Perplexing and Bursty Guide to Moving Your Local WordPress Site to a Live Server

Step 1: Choose a Web Hosting Provider

So, you’ve been working on your WordPress site on a local environment or staging site and now you want to move it to a live production environment to share with the world. But how?! First things first, you need to choose a web hosting provider. But which one? There are so many factors to consider, like storage capacity, traffic, and website applications. It’s overwhelming, we know. Just do your research and compare prices and value-added services offered by different hosting providers. Good luck!

Step 2: Install WordPress on Your Live Server

Great, you’ve chosen your web hosting provider. Now it’s time to install WordPress on your live server. This part is a bit less perplexing because most web hosting providers provide one-click installation for WordPress. And if that’s not an option, you can always download the latest version of WordPress from the official website and upload it to your live server’s root directory using an FTP client. Piece of cake, right?!

Step 3: Backup Your Local WordPress Site

Whoa, slow down! Before you start moving things around, you need to make a backup copy of your local WordPress site. Why? Because anything could go wrong during the migration process and you don’t want to lose all your hard work. You can use a plugin or manually backup your WordPress database and files. To backup your database, just log in to your WordPress dashboard, go to Tools, then Export. Choose All content and click Export. Done! To backup your files, compress your WordPress folder into a zip file using an archiving tool.

Step 4: Export Your Local WordPress Database

Time to export your WordPress database. This part requires a bit more knowledge of technical aspects, but don’t worry – you got this! Open phpMyAdmin on your local server, click on the Databases tab, select your WordPress database, then click on Export. Choose Quick export and click Go. The end result? An SQL file with your WordPress data.

Step 5: Create a New Database on Your Live Server

Now it’s time to create a new database on your live server. Go to cPanel, find the Databases section, and click on MySQL Databases. Create a new database then create a new user and password for the database.

Step 6: Import Your Local WordPress Database to Your Live Server

Next up, importing your local WordPress database to your live server. Log in to phpMyAdmin on your live server, select your live server’s MySQL database, click on Import, browse for the SQL file you exported earlier, and click Go. Wait for the importer to import your WordPress database. Simple, right?

Step 7: Change Your WordPress Site URL

Okay, things are starting to get a bit more bursty. After importing your local WordPress database to your live server, you need to change your WordPress site URL from the local server URL to your live server URL. Log in to your live server’s cPanel, open File Manager, locate your WordPress root directory, open the wp-config.php file, edit the database name, username, and password to match your new live server database, then add the following lines of code:

define(‘WP_HOME’,’http://example.com’);

define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’http://example.com’);

Replace example.com with your actual live server’s URL. Phew!

Step 8: Transfer Your Local WordPress Files to Your Live Server

Almost there! Now it’s time to transfer your local WordPress files to your live server. Use an FTP client to connect to your live server and upload the compressed WordPress files you backed up earlier to the root directory of your live server. Done and done!

Step 9: Unzip Your WordPress Files

All that’s left is to unzip or extract your WordPress files from the compressed file you uploaded earlier. This will create a new WordPress folder on your live server. Exciting stuff!

Step 10: Test Your Live WordPress Site

Woohoo, your live WordPress site is ready! But you better make sure everything’s working correctly. Log in to your WordPress dashboard and check that all your website content, users, and settings have been migrated successfully. Also, check that your website’s links, images, and other media files are working correctly. And voila – you’ve moved your local WordPress site to a live server. Pat yourself on the back!