For the moment, there’s no offer, but stay informed by subscribing to my Newsletter.
|Multimedia Creation|
Web and internet blog » How to create an offline WordPress site
Table of contents

What are the different ways of designing a website?

There are two main ways to design a website: working with WordPress online or with offline WordPress (Local).

The big difference between these options is where the site is hosted. For an online site, it’s hosted on a remote server, while for local development, it’s hosted directly on your computer.

Online and local (offline WordPress) design offer the same development possibilities. However, when it comes to designing your site locally, you’ll find that there are a number of advantages and disadvantages.

The main advantages are that, when designing locally, you can carry out numerous tests and modifications without any risk whatsoever (which is extremely useful during the site’s pre-production phase). At the same time, this option facilitates the resolution of any anomalies. Since you can make changes at will, without fear of server error, you can explore all the possibilities to get to the bottom of your problem!

And the icing on the cake… Since your site is stored on your computer and not on a server, it’s less prone to hacking!

But be careful!

Local development also has its drawbacks. With this type of design, it’s going to be harder to share your site, to show it to your customers (although we’ll see later that there is software available to do just that).

The biggest negative point will come at the time of migration from local to online. Migration requires specific skills to do it properly.

Let's move on to the practical side of working locally.

We saw earlier that working offline meant hosting your site directly on your computer.

It’s a simulation of a local environment, allowing you to work on your site before putting it online once it’s up and running.

How to work offline, and with what tools?

To be able to work offline, you need to use applications such as Local by WP Engine.

Local by flywheel
Local by flywheel

How to upgrade your WORDPRESS website from OFFLINE to an online version?

Local by FlyWheel is an application developed by WP Engine, a company that originally provided WordPress site hosting, and which has now acquired this local hosting application.

Local by FlyWheel is not the only application of its kind:

  • Mamp (for Macintosh, Apache, MySQL and PhP)
  • WampServer
  • Xampp (for Apache, MySQL, PHP and PERL)

These alternatives are effective, but don’t offer the same ease-of-use as Local by WP Engine for creating an offline WordPress site.

When it comes to creating an offline WordPress site, Local is THE solution par excellence, because it’s quick to set up, simple to use and lets you share a URL of your site so that your customers/collaborators/friends can see the site’s progress even if it’s not hosted online. And above all, this solution is optimized for WordPress, allowing you to modify the working environment (configurations) without forgetting the use of the extensions required for your website.

I personally use Local with WordPress, Elementor Pro and Rankmath to create or redesign websites.

What’s more, the application has been free since WP Engine acquired Flywheel.

It’s also a great way to try out themes and extensions before putting them into production.

Now that you know that you can work directly from your own computer, and what applications are available to do this, let’s take a look at how to get your site from local to online.

Once you’ve decided that your site is ready to go online, or you’ve finished ironing out any minor bugs, you’ll need to migrate it to a server.

Initially, as we said at the beginning of this article, migration is a highly specialized process, requiring special skills and expertise. But I’m going to summarize a simple 5-step process for migrating your local site to a remote server.

Beforehand

You’ll need to create a remote WordPress site to which you’d like to import everything you’ve created locally.

  1. In the WordPress back-end, on the extension tab in the menu, click on “Add” and install the WPMigration extension,
  2. Go to the plug-in and click on “Export”. Your site will then download to the location you specified,
  3. Go to WordPress on the remote server, install the same extension (WPMigration),
  4. Go to the plug-in and select “Import”, then choose your file.

Congratulations! Your local site is now on the remote server!

Finally, don’t forget to enter your URLs without the local one.

For example, if you’ve created internal links in an article or page: this is how the URL of the local link in the article looks:

  • https://www.francisbaconnet.local/en/web-and-internet-blog/

The URL should be changed to :

  • https://www.francisbaconnet.com/en/web-and-internet-blog/

To conclude this article, "How to create an offline WordPress site"

Setting up an offline WordPress site gives you greater freedom to experiment and modify your site. It’s a great alternative to designing directly on a remote server. The development of a wide range of software, applications and extensions makes the task much simpler and more accessible to all.

Need to create or redesign your website?

WEBSITE CREATION

Boost your online presence with a professional, customized website!

WEBSITE REDESIGN

Modernize your existing website for an optimal user experience!

And for you, now that you know that you can create an offline WordPress site, would you prefer to have me build your site locally or directly online?

Both are possible, depending on your specifications…

Francis

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
Notez l'article
Rate this post

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

WANT TO GO FURTHER AND JOIN FRANCISBACONNET.COM?

By subscribing to my newsletter, you consent to Francisbaconnet.com collecting your data as data controller in order to send you electronic communications. You may unsubscribe at any time. To exercise your right of access, rectification or deletion, please consult my privacy policy.

Envie d'aller plus loin en rejoignant Francisbaconnet.com ?

En vous inscrivant à mon bulletin d’information, vous consentez à ce que Francisbaconnet.com collecte vos données en tant que responsable de traitement afin de vous adresser des communications par voie électronique. Vous pouvez vous désinscrire à tout moment. Pour exercer votre droit d’accès, de rectification ou de suppression, veuillez consulter ma politique de confidentialité.