How to publish your WordPress website when you already have another website

your old website is in wordpress or html….

Ignore what your hosts said and change the domain name back.
Then change the WP urls back. See Changing_The_Site_URL.
Finally, see Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory

My old website is in html (it was done by someone else).

And? Did you carry out any of the steps I suggested above?

I am reading these instructions below and they are not too clear to me. Sorry I am not an expert. I am not familiar with “index.php” or “.htaccess files”. I don’t quite understand when they say to copy to “root directory”. Is that on my Domain Central? I don’t have a blog address. I called my new wordpress: arlumizudesigns.com/wordpressbuilder; and my old website is arlumizudesigns.com. I am not familiar at all with codes or html. Also what are “pretty permalinks”? and FTP? Is it possible that you can help me understanding these instructions a bit easier? Thank you so much.

Copy (NOT MOVE!) the index.php and .htaccess files from the WordPress directory into the root directory of your site (Blog address). The .htaccess file is invisible, so you may have to set your FTP client to show hidden files. If you are not using pretty permalinks, then you may not have a .htaccess file. If you are running WordPress on a Windows (IIS) server and are using pretty permalinks, you’ll have a web.config rather than a .htaccess file in your WordPress directory. As stated above, copy (don’t move) the index.php file to your root directory, but MOVE (DON’T COPY) the web.config file to your root directory.
8. Open your root directory’s index.php file in a text editor
9. Change the following and save the file. Change the line that says:
require(‘./wp-blog-header.php’);
to the following, using your directory name for the WordPress core files:
require(‘./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php’);
10. Login to the new location. It might now be https://example.com/wordpress/wp-admin/
11. If you have set up Permalinks, go to the Permalinks panel and update your Permalink structure. WordPress will automatically update your .htaccess file if it has the appropriate file permissions. If WordPress can’t write to your .htaccess file, it will display the new rewrite rules to you, which you should manually copy into your .htaccess file (in the same directory as the main index.php file.)

arlumizudesigns.com is your root domain. Your domain’s root folder is where you originally uploaded the home page of your old site to.

Thank you but I am still lost. I didn’t do my old website so I would not know where the “home page of my old site was uploaded to”. Where do I look for this, would it be in my Hosting site under Domain Central? I’ve been reading other posts to see if anyone has had the same problem, but the more I read, the more complicated I find it to understand. Is there any hope to have my new WordPress go live! I am running a home based business and of course it’s imperative that I have a website where I can update my products, texts etc. Thanks.

would it be in my Hosting site under Domain Central?

Yes. If you cannot handle this yourself, perhaps you need to consider hiring someone to carry out the work for you.

You could also consider using WordPress.COM to host your site. They take care of a lot of stuff (for a price) and it’s somewhat easier to use — though you also have fewer options and less control over your site.

WPyogi Thank you for your suggestion. I don’t want to use WordPress.Com. I thought this was something that was easier to handle and I thought I could do it myself! So far I am proud that I was able to download WordPress and I was able to built my website, now the only thing left to do is making it go live! Thought it was an easier process.

Do you want your ‘old site’ to remain live? Do you want it to go away?
Do you know how to use the tools within your Control Panel?

Yes, it can be quite confusing, I agree. As esmi suggested, there are people who do that kind of thing for pay. You could also look for a WordPress MeetUp group in your area and/or a WP Camp. There are some really good WP books as well — although the info may not be as current as what is on this site. Still, the basic technical stuff about installation and configuration should be the same in most cases. Amazon ratings are a fairly good way to see what books are good – though do look at the publication dates.

Also, some website hosts are more helpful than others — including some specifically with WP. You could consider that as well.

I can see both sites.. they are both quite lovely btw.
Do you want people to go arlumizudesigns.com and get your new WP site?

dragonsjaw-No I don’t want my ‘old site’ to remain live. I am not an expert with the Control Panel, but I can learn or follow very specific instructions. Exactly I want people to go to arlumizudesigns.com and get my new WP site. Thanks. How do I make that happen?

WPyogi thanks for all your suggestions.

As previously suggested, see Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory. This is the simplest method to achieve what you want.