How to Install WordPress Locally on Your Computer in Four Easy Steps
Till now, WordPress is one of the most popular and powerful content management software available in the World Wide Web. No matter what type of website you are going to make, wordpress has all the features to fulfill your need; you may be creating a blog, a commercial website or a social networking site. It has hundreds of thousands of plugins to help you customize your site without having any programming or coding knowledge.
In order to create a test WP site, you will need to use your computer as a server where your wordpress site will be hosted. It may sound complicated but actually, it’s easier than you can imagine.
Complete the steps below to create your first wordpress test site in your own local server.
Step 1: Using a computer as a server seems quite complicated. But it can be easy if you use Xampp. Xampp is open source software which enables you to turn your computer into a local server. Xampp has all the things needed to create a local host. It has different versions designed for Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris. Go to http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html and choose the one which is appropriate for your operating system. As Windows is most popular and most used operating system, so we are going to download Xampp for Windows.
Once you have successfully downloaded Xampp, install it in your computer. It will take a while (depending on the speed of your processor and ram) to install Xampp and once you have installed Xampp on your computer, I need to congratulate you because you have just created a local server in your computer! Easy and simple, isn’t it?
Step 2: Click on the Xampp icon located in your desktop and run (click “start” and the service will start running) all the features like Apache and Mysql. Now, click “admin” of Mysql (It’s located beside the “run” button). Your browser will open up and you will be taken to the Mysql dashboard, where you will be able to create a Mysql database. You will see a field name, “create a new database”. Name your database by your site name. Supposing, we are going to name the site as “wpsite”. Set the collation to” utf8_unicode_ci”. Choose a username and password for this database. For example, you can set both username and password as “wpsite”.
Step 3: Download WordPress from http://www.wordpress.org and unzip it in your computer. Find the text file named “wp-config-sample” and open it. You will need to edit three lines.
One, where it says, {define(‘DB_NAME’ , ‘database_name_here’):
One, where it says, {define(‘DB_USER’, ‘username_here’):
And one, where it says, {define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password_here’):
Just replace with your database name, username and password on those lines. After that, save the text file as “wp-config” (just remove the word “sample” because it is now an actual wp-config file)
Now, you are all done. Let’s upload the files and install wordpress!
Step 4: Go to the hard drive where you have installed Xampp. Usually it’s in Local Drive C > Xampp. Find the folder which name is “htdocs”. Copy the whole WordPress folder in the “htdocs” folder.
Once you are done, open the browser, type “local host/wordpress”. The well known and familiar wordpress installation wizard will appear in your browser. Fill up the installation form with your “Site Name, “Username”, “password” and “Your Email”. Click “Install WordPress” and that’s it!
You have finished installing wordpress in your computer. Your site can be browsable via your browser.
So, you have just installed wordpress on your computer using Xampp in four easy steps!
Article By: Wasim Ismail
Wasim’s a project manager at Alrayes Web Solutions along with an online SEO consultant & blogger for business at wasimismail.com, specialising in online business.
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