My first design for a client with WordPress

Hi all,

I am a regular user of WP on my personal sites, but I have just earned my first client and I have a couple of questions.

My client currently has a WordPress site and I will be building her a new site using WordPress just not with any of the previous content, except for maybe using some old blog posts and photos from her current WordPress install.

What I am looking to do is create and develop her site in a test environment where I think it is called a staging environment? I’m still learning about this. Essentially, I’d like to have her site setup on my server/site under something likedev.example.com. Because I’ll be building the site on my site and then moving it to the clients site eventually, what do I need to do to get be able to setup the site on my site and then move it when it is completed. Is there something specific and efficient I need to do to to achieve this? I am assuming because I’d be creating a new WP install in the dev.example.com environment that the database would be new as well, do I need to copy her current WP db and restore it into my dev.example.com setup before going forward? Also FWIW, the new site will have a multisite installation so is it easy to create the multisite installation setup in a test environment and move it to the clients server upon completion?

Effectively, I’d like to be able to clone the new build from one location to the clients server as easily and seamlessly possible, but I’m not sure how to go about all of this.