How to Set Up a WordPress Test Blog

WordPress Weekend: How to Set Up a Test Blog

I believe experimenting with your blog is crucial to success, but you don’t want to experiment publicly on your live site and risk messing it all up (with the possibility of getting in over your head).

So I made you this video to show you how you can set up a test blog on your domain (which is easier for less techy types than creating a web server on your own computer for testing).

What you see in this video may differ a bit from your hosting control panel, but the basic functions should all be there. You will essentially be creating a WordPress blog in a folder on your domain.

You can use a test blog to try out new plugins and themes. If you want to make it as much like your existing blog as possible, you can export your content from the main blog and import it into your test blog, creating a duplicate and separate copy of your blog. You can install the same themes and plugins into the test blog, too, if you want. Just install them the way you normally would on a blog (there are more technical ways of completely duplicating everything, but I’m keeping this as simple as possible).

Remember to keep your test blog upgraded with the latest versions of WordPress, themes, and plugins, just as you do with your main blog.

terryjett

Excellent advice Michael! Something I have done since messing up a very cools site “I had”, lol

I also love using “Instant WordPress” which installs on your local machine. Allows me to mess around when traveling with spotty internet access.

Read most all your tips and truly enjoy your shares.

Terry
Laura @ SometimesCrafty

Good post! I always wondered if that would work but hadn’t gotten around to trying it. I recently discovered WP Multisite and I am loving that option as well, though I’m a little nervous about adding that to an existing site.
- http://remarkablogger.com Michael Martine
  
  If you were trying to build a blog network, using the multisite option is how you’d do that. If you just need a test blog, installing another copy of WordPress in a subfolder is a better solution. Happy testing!
http://remarkablogger.com Michael Martine

Steve, most people not only find such a move to be worth it, they wish they’d done it sooner! Let me help you by pointing you towards some good info on it: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2012/08/04/transfer-your-blog-from-wordpress-com-to-wordpress-org-part-1/
Good luck!
http://twitter.com/write_clever Sue Neal

Great idea, Michael – thanks very much for this – I think lots of other bloggers will find this helpful, so I’ll definitely share it.
- http://remarkablogger.com Michael Martine
  
  Sue, I appreciate that very much, thank you!
http://remarkablogger.com Michael Martine

Karim, thanks for bringing up the multisite idea, it’s definitely worth a look!
Lisa Stevens

Thanks Michael. What happens if, lets say, your test site turns out awesome and you want it to become your live site. What would be the basic steps to move that from the test folder to the live site url?
- http://remarkablogger.com Michael Martine
  
  A back up / restore plugin that can handle that would be the way to go. BackupBuddy is a good one. Anything that can handle a migration.
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Carol Farbe

Michael,
My son set up a website on GoDaddy (around 2007 or 2008) under my business name. Then, I set up a blog (around 2009) under a different (but related) name on WordPress using Blue Host hosting just to see if I could do it. It turned out better than I thought, so I kept up with it. But the website and the blog are 2 separate sites. Is there a way to connect them?
- http://remarkablogger.com Michael Martine
  
  Hi Carol, perhaps there is a way to connect them, and it depends on exactly how your GoDaddy site was created and what options with it you have.
  
  However, that wouldn’t be ideal, because it’s highly likely that GoDaddy site needs to go.
  
  A WordPress-based site with a home page that’s separate from the blog content is pretty much the “price of entry” for a small business website nowadays.
  
  Ideally, you’d want to consider transforming your self-hosted (on Bluehost) WordPress site into your main site. You can add the GoDaddy domain to Bluehost, export your existing WordPress blog, set up a new blog under the just-added domain, and import the old blog into the new one.
  
  There may be other ways to handle this but that’s what comes to mind for me.
http://twitter.com/suddenlyjamie Jamie Wallace

Super helpful. Thanks!!!
- http://remarkablogger.com Michael Martine
  
  You’re welcome.
http://readingbookslikeaboss.com/ Megan

Michael, thank you so much! This was immensely helpful. I’m new to WordPress. I have high hopes of redesigning my blog on my own sometime before the end of the year.