Installing WordPress in cPanel

Rivervo ships two one-click installers with every hosting plan. Both work. Pick whichever you like.

Using WordPress Toolkit (recommended)

1. Log in to cPanel.
2. Scroll to WordPress Toolkit and click Install.
3. Fill in the fields:
   • Domain: pick your domain from the dropdown.
   • Directory: leave blank to install at the root. Use blog to install at yourdomain.com/blog.
   • Admin username, email, password: your WordPress admin credentials. Use a strong password — WordPress admin is the #1 targeted endpoint on the internet.
   • Site title: what shows in the browser tab. You can change this later.
4. Click Install. Takes about 30 seconds.

When it finishes, WordPress Toolkit gives you a direct link to wp-admin. Log in with the credentials you just set.

Using Softaculous

Softaculous is an alternative installer — identical workflow, slightly different UI.

1. In cPanel, find Softaculous Apps Installer.
2. Click WordPress from the top list.
3. Click the Install tab.
4. Same fields as above.
5. Click Install.

After install — the three things to do first

1. Install a caching plugin. Page caching is the single biggest perf win for WordPress. Install W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache from Plugins → Add New, activate it, and turn on page caching with the default settings. This alone makes your site 3–5× faster for anonymous visitors.

2. Install a free SSL. Go to cPanel → SSL/TLS Status. Select your domain and click Run AutoSSL. It issues a free Let's Encrypt certificate in about 60 seconds. Then in WordPress, set Settings → General → WordPress Address (URL) to https://yourdomain.com.

3. Delete the default admin user if you created a new one. If you were forced to use "admin" as the username, create a new admin-role user first, log in as them, then delete the admin account. "admin" is the most brute-forced username on the internet.

What's the login URL?

https://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php or https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin

If you get redirected to an HTTP login page, the AutoSSL step above hasn't finished yet — wait a few minutes.

Troubleshooting

• "Installation failed" — usually means an existing WordPress install is already at that domain. Remove the old one from WordPress Toolkit's list first.
• "Database connection error" after install — clear your browser cache and try again. Most of the time it's a stale cached page from before the install.
• Stuck at "Installing..." — if it takes more than 3 minutes, check cPanel → Error log for database errors. Rarely happens, but when it does it's usually MySQL running out of space.

Any other issues, open a ticket and include your domain name — we can see the install logs from our side.