Installing And Configuring Mint For Wordpress
Someone told you installing Mint was straightforward. Someone was right. I tell you installing and configuring Mint for WordPress is more straightforward. I am more right.
Below I show you why. And how.
Uploading Mint To Your Web Host
The first step is to download the latest mint archive from haveamint.com.
Next, log into your web host. Access the File Manager from the cPanel.
Using the File Manager, upload the archive to your host. Then extract it, and move the “mint” folder to yourdomain.com/mint. In my case, I moved the mint folder to abettermanual.com/mint.
Now you need to add your database information to mint/config/db.php. Luckily WordPress stores all of the information you need in wp-config.php. By default wp-config.php is in the root directory of your domain. View wp-config.php and take note of the the following:
- The server.
- The username.
- The password.
- The database.
Now edit mint/db.php and insert the information recorded from wp-config.php.
Now you’re done with the hard part. The rest of the directions discuss configuration.
Configuring Mint
Point your browser to http://yourdomain.com/mint. You’ll see the Mint End User License Agreement page.
After you accept the terms of the EULA, the next screen will aks you to enter your activation key. The page after that lists various configuration parameters, as shown below. For now, leave “Ignore my visits (uses cookies)” unchecked. You will want to use your visits for testing later. After testing, I’ll show you how to ignore them.
Finally, you are brought to a screen instructing you to manually insert code. You can ignore those instructions. Below I show you how to install the Micro Mint plugin. It makes manually inserting code unnecessary.
Installing Micromint Plugin
The Micromint Plugin inserts mint tracking code for you. It vastly simplifies your life when you decide to change WordPress themes, for example. But first you need to install it.
Start from the WordPress dashboard. In the left sidebar, select Plugins -> Add New. Then enter “micromint” in the text box and click “Search Plugins” to find the plugin. Finally, click on the “install” link.
When the installation completes, select Settings -> µMint. Check the box next to “Track Stats,” and ensure the Mint Location is correct. After that, click “Mintify.”
You’re done! Next we’ll verify that everything works.
Testing 1, 2, 3
Open up a new browser window, and go to your WordPress website. Then, in a separate window go to http://yourdomain.com/mint. You should see your visits listed there. Refresh both your WordPress site and your mint page a few times for a more thorough verification.
Now you probably want to ignore visits from your own computer. To do that, first click on preferences.
Then check the box next to “Ignore my visits (uses cookies).”
That’s it! Now Mint will keep you up to date with visitor information, and ignore visits from your computer.
You’ll need to install some Pepper to enable Mint to display detailed user demographics. In a future post I’ll describe how to do that.