A test WordPress website can help us test things like themes, plugins, settings, etc.., before uploading to the main working site. Though you can have a test website created on your server with a sub-domain, But it’s quite handy and feasible to first installed it locally on your computer.
Benefits of installing WordPress Locally on Computer
Here are some of the benefits you get by installing WordPress locally on your computer.
- installed WordPress site is much faster and responsive.
- Local installation can make your website development process feasible and faster.
- You can access the locally installed WordPress site even without active internet connection.
- Locally installed WordPress site dramatically improves your workflow.
- The local installation will make it easy to backup your WordPress site.
- Local installation can also save some money as it is not wasting your precious web host resources.
Install WordPress Locally on Windows
To install WordPress locally on Windows, You need to install a free software called WampServer on your local system.
After downloading the software, You can install it like any other Windows software.
During the installation process, WampServer may ask you to choose the default browser. Just click on the “Open.” There is no need to specifically choose a default browser.
As we are not going to configure PHP mail at this time, let’s keep the settings on default and click on the button “Next” in the “PHP Mail Parameters” window to continue.
If you are prompted for Firewall permissions, simply click on the button “Allow Access.” Once the installation completed, select the checkbox “Launch WampServer now” and click on the “Finish” button.
Now WampServer will be launched and you can see that in the taskbar. If everything goes well, WampServer will let you know by changing its taskbar icon color to Green. You might have to wait a few seconds before the icon can change to green color.
To test it further, launch your favorite browser and enter “localhost” or “127.0.0.1” in the address bar and press the enter button. This will open the WampServer homepage.
Now we may proceed to install WordPress locally on Windows. Before that, we have to download the latest version of WordPress from their official website.
Once download completed, extract the “WordPress” zip folder to the location C:\wamp\www\. After extracting, rename the folder as per your choice.
Now, we need to create a database for the local WordPress site. To do that, left-click on the WampServer and select the option “phpMyAdmin” from the list of options.
The above action will launch the “phpMyAdmin” page. On the phpMyAdmin home page, select the option “Databases” from the top navigation bar.
To create a new database, enter the new database name and click on the button “Create” under the “Create Database” section.
Once the database has been created, you will see the new database in the list. Since we are done creating a database, close the page.
Now, type http://localhost/example-folder/ in your browser address bar and press the enter button. Don’t forget to replace, “example-folder” with your folder name. Now in the WordPress installation screen, select your language and click on the button “Continue.”
WordPress will ask you to add the database details. Just click on the button “Let’s go.”
In next screen, enter the database name and the username as “root” and click on the button “Submit.” WampServer by default has no root password. So there is no need for you to enter a password in the password field.
Now, click on the button “Run the Install” to start the WordPress installation process.
Finally, enter all the details like the site title, username, password, email address, etc.., and click on the button “Install WordPress.”
Now the WordPress installation process will be completed and you can just log into your new local WordPress site by click on the button “Log In.”
That’s all to do.