Don't Break Live! Using a Staging Site for WordPress Updates

An introduction to creating and using a staging site for WordPress to do your updates (and feature experiments!). Never break your live site again! Do updates on staging, ensure everything is still functioning as expected, and then update live. No more cowboy updates on live that can bring down your site and ruin your users' experience.

Transcript

1. DON’T BREAK LIVE USING A STAGING SITE FOR UPDATES CAN MAKE YOUR LIFE A LOT EASIER!
2. JAMIE SCHMID • COMMUNITY EVANGELIST @SITELOCK • FREELANCE DESIGNER AND DEVELOPER • CONTENT ENTHUSIAST • PROUD CAT MOM IN PORTLAND, OR @JAMIESCHMID @SITELOCK
3. WHAT WE’LL COVER TODAY The Opportunities in Providing Maintenance Services Using a Staging Website for Updates and Features Things to Consider While Evaluating Your Options Staging Site Solutions Example Workflows
4. PROVIDING MAINTENANCE SERVICES THE OPPORTUNITIES IN…
5. ADDITIONAL REVENUE: RECURRING BILLING SETTING YOUR BUSINESS APART: OFFER A COMPLETE SOLUTION PUTTING SECURITY FIRST: PEACE OF MIND FOR YOUR CLIENTS
6. FOR UPDATES AND FEATURES USING A STAGING SITE…
7. THE #1 REASON WEBSITES GET HACKED IS OUTDATED CORE, THEME AND PLUGINS. Security Updates are released all the time But they won’t help you unless you apply them.
10. MAKING CHANGES ON LIVE IS DANGEROUS… White Screen of Death Losing content you spent hours on to write Theme customizations being deleted Plugin conflicts causing loss of functionality or design Error messages appearing for your customers and users Broken links and images Whenever you update core, a plugin or a theme, changes are made to the code and/or database.
12. STAGING SITE A PRIVATE COPY OF YOUR SITE FOR TESTING UPDATES, NEW FEATURES AND CHANGES, QA CHECKS ?
13. PRODUCTION SITE YOUR LIVE SITE THAT USERS, CUSTOMERS AND SEARCH ENGINES SEE. ?
14. BENEFITS OF USING A STAGING SITE No time pressure to get changes done quickly… nobody but you will see the staging site Fewer gray hairs from the terror of pushing that Update button on live
15. BENEFITS OF USING A STAGING SITE Search engine optimization, conversions, and sales are all hurt by broken sites! Test out new themes, plugins, layouts… all without affecting your live site
16. BENEFITS OF USING A STAGING SITE Reduce the risk of damage to your business: errors and downtime makes you look bad User’s experience of your website won’t be interrupted by changes as you work on the site.
17. STAGING & MIGRATION SOLUTIONS FOR…
18. WHAT IS REQUIRED? 1. You need to make a replica of your site. 2. You need to put it someplace so it can run as a website 3. You need to get those changes to your live site
19. 1. HOSTING 1-CLICK-STAGING The easiest & fastest solution! The most expensive (in $) solution Your host needs to offer it
20. SOME HOSTS THAT OFFER
 1-CLICK STAGING WPEngine Siteground Pressable Flywheel Kinsta Godaddy
21. WP-ENGINE 1 CLICK STAGING IN THE WP ADMIN
22. 2. DUPLICATE ON A SUBDOMAIN/ SUBFOLDER OR INSIDE WORDPRESS (ON YOUR LIVE SITE) Make changes locally and push to your remote staging Ensure all is working as expected Make those same changes again on live OR push to live
23. WPSTAGING
24. 3. SET UP A LOCAL WORDPRESS SITE Make changes on local staging Ensure all is working as expected Make those same changes again on live or push to live
26. LOCAL RUNNING YOUR SITE ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER, USING SOFTWARE THAT ALLOWS YOUR COMPUTER TO RUN AS A SERVER. ?
27. REMOTE YOUR SITE RUNS ON A WEB HOSTING SERVER ?
28. LOCAL STAGING DESKTOPSERVER LOCAL BY FLYWHEEL
29. SYNCHING MOVING THE CHANGES YOU’VE MADE ON STAGING, TO YOUR LIVE SITE IN THE EASIEST WAY POSSIBLE ?
30. 1. REPLICATE Make changes on staging Ensure all is working as expected Make those same changes again on live
31. 2. PARTIAL OVERWRITE OVERWRITE ONLY THE CHANGES YOU MADE
32. WP SITE SYNC
33. 3. FULL OVERWRITE COMPLETELY OVERWRITE YOUR LIVE SITE WITH YOUR STAGING SITE
34. DUPLICATOR
35. MIGRATION AND ARCHIVE PLUGINS Duplicator All-In-One WP Migration Updraft Plus Migrator WP Migrate DB Snapshot Pro DesktopServer Archive & Direct Deploy
36. WHEN EVALUATING YOUR OPTIONS THINGS TO CONSIDER…
37. How much time and resources do you have for maintenance? What is your budget? Remember: time saved = $$ saved How often will you check for core, theme and plugin updates? Often! Check for outdated plugins. How often will you perform the updates? Schedule them! Who is performing the updates? Assign them! ASK YOURSELF:
38. ASK YOURSELF: How many sites do you have to manage? Do you have multiple people who need to verify changes before it can go live? How technical is your situation? Is your site in version control? How busy is your live site? Popular ecommerce sites may be continuously processing tractions or writing sessions.
39. EXAMPLE WORKFLOWS A COUPLE’A…
40. ONE CLICK STAGING 1. Pick a host with one click staging, like WP Engine 2. Confirm user rules: never update live, never add new features to live, never add new content to live 3. Create an updates schedule. Include monitoring reports 4. Pull live to staging 5. Make changes 6. Push staging to live
41. DUPLICATION IN-SITE 1. Use the WP Staging plugin 2. Create a duplicate inside your live WP install 3. Make your changes to the duplicate 4. Push to live
42. SUBDOMAIN STAGING 1. Create a subdomain on your main site 2. Duplicate your site into it using the WP All-In-One Migration plugin or Updraft Plus Migrator 3. Make changes 4. Migrate to live with a migration plugin OR replicate changes manually on live
43. LOCAL STAGING SITE 1. Import an archive of your live site using Duplicator 2. Install DesktopServer 3. Import live site archive to run site locally 4. Make changes 5. Push to live using Direct Deploy OR make changes manually to live
44. CREATE A WORKFLOW THAT WORKS FOR YOU.
45. THANK YOU!
46. QUESTIONS? SLIDES: TINYURL.COM/STAGING-SITE-TALK FULL BLOG POST: WWW.SITELOCK.COM/BLOG/