How to WordPress - Set Up a Local Web Server for WordPress

Welcome to another episode of “How to WordPress.” How to WordPress is an ongoing collection of WordPress how to resources, tutorials, and videos aimed at making a better WordPress experience for both beginners and seasoned vetrans alike.

In this episode of “How to WordPress” we look at an all important first step: setting up a local installation of a web server using WAMP Server. There is also a MAMP server available for Mac users. What “setting up a local web server” means is that you can run a website or web application entirely on your own computer and have things run just as they would (or close to it at least) as if it were your live server that hosts your website out on the internet. So you could run an entire WordPress website entirely self-contained on your own personal machine. Your local setup is not exposed to the Internet, no nobody can access your site or see anything you’re doing.

Setting up a local web server is great for development, testing, and experimenting with anything else that you might want to do before you push something live to your production server on the Internet. This particular video is more of a general overview of the installation process, but it’s still a very important first step in getting WordPress set up locally.