WORDPRESS STAGING- off the stage

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Avoid the drama - WordPress Staging

When we say WordPress staging it has nothing to do with methods of presenting a play or any dramatic performances – though drama is definitely what does happen if a site is not staged before it goes live.

WordPress staging in this case basically refers to a staging environment for your site..a copy of your site is placed here and changes can be made, plugins can be installed and tested and fiddling can be done before it goes live and no nasty surprises materialise when it is live. This, now, would cause major dramatics

Fortunately, many managed WordPress hosting companies have WordPress staging environments built into their system. A staging copy of your site can be deployed, changes to themes done and checks to see if any plugins manage to have compatibility issues..without it being seen live.

Many issues can crop up when the site is transferred to the hosting site – surprises like :
1. Things breaking
2. Some things just never work
3. The pages look completely different to what you were shown or expected
4. The performance just isn’t right

The site owner just wants and expects their site to look good, work and start working for their business. The developer blames the hosting company and the hosting company blames the developer. It’s a blame game with the site owner sitting in the middle wondering what the heck is happening.
Setting up a WordPress staging environment can be done easily with a little technical knowledge. There are 3 steps to take to set up a staging environment for your site:

1. Make a staging subdomain(eg: staging.domain.com)
2. Copy all WordPress files from your live site to your staging site
3. Duplicate your database from your live site and then connect it with your staging site.

You are now ready to play in a safe environment.

It is important to mention that moving a database between sites can be tricky as you need to replace the old sites URL in the database with the new one – it is important to maintain a smooth workflow.

Still not convinced?

Instead of being disappointed and wondering what, why, who is to blame and why you still don’t have the website you wanted and paid for, a staging site offers you –

1. Protection from nasty surprises with poor performance
2. Protect against finger pointing between hosts and developers
3. Protects your production environment while fixes and changes are made

If nasty surprises just aren’t your thing then WordPress staging is for you.

So, to sum up, a WordPress staging environment gives you peace of mind that your live site and online business presence does not get damaged whilst in production stage, whether it be a brand new site or one that is being converted to a WordPress site from its original site. Your old site remains up and running whilst the new one is being worked on, before it goes live – you see its functionality, performance and aesthetics before it gets uploaded for everyone to see.

WPZA offers a free staging environment for all our standard maintenance contract. Why not have a look at what else you will get with monthly maintenance.

Contact us about staging your WordPress site, maintenance and development:
www.wpza.co.za
[email protected]

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