Short answer: You do not install WP where you are moving a local site to; that is what the local site IS … a WP install! 🙂
– export local database
– create new, empty db at the new location
– import the local export .sql file into this new db (this is where all your posts, pages, settings are 🙂
– using the db control panel at your new location (phpMyAdmin or the like), edit the siteurl and home fields in the wp_options table with the new location ( e.g. from http://localhost:8888/mysite to http://www.mysite.com )
– extract a fresh WP ZIP where it needs to be at the new location
– delete the complete wp-contents folder from this location
– upload the complete wp-contents folder from your local site (this is where all your media lives 🙂
– edit the wp-config.php that is now at your new location for the new location’s db credentials
– you will now be able to access the new location
– your links and media paths will have to be updated to the new location; I use two tools:
– `http://wordpress.org/plugins/velvet-blues-update-urls/’ a WP plugin
– `http://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/’ a script to run at the new location (this one updates links that are stored in the db as serialized strings; Velvet does not.
Sounds like a lot of work, but once you have done it a time or three, takes about 5 minutes 🙂
