Website Redesign/Tech Question

When I'm building a new or redesigning a wordpress site for a client I always build it on my server first.

Create a subfolder on your site called something like "client" and install wordpress platforms in subfolders under that client folder. So, if you have a client named "ABC Company" you can create a path on your server - http://yoursite.com/clients/abc-company

Then, what I do is build the wordpress site, send my client the link to review and when everything is good to go I use WP Twin to move the site over to their hosting (WP Twin)

For the email, if they are switching hosting as you stated...then yes, they will need to change the settings on their outlook. But, if you can do that easily maybe offer to connect to their computer (http://join.me) and update the settings for them. They will appreciate this quick extra customer support

Hopefully, that all makes sense...but if not let me know and I can answer any questions.

I do all my development locally on my machine using XAMPP (apache friends - xampp) or MAMP (MAMP: Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP), these tools simulate a web server on your local machine (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP - LAMP ).

You should always do your development on your local machine. Once your ready to show your client progress on the site you can deploy it to your staging server (i.e. your server ) then to a live environment (i.e. your clients server) once they paid you the final payment.

I've been a developer for 15 years and been doing Wordpress development for the last 8 years and I've always setup my development environment this way.

When you are ready to deploy your code to either servers, it's pretty easy.

Here is a link that explains how: Moving WordPress « WordPress Codex

Or, you can purchase WPTwin as mentioned in a previous thread.

I've always just dumped the database and imported it to the new destination server.

Another thing you should think about implementing is a code repository for your code. There are a lot of them on the market but I've been using Assembla for all my projects, here is a link: https://www.assembla.com/home

A code repo will help if you start to take on more projects and you bring in additional developers to help. They can check out / check in the code. Plus it's another way to have a back up of your code. The rule of thumb is, if it's not backed up at least 5 times it's not backed up :-)

Oh, a little bit of advice.... If this is your first Wordpress project I would suggest mocking up the design using html/css first and them move it into Wordpress. Doing it this way it will help you to separate the front end from the back end a bit. Do you need to do it this way, absolutely not. You can just theming right in Wordpress, but from experience and helping many junior programers they tend to get hung up a bit. There are a lot of great tutorials out there that will show you theming in Wordpress.

Anyway, if you need any additional help send my a PM.

Larry Hoffman

Proceed cautiously with their email.

If they have a managed exchange server at their current host, then yes, they could lose that data. That may be why they are paying more. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that all emails be kept for certain types of companies.

You should talk with their IT person. Or, call the host for them and ask about their current email setup.

If their Outlook client is not connected to an Exchange server then email is stored on each computer in a pst file. If they are connected to an Exchange server then email is stored in Exchange on the server. Either way hopefully they are diligent about backing up.

What I usually do is this.

I only build sites on Wordpress for clients, whether it's a wp theme or 100% custom. It's just more robust and flexible that way.

So, for them, we just install demo sites, or testing beds on a subdomain of our company's website. Then we install BackupBuddy on the site. Once it's done, you just download the backup and BackupBuddy install file, and follow the instructions on the new domain's public_html folder or wherever it's going. Then after you do that, the site is done! (After I finish the test site but before I send the DNS to our new site, I prepare an under construction page for the business and upload that into the FTP after I add the domain in their or our cpanel. this way there's no hiccup when i transfer DNS)

Hope this helps!

- Mark Cuda