Upload WordPress site/files from localhost as permanent solution

Hi,

I’ve recently had an issue with malware, which seems to be resolved. However, even though I do not get the pop up windows/redirects anymore when I go onto my site, I’m worried that my site might still not be completely clean. I have no idea how the code got into my files in the first place.

I’ve bought a new theme just before I realised that I had this malware issue, thus never installed it on my website. I’ve tried it on my computer (localhost) though and also downloaded and added my posts and pages. This worked fine, but needs some tweaking.

I have an add-on domain, which is a shop. I’ve been tweaking the settings and the code (child theme) to get it to look the way I want it to look, so I obviously I don’t want to lose these settings. There is no content yet apart from mock up product images and text.

What I would like to do is the following:
– I would like to tweak my main domain on my computer until I’m happy with the look of it (this includes all the content)
– I would like to do the same with my add-on domain (shop) and add all the product images and descriptions before I upload the files onto the server
– I would like to wipe all the files from the server before I install both WordPress sites new and upload the content from my computer (would a multisite installation make sense here?)

I would really like to work like this in general from now on, i.e. add content locally and then upload it. The reason is that I could install all the plugins I have installed now and make sure that I’m using the same settings. I would always have the latest version of all the files on my computer and could replace the ones on the server at any time, if there’s a problem. I want to avoid having to do backups (the local installation would be my backup). I’ve tried to do backups regularly, but I was never sure if I was doing it right so I’d prefer doing it this way.

I’ve read about doing it like this and one issue that I came across is that the paths would need to be changed once the files are uploaded. I think that there’s a plugin, which might help… I’d be grateful for your opinions and explanations on how to do this right. Thank you.