WordPress users come in all shapes and sizes. Many users are lifelong WP enthusiasts with years of experience on the platform. Others are new to site building and are often unsure where to start. The biggest demographic of WordPress users are somewhere in the middle – often with a clear understanding of the product but an uncertain vision for their site(or the other way around).
Wherever you may be on your WordPress journey, there’s usually 4 steps involved in taking a website from concept to completion.
- An idea
Every great website starts with a ‘why’. Why do I want to build this site? What is it’s purpose? Or – what do I want to say with that website? This part can be the hardest to move past, but it’s also often the most enjoyable. After all, our ideas are the joy and motivation behind our website projects. - Obtaining resources
Websites need a few things: Your domain name – the name by which your site will be known – is one. Web hosting, or a container for your website is another. You’ll also need something to build your website. Since this article refers to WordPress, that’s what we’ll use today. - Building and Configuring
Now’s the time to take those ideas, and build them out! Create stories, introductions, and whatever other content you might want to share! Collect images or take photos and set those aside and start putting things together to see what your site could be. - Refining and Publishing
You’ve made the frame, and finally you’re at a point where you can finish off that website and get it online! This is a very rewarding part of the process, made more so when your initial vision is realized on the www.
We’re going to focus on item 3 today, as it represents the process of creating your site and preparing it for publication to the web. To help you in staging your first site, consider the following. We’ve narrowed down the top 3 solutions to website staging issues:
1. Website Security
Often overlooked, the security of a WordPress site is critical to it’s success and to keeping your site problem-free. With WP being the most popular builder platform out there, there’s no end of exploits, hacks and attacks to keep builders on their toes. Luckily, there’s also an abundance of website security available to protect your WordPress website.
Jetpack Plugin – Consider this to be your WP security multi-tool. Jetpack offers numerous safety benefits for your site, including malware scanning, backup management, anti-spam, brute force and other protections.
WordFence – Another plugin-based solution, Wordfence for WP offers similar functionality to that of Jetpack, with free and paid versions that offer an array of security features.
Google Authenticator – 2 factor authentication is a great way to secure your logins. It’s highly recommended to set up 2FA any time it’s available to you. It’ll only help you keep your site secure!
By researching and implementing known and reputable security solutions, your site will be safer and in many cases also operate more smoothly.
2. A/B Testing
What’s better than checking one site to see if you like it? Well, testing two sites! Or three! Cloning your site, or creating ‘staging copies’ lets you build out different concepts and test them.
With ChemiCloud hosting and InstaWP, there’s two ways to create copies of your sites!
On ChemiCloud’s cPanel platform comes WP Toolkit, which includes it’s own cloning option:
And with InstaWP, it’s native to the product! Easily create copies when you need to. A/B testing, redesign, and whatever other processes you have in mind.
3. Look and Feel
Your site needs to look the way you want, and it needs to respond like you planned for. Performance plugins and themes can help on both fronts!
More experienced WordPress developers may have their own links or lists of plugins and themes to choose from. Years of experience and a keen eye for what they like often speeds this part of the process up. Don’t let that slow you down, though! Or rather – let it! After all, if we take our time and make informed decisions, our site will benefit from it. Here’s a few performance plugins to help in launching your first WordPress site
LiteSpeed Cache – Faster load times for your site, and other performance features are the bread and butter of LSCache. It’s considered an all-in-one caching plugin and pairs well with YoastSEO and other well-loved WP plugins.
Quic.cloud CDN – Quic.cloud offers caching as well, and then some! CSS, image optimization and more, Quic.cloud pairs incredibly well with LiteSpeed Cache to offer impressive performance.
Perfmatters – often toted as the performance plugin that covers what other plugins forget, it boasts speed boosts by reducing http requests and more.
In closing.
Your WordPress site is in outstanding hands when it comes to staging in 2023 and beyond! Whether you’re building your first site, or making your first copy of one – ChemiCloud and InstaWP are there to help you make the most of the experience!
