What if you found out you could save time, work more efficiently, and catch bugs on your site faster by installing WordPress on a local PC or a local server (localhost).

Enter in the installation of WordPress on a localhost! When you install WordPress on a local server, you're able to be the only person who can see that site. As you can imagine, it is highly beneficial to view your content before publishing it live to your audience. You can catch bugs and fix errors before they even hit the internet! Or you can use it to play with WordPress, test plugins, themes and WordPress updates before you apply them live to your site. You can also use it as a backup copy of your site to keep your precious content protected. Not to mention the upkeep of your site can be done faster as there is no downtime needed to upload files.

WordPress can be installed locally with a server application called WAMP. Installing WAMP and WordPress on a PC isnt difficult especially with our handy tutorial.

Follow our step-by-step tutorial to install WAMP on your own local version of WordPress (for PC):

  • You need to download and install the current version of WAMP. There will be 2 versions of WAMP: a 32 bit and 64 bit, so select the version that applies to your computer. (If you are unsure what version you have, go ahead and select the 32 bit version as that will work on a 64 bit machine also.) The installation will proceed like any other application installer and may take up to 5 minutes to complete. Also please keep in mind what file location you used for the installation as we will be going there later.
    WAMP Installer
  • At the end of the installation, you will be prompted to use Internet Explorer as the default browser. You can select another by going through the file system and selecting the browser application you like best. (Chrome or Firefox are some great options.) You can also choose a text editor, however Notepad is the default and should be fine for most users.
  • Once, the installation is complete, go to your taskbar on the lower right hand corner and left click the WAMP icon. Select phpMyAdmin and the phpMyAdmin login screen will open in a new window of the default browser of your choice. By default, the username should be 'root' and the password field will be left blank.
    • PHP Admin Login
  • After logging into phpMyAdmin panel, go to Databases as we need to create a new database for WordPress to use. Let us call it 'WP_Database' (use _ instead of a space here) then click the Create button.
    • Database name
  • We are done with WAMP for now.

Installing WordPress:

Next, we have to install WordPress onto the server.

  • Download the current version of WordPress using the link provided then extract the zip file.
  • Once the files are extracted, we need to copy them into the WAMP installation folder (by default it would be in C:\wamp64 but you may have it in a different location).
  • Now, we can copy and paste the WordPress folder into the file location C:\wamp64\www. The WordPress folder can be renamed but keep in mind that this will be the name of the site so try to remember it or write it down.
    • WWW folder location
  • At this point, we can setup WordPress by opening a browser window and going to http://localhost/wordpress/.
    • Setup page
  • During the setup you will have to enter in your database information, you may have changed this but the username should be root", the password field left blank, leave everything else then click submit.
    • WordPress database information
  • A new page will appear so click Run The Installation.
  • The WordPress welcome page will appear and you can enter in your sitename, username and password. Please write these down somewhere for safe keeping then click Install WordPress. WAMP and WordPress are now successfully installed onto your local PC.
Welcome image

Installing the Theme:

Now, we can move onto the theme installation.

  • For this example we have used the Ultra theme but we also have free themes that you can download and install. If you're interested in our go-to Ultra theme, you can download the theme from the member area once you have purchased it.
  • From the WordPress admin Panel go to Appearance > Theme > Add New then click on Upload.
    • Upload image
  • The file explorer window will open and you can select the theme.zip file to upload.
  • Once the theme is uploaded go to Appearance > Themes and activate the Ultra theme.

Next Tutorial

Now that you've completed your localhost site, what’s next? Read our next tutorial on "How To Migrate A WordPress Website From Localhost To Live Server". We hope you enjoyed this basic tutorial and are working hard to bring you more of these foundational tools!