by WordPress is a free website builder that we can use to build our website and blog very easily. When we are going to make a website, first we need to create the design and then write code for the site development.
But for this tutorial we don’t need any designs or coding to make our website because WordPress provides many themes and plugins to make the website much easier to develop and make it more attractive and successful.
In this tutorial, you can learn how to set up a WordPress website with a local server (localhost Xampp).
5 Steps
1. Download Xampp
2. Install Xampp
3. Download WordPress
4. Install WordPress
5. Launch your website with a WordPress theme
1. Download XAMPP
first, you need to create a local server on your computer. My recommendation is to go with XAMPP. You can download the setup from www.apachefriends.org.
visit https://www.apachefriends.org/index.htmlw
When you are downloading XAMPP remember to download the correct version according to your operating system. I choose “XAMPP for windows” because my operation system is windows.(figure: 1)
2. Install XAMPP
After download, you can install XAMPP on your computer. You will see the following (figure: 2) XAMPP control panel after installation.
Next, you need to run apache and MySQL modules by clicking the relevant start buttons. If started correctly, the module names are highlighted in green (figure: 3).
Then when you click admin button the browser will open, displaying the localhost dashboard. Otherwise you can just type localhost in the address bar of your browser and press enter (figure: 4).
Now, we have installed XAMPP on our computer successfully. So let’s see how to install WordPress on our computer.
3. Download WordPress
Visit https://wordpress.org/
Click “Get WordPress” button.(figure: 5)
Download WordPress zip file.(figure: 6)
You need to extract the zip file to the htdocs folder. Navigate to C:\xampp\htdocs file directory. Extract folder name would be WordPress but you can rename the folder if you wish. I renamed my folder as “portfolio”.(figure: 7)
4. Install WordPress
Next step, open browser and type http://localhost/portfolio
Then press enter key. You will see the setup configuration page of our WordPress site. So here you need to select the language of choice to continue. (figure: 9)
Click continue and then will be displayed the setup configuration. (figure: 10)
We have to create a database in our localhost server before installing WordPress. For this open PHPMyAdmin using XAMPP control panel.
Click admin button. Then PHPMyAdmin will open from the browser. (figure: 11)
Click new in the sidebar. (figure: 12)
Create a New database named portfolio_db. You can give any name for your database.(figure: 13)
After completing all these procedures you can click let’s go button (figure: 10). You will see a form. Here you have to fill the form with your database information.(figure: 14)
Database name –
WordPress username –
database username – root
password – ****
click submit button After filling the form.
*Make sure to note down this password elsewhere because it is essential for a future step.
Click run the installation button. (figure: 15)
After that, you have to fill WordPress information .This include site title, username, password and email. Click install WordPress after filling the form.(figure: 16)
Click the login button. (figure: 17)
Log in using your WordPress username and password you gave in figure: 16. (figure: 18)
5. Launch your website with a WordPress theme
Click visit site to view your website. (figure: 19)
WordPress Dashboard
- Posts
- Media
- Pages
- Comments
- Appearance
- Plugins
- Users
- Tools
- Settings
1. Posts
Creating a new post
Posts>Add New
If you are creating a new blog entry then you have to click Posts. All new WordPress websites have a page to create blog entries by default. Click add a new post for creating new post. You can write anything in here and also you can change layout, colour, page button etc.
2. Media
In the Media tab you can see what are the images, videos etc. you have uploaded to your site.
3. Pages
Create a new page
Pages>Add New
Give a name for the page and publish but it will not appear on your homepage because you have not added it in your menu.
4. Comments
Through the Comments tab you can see what are the comments you have got for your posts .When someone comments on one of your posts it doesn’t appear in your post directly. You should approve the comment first. You can Unapprove or Delete the comment if you don’t want that comment. This is the best method for controlling spam comments and unusual comments from website visitors.
5. Appearance
Add new menu
Appearance>Menus
Navigation is very important to browse site pages. You should go to menus for creating a new menu.
Add new Theme
Appearance>Themes
You can change your theme according to your requirements. There are hundreds of themes you can install for free. Just click install on the selected theme and it will installed to your website.
Edit your code
Appearance>Theme editor
you can edit code or do changes to WordPress themes using Theme editor. Theme editor include PHP, js and CSS files. You can edit these files as you wish. Make sure to save the edited content by clicking Update file.
6. Plugins
WordPress provides so many plugins for users to customize their website easily. (send message, browser cache, creating table structure etc). Given below is a list I have created of some important plugins which will assist you at managing the content of the website.
- Contact Form 7
- Yoast SEO
- Akismet Anti-Spam
- WooCommerce
- WordPress Importer
7. Users
add new user
Users>Add New
There is a tab named User and there you can add new users to your site but it’s not practical working with localhost. For this you should host your website on an online hosting provider.
8. Tools
View site health
Tools>Site Health
you can check your site health information. If there is an issue on your website it will display under the critical issues section. In addition, if there are potential improvements to be done to your site they are also displayed under the Recommended Improvements section.
9. Settings
If you want to change your website setting you should click the setting tab in your dashboard.
Here you can see general settings that change the site title, Tag line, WordPress address, site address, email, language, Time zone, Date format and time format.
Settings>Reading
If you are creating static pages these reading settings will help you to identify homepage and post page (i.e. blog entries) separately.
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