If you are on the way to start a new blog and you bought the domain and hosting; you are now just left with WordPress installation and setup. I would recommend you to install and customize wordpress offline on your PC before making your site live.

Now the first question would be arising in your mind that why should you install WordPress on your PC on localhost? So this is the main reason for installing the WordPress offline on localhost.

Why should you install WordPress offline on localhost?

#1. Editing and checking result take less time

If you are editing or doing some initial WordPress setup and you want to cross check the result whether the change has occurred or not, then since you are editing and checking it online it may take time due to your internet speed. Page may take longer time to reload. And trust me it really a headache to work on slow internet speed when you want to reload the page again and again frequently.

#2. Best for editing theme

Whether you want to start your blog or else you have your one and want to change the theme then if you change your site theme while your site is live it may make annoy to several users due to sudden changes, since you have just activated another theme in which all your links on homepage, side widgets are to be setup. But using offline WordPress you can edit theme setting according to your requirement in your own pace of time without being in hurry.

#3. Can work offline without any internet connection

If you have installed WordPress on your localhost then you don’t need to wait for your internet connection for doing the setup. Even if your internet is down temporary you can edit the theme or work on dashboard offline without having internet connection.

I think above reasons are enough for your question. So, let have a look over the procedure to install WordPress offline on localhost.

Steps for installing WordPress offline on localhost:

#1. Create a local server on your PC

I know the heading of this step is somewhat techy but don’t worry even if you are non-tech guy you can do this within a couple of minutes.

Just download wamp or xampp and click on the downloaded setup file to install wamp or xampp on your PC.

Note: Install only one server out of the above two.

Once you have installed the wamp or xampp in your PC you can access the localhost from browser by typing ‘localhost’ or ‘127.0.0.1’ in address bar. And you can find the server’s files in ‘C:\wamp\www\’.  If everything goes correct you can see this page in your browser as soon as you type’127.0.0.1’ in address bar.

Note: Since I have installed wamp server on my PC, here I am showing screenshots from Wamp servers

You can also check steps to install WordPress offline using XAMPP server.

#2. Create Database for you blog on localhost

Once you can see the above screen you can find ‘phpmyadmin’ option on this page under Tools heading, just click on this option to go to next step to create database.

Alternatively, you can type in browser’s address as ’localhost/phpmyadmin’ or ‘127.0.0.1/phpmyadmin’ to go to next step to create database. For login id and password, use root as login id and leave password textbox blank. Just hit Go!

Once you have done with above steps you will be redirected to phpmyadmin page as shown below, just enter you database name let’s say ‘STL’ in textbox under ‘Create new database’ option and click on create button to create database. Once the database is created you can check your database name in left side column.

#3. Download and extract WordPress file

Download WordPress setup file from wordpress.org. Now make a folder in ‘C:\wamp\www\’ which will refer to yours site let’s say ‘STL’, extract the downloaded files in ‘C:\wamp\www\STL\’

#4. Edit wp-config-sample.php

Now once you have extracted all files in your STL folder you will find a php file in STl folder named as ‘wp-config-sample.php’, just open this file and do the following changes as shown below:

Replace the following:

#a.  ‘database_name_here’ with ‘stl’ which you have made in setp #2.

#b. ‘username_here’ with ‘root’ since it is default username in localhost unless you have added another user.

#c. ‘password_here‘ with ‘ ’  (blank), here password should be empty, again same reason which is mention in #b.

Now Save As ‘wp-config-sample.php’ as ‘wp-config.php’ in ‘c://wamp/www/STL/’

#5. WordPress installation

After the above step just go to home page of your localhost again by typing ‘localhost’ or ‘127.0.0.1’ in address bar and now here you can see your STL folder as a porject which you have made in  ‘c://wamp/www/’ under project option. Click on this project ‘STL’ to proceed with WordPress installation on localhost.

Alternatively, you can type ‘localhost/STL’ or ‘127.0.0.1/STL’ in browser’s address bar to proceed with WordPress installation on localhost.

Here you will be redirect to WordPress installation page as shown below where you need to provide the basic information about your blog like name, username, password, email, etc. Remember the username and password which you will be entering while installation will be same for WordPress dashboard login.

Once you are done with filling the information about your blog, click on ‘Install WordPress’ button to install the WordPress on your localhost in your PC. And now you are ready to login in your dashboard.

Click on login button to login to your blog dashboard which will be working offline without any internet connection.  Now after login you can check every option and you will get access to everything on your dashboard as you have on online dashboard. Now edit everything as per your need and check as many times as you want before uploading the edited file in the root folder of hosting database.

Now if you want to access your blog using localhost, just follow the below steps:

#Launch wamp/xampp server in your PC using start in window 7

#Type ‘localhost/STL’ or ‘127.0.0.1/STL’ in browser’s address bar.

Please feel free to drop comment if you have any query about WordPress installation on local server. And share this with your friends if you find this a useful tutorial.