WordPress installs in under a minute either way. The difference is how much control you want over the process.
The one-click way
Open Softaculous (or WordPress Manager, depending on the theme) in cPanel, pick WordPress, choose your domain, and set an admin username and password that are not "admin" and not a dictionary word, automated login attacks target exactly those two defaults constantly. The installer creates the database for you.
The manual way
Download WordPress from wordpress.org, upload and extract it into public_html via File Manager or SFTP, create a database and database user in cPanel, then run the famous 5-minute install by visiting your domain. This path is slower but gives you full control over file ownership and exactly which version you install, useful if you manage many sites the same way and want a repeatable process.
Three settings to change immediately after install
- Permalinks (Settings → Permalinks): switch from the default query-string URLs to "Post name" for readable, SEO-friendly links.
- Delete the default "Hello World" post and the unused default theme you are not using, they are not a security risk but they are clutter.
- Install a caching plugin, on NVMe storage a cached WordPress site loads noticeably faster than an uncached one, this is the single highest-impact performance change most sites skip.
Keep it updated
Turn on automatic updates for minor WordPress releases and for plugins you trust. The large majority of hacked WordPress sites were running an outdated plugin with a known, already-patched vulnerability, not a novel attack.
The install takes a minute. What you do in the first ten minutes after, permalinks, cleanup, caching, is what actually determines how the site performs and holds up.
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