Test website on sub-domain

I’d suggest using a sub-folder rather than a sub-domain. It will then be far easier to re-configure the site to take over the root domain later one. See Allow WordPress to take over the root domain as compared to Moving_WordPress.

So, for example, just create a sub-folder like https://www.leadingpractice.com/test/ and install everything in there with a new database?

Yep! ??

That’s great, thanks Esmi.

But please tell me, would I need to insert any special information in my robots.txt and .htaccess files to prevent outside users and search engines to visit and index my test webpages?

Or does it really not matter?

You can add a no-index to the new site via Settings -> reading once WP is up & running. Google should honour this but other engines may not. If you really want to keep everyone out of the site whilst you work on it, I’d recommend something like https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/absolute-privacy/

Thanks! ??