Prepare yourself before you go live.
This is the principle backing local hosting.
Local hosting for WordPress is not a hurdle — OfficeChai works on WordPress as well. You can localhost your site in some simple steps we have shared in this blog. By step-by-step following our strategy, you can complete the task within minutes.
Before we dive in, let’s understand. WordPress reserves the major portion of the Internet for its intuitive and open-source content management system. And hosting a WordPress site is not a hassle. However, with its content management system, you can customize your website’s content.
One method which website developers use for a couple of reasons is local hosting. In general, the majority of web developers operate locally hosted sites to master their skills and experiment with them.
Moreover, you can use many development tools to make your computer a local host. In this article, we have brought a quick-click method to help you host a site on your computer.
What exactly is the local host?
We best understand the term Localhost when we break it into two pieces, Local and host. Localhost is a term coined for your computer, of which a little portion you reserve as a server.
In general, servers are data-storing machines that are placed in data centers. And also, servers store the website’s data and push it to a user’s computer on his call.
In contrast to servers in data centers, your computer can also act as a server when you Localhost a site.
When you localhost a site, the server on your computer establishes a Loopback network that helps to display the locally hosted content. Moreover, if you Localhost a site on your computer, you need not buy a hosting plan from a hosting provider.
As your local site is limited to your access only, none other than you can access it without you giving anyone access credentials.
In this blog post, we will discuss various local website development tools on the Internet in this blog post. And also, we will explain to you easy and quick methods to host your site locally without alarming the world of its existence.
Benefits of Installing WordPress on Localhost.
It all depends on why you want to host your site on your computer, but there are many reasons for website developers host sites on their computers.
As novice web developers, people locally host sites to upskill themselves or test the website’s accuracy.
Some of the key benefits of local hosting are as follows.
- You can build websites offline without the world knowing about it
- You can test your website-building skills
- Local hosting allows you to practice Search engine optimization
- Pre-designing a live site and then eventually pushing it online
- Creating a test site for the clients
What’s more, you can play around with your blogging site and then free it online.
How can I Install WordPress on Localhost now?
Now that you have understood the benefits of hosting a site and making your desktop a server, you need to practice doing it. In this section, we have strategically guided you on how you can go through the process by properly understanding it.
For that, you need expert-recommended development tools to apply your knowledge on.
Development Tools
Local hosting tools are the keys to unlocking the process without which you can move a step ahead. You can not just download the website and locally host your site, but also you need to create a hosting environment on your computer.
The hosting environment allows you to local host smoothly without it facing friction.
There are a plethora of tools on the Internet that you indeed operate for local hosting. However, in this guide, we will introduce it to LocalWP.
You will understand its specialties in the immediate next section.
LocalWP (Quick-click method)
Local, as the name suggests, is a local hosting environment-creating tool specializing in several ways. The central idea around which it rotates is helping the operators create the Localhost without them going through a series of steps.
Local is a leading application in the domain of local hosting sites. It has gained the trust of 80,000 developers worldwide. With its intuitive features, you can host the site offline; later, you can set it free on the Internet.
Local provides seamless website building with some clicks in no time. And it is easily downloadable on your desktop for free from its official website.
Local comes with countless features and plugins to add to your local WordPress website with no hassle involved.
Some of its stunning features are.
- Local environment for WordPress for any operating system.
- Automatic WordPress installation with SSL included
- Advanced development features for pushing the site online
- Connect with Flywheel and WP Engine
- Countless plugins and cloud backups
Check the guide below to localhost your site.
1. Download LocalWP
Downloading LocalWP on your desktop is not a hurdle task. You can make it happen by arriving at its official site.
On its official site, you will see its download option in the top right corner.
Click on Download to start the process.
After you have clicked on download, you will see a popped window asking you about the operating system you use. Select among the options wisely.
If you operate on Windows or Mac, give a command to Local.
Then it will ask you for your name and email address. Providing these credentials to Local, you can proceed further. Now, click on the ‘get it now’ button below the window bars. With one click, it will direct the automatic download.
After that, click on Install. With this, the installation will start. Then allow it to finish the installation after its completion. It will ask you to be agreed to the terms and conditions; click on the agree button to help it proceed.
2. Create your local WordPress site
After all, the Local has been downloaded on your computer. Now you can create a free account on Local to start a new site.
Click on the create a new site where it will direct you to the next page for permission for the blueprint or a new site.
Blueprint is for the users who already have a site. Whereas the new site is for the freshers.
Click on create a new site or blueprint as per your preference.
The interface will pop up on the next page for your site name, where you can assign your site an identity.
After assigning an identity to your site, the next page will come up, asking you for the environment, custom, or preferred.
With a custom environment, you can configure your site with advanced tools. On the other hand, the preferred environment is for beginner users. The key difference is that, with a custom environment, you can not set up your site online on Flywheel- the leading platform of local.
The next step includes the WordPress setup.
3. Set up WordPress
With all these steps in this section, you will be set to Install WordPress.
You must fill in your WordPress username and set a WordPress password here.
Select No, in the advanced options if you aim for one WordPress site; otherwise, check yes, if you are creating a multisite.
With this, your WordPress setup completes, and you first time see your WordPress site. It looks like this,
This is your full-fetched WordPress site where you can test your skills, write blog posts, add plugins, and more.
How can I push my offline-editing site live?
After creating a localhost site on WordPress, if you aim to put your site live, Local allows you to do that in some simple ways.
On local, you have two options for host providers: Flywheel and WP Engine. By buying hosting from any of the two best hosting providers, you can switch your offline-editing site to online, which users worldwide can access.
And if you’re looking at some alternate hosting plans, then you can take a backup of your website and install it on the server.
In the bottom right corner, you have the option to connect host.
Final Words
There are many softwares to help you locally host your site, such as XAMPP, that are widely used for the same purpose. However, Local is a beginner-friendly and quick-click method. Anyone coming from a non-technical background can Localhost their sites and publish them live.
Following the above step-by-step methods, you can get your site ready Local within minutes. You can trust the above procedure as it backs the extensive research and critical analysis to assist you.
Hopefully, this blog post could benefit you in your site-creating journey. Otherwise, you can ask us nuance doubts in the comment section below.