I’m a big WordPress fan. In fact, that’s kind of an understatement considering I’ve pretty much built an entire business around it, on it, and about it! But anyway, I’m a big WordPress fan and one of the reasons I love it so much is the seemingly never-ending learning curve. Folks often ask me how to go about learning it on their own – and more specifically – how to install WordPress locally. My answer is always the same – the only way to learn is by doing.

To get started, I do highly recommend a local installation. Sure, you can set up a test site on your web host, but designing locally is much quicker, you can dig deeper into the relationship between the server, the database and WordPress itself, and if you happen to lose your internet connection along the way, you can keep on trucking! The more you dig into this software, the more you can do, and the longer you use it, the more it changes. Did I mention it’s free?

So, You Wanna Know How To Install WordPress Locally?

The WordPress Codex has information on different local installation techniques for various operating systems. I’ve tried a few of them and the one I find easiest to install and manage is a product called XAMPP.  This video was created to give all you dork DIYers a running start learning how to install WordPress locally using XAMPP for Windows, but you Apple or Linux junkies will be able to follow along as well. Just start by downloading a fresh version of XAMPP and WordPress then press play!