cPanel is the control panel that allows you to easily manage your hosting account. cPanel doesn’t manage your billing preferences (go to your client portal account for that), but rather the technical aspects of managing your website.
When you log into your control panel you’ll find a graphical interface that’ll enable you to manage your website. For the purpose of this cPanel tutorial for beginners, we’re going to be using our cPanel for reference.
Below we highlight a few things you can do from your cPanel dashboard. Get your cPanel login ready now, as you’ll need it to access cPanel and perform the activities listed below. You should have been provided with your login credentials after you signed up for hosting.
Updating Preferences
Before we jump into actually managing your site in cPanel, let’s get a little familiar with the backend.
Once you log in to cPanel you’ll be taken to the dashboard.
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At the top, you’ll find a search bar you can use to locate the plugin you want to utilize, or you can just use the ctrl+f command to find what you’re looking for.
We’ll be focusing on these sections of cPanel:
- Files
- Domains
- Software and Services
Domain Names
The Domains section of your cPanel will be useful anytime you want to add another domain to your hosting account, manage redirections, or create a subdomain that can be used to build a new site.
[SC Dashboard]
To add a new domain, click on Addon Domain. This will allow you to add another domain that you’ve purchased to your existing hosting account.
Now all you have to do is enter the necessary domain information and your new site will be ready to build!
You can also manage redirects and create subdomains under an existing domain within this section of cPanel.
Email Accounts
Want to create a custom email address that matches your domain name?
Navigate to the Email section. Click on Email Accounts, and you’ll be able to create an email under your desired domain name using the drop-down tab.
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If you want to access your email for the first time, scroll down to where your e-mail accounts are and click on Access Webmail from the More drop-down. Bookmark your inbox for easy access next time.
File Manager
To manage your website’s files, navigate to File Manager. Then select the website you want files from and click Go.
This will open up the list of files that make up your website. It’s important not to mess with these unless you know what you’re doing, as deleting just one of these files could render your website inoperable.
[SC Dashboard]
One Click Installs
The final tool we’re going to look at in this cPanel tutorial is under the Software section and it’s called Softaculous Apps Installer.
[SC Dashboard]
With Softaculous you can easily install WordPress and other popular content management systems on any domain you own. Below we’ll show you how to install WordPress with just a few clicks.
With Softaculous open, click on WordPress. Click on Install WordPress, then select your domain name and populate the fields with your admin email, title of your site, and admin username. After the installation is complete you’ll receive an email that allows you to log in to the WordPress backend.
[SC Dashboard]
