this section on securing your Joomla website during the installation processes.
Your Joomla website could easily be hacked as a result of weak administrative password. To make your administrative password difficult to guess, use password with strong combinations. A combination of numbers, special characters, etc, should be used!
Before installing Joomla, see the complete Joomla tutorial on securing your Joomla website during installation for detailed instructions.
Now, let’s see how Joomla could be installed.
If you are a HostGator web hosting user and would like to install Joomla on their shared hosting server using quickinstall, you’ll have to make sure you have an active web hosting account with HostGator.
To install Joomla on HostGator, your HostGator web hosting account must have an active shared hosting plan. If you don’t have, you can signup for a web hosting plan with HostGator. You can still use your HostGator web hosting account if you have an active web hosting plan.
Installing Joomla on HostGator – Step 1
Login to the Control Panel (cPanel) of your HostGator web hosting account. When you are logged in, click on quickInstall. It’s located under the softwares section.
Installing Joomla on HostGator – Step 2
On the quickinstall page, click on one-click install . One-click install is located on the site builders and CMS section.
Installing Joomla on HostGator – Step 3
Since we are installing Joomla (on HostGator shared server using quickinstall), we’ll select it from the list of Content Management Systems available. To select the Joomla software, click on Joomla (on the one-click install page).
Installing Joomla on HostGator – Step 4
It’s time to select the domain and subdomain you’d like to install your Joomla website on. Select the domain and enter the name of the subfolder (subdomain) you’d like to install Joomla on. If you’d like to install Joomla on the root domain, only select the domain and leave the subdomain box empty. But if you’d like to install your Joomla website on a subdomain, enter the name of the subfolder/subdomain you’d like to install Joomla on and click proceed. The subdomain is automatically created (when proceed is clicked), only if a name is entered into the subdomain input field.
After selecting your desired domain and entering a name into the subdomain field/leaving the subdomain field empty, click next to proceed to the next Joomla installation stage.
Installing Joomla on HostGator – Step 5
The new page lets you enter the admin details for the Joomla website you are installing on HostGator using quickinstall. These admin details are: admin username, site name and admin email.
The admin username is the nice name you’d like to use as your admin login name, the site name is the site title of your Joomla website and the admin email is the Email address you’d like to use for your administrative account.
Installing Joomla on HostGator – Step 6
Wait for Joomla to install on HostGator. Look at the progress bar at the right side of your screen. If Joomla installed successfully, the progress bar will show you a success message. If Joomla didn’t install successfully, the progress bar will show you.
If Joomla Installed successfully on HostGator shared server, click on either login to login to the control panel of your newly installed Joomla website, or click on view my installs to view your newly installed Joomla website installation details.
See our complete Joomla tutorial on installing Joomla on HostGator for detailed instructions.
Let’s see how Joomla could be installed on Android.
How to Install Joomla Locally on Android Using PHP Runner (in 4 Steps)
Installing Joomla on Android helps you build a Joomla website locally (offline). It’s much faster and saves cost than building a Joomla website on a live webserver.
There are some Android softwares you’ll need to install on your Android OS. They would help you install, set up and run Joomla locally on your Android. These softwares you should download and install are:
- A copy of Joomla software –
- Easy unzip file – for unzipping/extracting Joomla software
- PHP Runner – which we’ll use as our local web server
- Lastly, an Android OS
Easy unzip file and PHP Runner are available for download on Google Play Store. Joomla is available for download in the official website of Joomla.
Installing Joomla on Android – Step 1
After downloading and installing the required softwares, launch PHP Runner. It’s a local webserver (localhost), that supports PHP for Android OS. Start PHP Runner by clicking start.
After starting PHP Runner, you’ll have to download phpmyadmin. To download phpmyadmin, click on download phpmyadmin. It will download phpmyadmin into the htdocs folder in your Android storage.
Installing Joomla on Android – Step 2
Use Easy Unzip file to extract the copy of Joomla you downloaded earlier into the htdocs folder in your Android storage (where phpmyadmin was downloaded to).
Installing Joomla on Android – Step 3
When phpmyadmin downloads successfully, click on site editor, and you’ll be redirect to your htdocs screen (where you downloaded phpmyadmin and extracted Joomla to). Click on Joomla (the one you extracted) and you’ll be redirected to the installation screen of Joomla. The name of the Joomla folder in your htdocs will be similar to Joomla_3.9.0-Stable-Full_Package, where 3.9.0 is the version of Joomla. Your own would be different, depending on the version of Joomla you downloaded.
Installing Joomla on Android – Step 4
Configuration Stage
On the installation page of Joomla, you’ll see configuration, database and overview. These are the installation stages of Joomla. On the configuration stage, enter your main configuration settings and the super user account details, by filling the form provided. Click next to proceed to the next installation stage (database configuration).
Database Configuration Stage
On the database configuration page, enter your database configuration details. Your database username is: root, database password: (leave empty), database name: mysql, host name: 127.0.0.1. At the end, click next to proceed to the last installation stage.
Overview Stage
On the overview stage, you’ll be shown all of the configuration settings you did on the configuration and database configuration stages of installing Joomla. If all of the settings are okay, click on install to begin the installation of Joomla on Android.
On the last page (after installing Joomla), you’ll be asked to remove the installation folder, else, you won’t be able to proceed! Click on remove installation folder to remove it.
You have successfully installed Joomla on Android. For a complete tutorial on installing Joomla on Android using PHP Runner, see how to install Joomla locally on Android for detailed instructions.
How to Install Joomla From Control Panel (cPanel)
cPanel (Control Panel) is a web-based interface, provided by web hosting providers for managing hosted websites. cPanel comes with different web-app installation tools. These tools are: softaculous app installer, quickinstall, etc. The most popular/common is softaculous one-click app installer.
Our Joomla Web Hosting Recommendations (2019)
There are dozens of web hosting providers that are being created each day. Most of them offer Joomla website hosting services. With the available numbers of Joomla web hosting companies, it’s becoming more and more difficult to pick one to host your Joomla website. Don’t worry, we have some Joomla web hosting companies we’d recommend to you.
We recommend SiteGround and InMotion hosting. Their web hosting services are excellent!
Want the best Joomla web hosting provider in 2019? See how to choose the best Joomla web hosting provider – top 10 (2019) for a complete list.
How to Use/Learn Joomla
Joomla is one of the best Content Management System, and the second most popular CMS platform after WordPress. Joomla comes with different templates and extensions, that you could use to transform your Joomla website into whatever type of website you’d like. Joomla is broad and easy to learn!
If you are new to Joomla, and would love to learn how to use it, see our all in one Joomla tutorial on how to use Joomla for detailed instructions.
We also recommend you see how to perfectly learn and practice Joomla for free for detailed instructions.
Joomla Tutorials (Step by Step)
After installing Joomla, you’d want some tutorials to get you started in Joomla. Thankfully, we have Joomla tutorials in this website (JovialGuide). Our Joomla tutorials are written with steps and pictures, which would help you understand them easily.
Here are some Joomla tutorials to get you started:
- how to submit your Joomla website to Google Search Console/Webmaster Tools
- how to submit your Joomla XML sitemap to Google Search Console/Webmaster Tools
- how to create a banner category in Joomla
- how to easily export and import your Joomla database tables
- how to create and edit a user in Joomla
- how to create a tag in Joomla
- how to load/display a module in Joomla article
There are other Joomla tutorials available in this website (JovialGuide).
Joomla Security Tutorial (Best Joomla Security Practices)
You should know that any website that is live on the internet is certainly vulnerable to attacks! Since any website on the internet could be hacked, there must be a way to keep/secure it against hackers! Your Joomla website becomes vulnerable to web application attacks if you fail to implement the best Joomla security practices.
If the best security measures/practices aren’t implemented, your Joomla website could be hacked!
For complete tutorial on Joomla security, see how to secure your Joomla website against hackers for detailed instructions.
Final Words – How to Install Joomla (2019)
This Joomla installation tutorial has taught you how to install Joomla in different ways. Installing Joomla requires you to have a few things available, a local webserver, copy of Joomla software, a web hosting account and a domain name for your Joomla website. You must have these things available to be able to install Joomla. You have seen that installing Joomla on HostGator requires you to have an active web hosting account with HostGator and a domain name (from any registrar). A web hosting account with HostGator is mandatory, because Joomla will be installed on their web server.
If you have any problem in Joomla, please, don’t hesitate to reach us using our contact form.
Like we showed to you (earlier), that Joomla could be installed and used in different ways, even without an internet connection. This, we mean that you could install Joomla on a local webserver or localhost. A local webserver or localhost is one that doesn’t need an internet connection before working, or, one that doesn’t need to be on the internet before it works. Joomla could be installed on your Computer and even on your Android locally. Subcribe to our Email list for updates.
