How do you go about redesigning sites?

13 years ago

What I usually do if they have their own hosting is develop the new site in a subdirectory... so if their site is acmecompany.com, I'll build the WordPress site at acmecompany.com/new/. Since almost everything in WordPress uses the addresses you define in Settings -> General, it's very easy to switch it when you're ready.

As for the actual process of switching it, here's what I do (as quickly as possible, preferably really late at night):

1. Using FTP, I put up a temporary "Scheduled maintenance" page as the index (depending on the setup, this sometimes means renaming the current index page).
2. Still using FTP, I create a new folder in the root of their site called "old" and move all of the current site's pages and assets into it, leaving my "new" folder (the one with the WordPress installation) out.
3. Go into WordPress and change the site addresses in Settings -> General to the main domain. Once you do this, the WordPress site will temporarily stop working until the next step is done.
4. Using FTP, move all the files from the "new" folder into the root of the site, and verify that everything is working. Sometimes you'll need to do a search-and-replace in the database to correct image addresses and such, but that's not a big deal.
5. Remove the temporary "Scheduled maintenance" page and verify some more.

This usually takes me about five minutes, which is fine for all but the busiest sites when scheduled at off hours. And if things go awry for any reason, you have the previous site close at hand in the "old" folder.

I should add that I also back everything up to my local machine before I do any of this.

Hope that helps; let me know if you have any questions on the process.

Thanks

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bookchiq

13 years ago

Oh, and one other related tip when you're moving them to your own hosting: plan ahead for email (it's embarrassing that I've forgotten to do this more than once!).

The best way I've figured out to do this:
1. Re-create the same email addresses on the new hosting account
2. Set up temporary email addresses somewhere else (Gmail, whatever)
3. Add forwarders on the old hosting account to the temporary addresses
4. When you're sure the forwarding is working, then you can switch over the domain's nameservers to the new host. While the change is propagating, some email will go to the old host (and get forwarded to the temporary accounts) and some will go the new host; both accounts should be checked until the temporary accounts stop getting mail

Thanks

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Russell Hall

13 years ago

Originally Posted by 88crxsi

I've been following some of John Durham's programs and using his forum. I have had a lot of luck designing websites for business with no site at all making great money. I want to start tapping into customers with old out of date sites. I design everything in wordpress. I just started by redesigning a friends site, and he now has me some jobs lined up paying $2k. Thes businesses have bigger budgets.

I'm currently redesigning the friends site by buying a better domain domain and doing all of the work on that domain. I will later redirect his old domain domain name to the new one.

How do you go about redesigning a site without having much down time? What I mean is if the site is on someone else's hosting ( reseller hosting, or hostgator) how do I go about doing the new site in wordpress so I can have the site ready then just change it over without any down time?

I'm going to try to get most of these people to transfer to my hosting, but in the case they have their own I'm kind of clueless.

Thanks for any help.

I think BookChiq has given you some good pointers about how to do this.

Basically you have one of two options.

1) create the site on your own server and then migrate it over to the client's server when finished. This is not rocket science and simply requires changing the name of the database (to match the client's cPanel/server home directory prefix) and then changing the URL path references in the database tables from your server directory URL path to theirs and then importing the file into the new empty database you set up on their server. The simplest way of doing that is to open the .sql file in Wordpad (not notepad) and doing a "search and replace" edit (takes about 30 seconds.... including opening/saving/closing/ the file).
2) build the site on the client's server in a subfolder as BookChiq has indicated. Then its simply a matter of sliding the site across (changing URL paths in database) once you're ready. This is probably the easiest of the two. In both cases (especially #2) I always use the "Maintenance Mode" plugin that allows you full designer access to the site but won't let the client in (unless you want them it). I've found it tends to cause problems when the client is virtually watching over your shoulder so to speak. Better to unveil once you're ready to show your stuff or get feedback

Once you've built the site and are going through the changeover routine it should take you all of 15 minutes (maybe 30 stopping for coffee break).

Cheers,

Russell

Thanks

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Zach Crawford

13 years ago

Thank you guys I appreciate the help.

Thanks
1 reply

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JimmyD 13 years ago

Good advice from bookchiq and Russell.
One tip I would add is for the "Scheduled Maintenance" page. If you call this index.html it will display instead of any index.php file. You can access the new site you set up by going to the index.php or wp-admin file but the site will still show "Scheduled Maintenance" to visitors until you remove or rename the .html file.
- Thanks
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