How do I transfer an existing hosted site to Wordpress?

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I currently have a site hosted on inmotion that I created using iweb. I want to transfer that site to wordpress and continue having it be hosted on inmotion. I plan to scrap the existing site and redesign it once in wordpress.

I logged into my cpanel and began to install wordpress from Softaculous. I got the error message:

Installation cannot proceed because the following files already exist in the target folder: .htaccess
Please delete these files or choose another folder.OR
Select the checkbox to overwrite all files and continue

Does this mean that once I install wordpress, my existing site will disappear? Am I even doing this right? Forgive me for not having the vocabulary to know if I am even asking the right questions.

Also, eventually I want to host a second wordpress site on my inmotion account. Does this mean I need to "enable multisite."

Many thanks for any help that can be offered.
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johnpaulb-imhs1
Hello jyates, Thank you for your question. It sounds like you want a new installation of Wordpress on your account, rather than move to wordpress.org's actual website. I do recommend using Softaculous to install Wordpress. The error you are seeing is because there is a default .htaccess file in the folder you are installing to, and Wordpress wants to overwrite this file with its own. Unless you previously added something specific to the .htaccess it is okay to overwrite this file. As long as you are not installing Wordpress in the exact same folder that your existing site is in, it will not interfere with that site. Here is a link to a helpful article we have that explains the directory structure in detail. To host an additional website, you do not need to enable multisite. Simply add the domain as an Addon domain, and softaculous will allow you to choose the new domain from softaculous. If you have any further questions, feel free to post them below, or contact live Tech Support. They are available 24/7 via: Email: [email protected] Phone: 888-321-HOST (4678) 757-416-6575 (Intl.) & Chat (there is a link on the top right). Thank you, -John-Paul