{"id":2023,"date":"2026-03-25T22:53:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T17:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/?p=2023"},"modified":"2026-03-25T23:33:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:03:21","slug":"how-to-easily-create-a-staging-site-for-wordpress-step-by-step-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/blog\/how-to-easily-create-a-staging-site-for-wordpress-step-by-step-2\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Easily Create a Staging Site for WordPress (Step by Step)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When it comes to making updates or significant changes to your WordPress site, doing so directly can be risky. This is where a staging site comes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a perfect clone of your live website where you can safely test changes, troubleshoot issues, and refine updates before deploying them to your main site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At WPBeginner, we use staging sites to test website updates before publishing them on our live sites. This saves us from potential downtime, broken features, and other complications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this step-by-step guide, we will show you how to easily create a staging environment for your WordPress site. We will cover several different methods and most of them only require a few clicks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/how-to-create-staging-site-for-wordpress-og.png\" alt=\"How to create a staging site for WordPress\" class=\"wp-image-186900\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Is a Staging Site?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A staging site is a clone of your live website that is used for testing changes before making them live. Staging sites help you catch errors, so you don\u2019t break your live website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the past, it used to be very difficult to set up a WordPress staging site, but now that has changed so even a non-technical person can do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of users install WordPress locally on their&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-tutorials\/how-to-install-wordpress-on-your-windows-computer-using-wamp\/\">Windows<\/a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-tutorials\/how-to-install-wordpress-locally-on-mac-using-mamp\/\">Mac<\/a>&nbsp;computers to test changes. Once they\u2019re done with the updates, they simply upload those changes from&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-tutorials\/how-to-move-wordpress-from-local-server-to-live-site\/\">localhost to the live server<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The biggest problem with this approach is what if something that worked on your localhost does not work on the live server?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Often the local sites and live WordPress hosting servers are not running in the same environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the staging site lives on your web hosting server, you can easily prevent all those errors because it runs the same server configuration as your live site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With that said, let\u2019s take a look at how to set up a staging site for WordPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to Easily Create a WordPress Staging Site<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>There are multiple ways to create a staging site for WordPress. The easiest is using your hosting provider\u2019s built-in staging site feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wordpress-hosting\/\">best WordPress hosting companies<\/a>&nbsp;already offer 1-click staging websites. If your website is hosted with one of them, then you can easily create a staging site without any hassle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you do not have one of these popular hosting solutions, then we also have a solution to help you create a WordPress staging site using a plugin (and even manually).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For faster browsing, you can use the navigation below to jump to the section that\u2019s most applicable to you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-tutorials\/how-to-create-staging-environment-for-a-wordpress-site\/#stagingbluehost\">Creating a Staging Site on Bluehost<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-tutorials\/how-to-create-staging-environment-for-a-wordpress-site\/#stagingsiteground\">Creating a Staging Site on SiteGround<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-tutorials\/how-to-create-staging-environment-for-a-wordpress-site\/#stagingwpengine\">Creating a Staging Site on WP Engine<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-tutorials\/how-to-create-staging-environment-for-a-wordpress-site\/#stagingplugin\">Creating a Staging Site Using WordPress Plugin<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-tutorials\/how-to-create-staging-environment-for-a-wordpress-site\/#stagingmanually\">Create a Staging Site for WordPress Manually<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"stagingbluehost\">Creating a Staging Site on Bluehost<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/refer\/bluehost\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bluehost<\/a>&nbsp;is one of the best WordPress hosting companies. They offer a quick 1-click staging site solution with all their plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, you must head over to your&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/refer\/bluehost\/\">Bluehost<\/a>&nbsp;dashboard and visit the \u2018My Sites\u2019 section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, switch to the \u2018Plugins\u2019 tab and toggle the switch next to the \u2018Bluehost Plugin\u2019 option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>After that, head over to your WordPress site dashboard and visit the&nbsp;<strong>Bluehost \u00bb Staging<\/strong>&nbsp;page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now go ahead and click the \u2018Create Staging Site\u2019 button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>Bluehost will now prepare the staging environment for your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once that\u2019s done, it will display a Staging Site\u2019 section where you must check the \u2018Not currently editing\u2019 box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/click-not-currently-editing-box.png\" alt=\"Click not currently editing button\" class=\"wp-image-239287\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A prompt will now open up on your screen asking you to switch to the staging site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From here, click the \u2018Switch\u2019 button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/click-switch-button.png\" alt=\"Click switch button\" class=\"wp-image-239288\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Once switched, you will see a button on the screen indicating that you are working on the staging website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can go ahead and work on your website without worrying about it affecting your live site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to making updates or significant changes to your WordPress site, doing so directly can be risky. This is where a staging site comes in. It is a perfect clone of your live website where you can safely test changes, troubleshoot issues, and refine updates before deploying them to your main site. At&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/blog\/how-to-easily-create-a-staging-site-for-wordpress-step-by-step-2\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How to Easily Create a Staging Site for WordPress (Step by Step)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wp","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2024,"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023\/revisions\/2024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prabhatrai.in\/aio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}