WordPress Development Process for clients who need new WordPress website
Every project is different, but there are usually certain main steps that must be completed in order to get any website ready. This process is for rapid development and works for clients who know what they after. Here’s a typical process I would follow for a web design project to help keep things in check.
Stage 1: Discovery
- Target Audience: For Clients who don’t have a website yet but want a new one in WordPress
- Goal: Map out requirements.
- If you are like me and trying to build a business you already have done your fair share of research. You already know who you are competing with. In this step, we will need at least 3 links of websites of your competitor. This will give my team an idea of where to start.
- Costs: FREE
Stage 2: Design of Website & Setup
- Goal: Set look and feel
- Based on our research we will set up your website with a base theme & some necessary plugins
- This website will act as a base for everything coming afterward
- Timeframe: We will have the website up and running in 1-2 days
- Functionality: You can start using the website right away to add content, learn the new admin panel, prepare feedback and improvements that are needed.
- Costs: $200
Stage 3: Custom Functionality
- Goal: add more feature as per demand
- We can further set up your site to have the best functionality. This includes SEO setup, Security Setup, Cache Service, SSL certificates, Automated Backups, Linked to Social media, e-commerce, payment gateway integration, and anything else from another 1000s of options available.
- Costs: $15/hr
Stage 4: Aditional service for Content Creation
- Goal: Deliver the right content
- Out of the box, your website will have options to add pages, blogs, media, products, etc. Now you have a couple of options to chose from. Have a look at the flow below to get the basic idea.
- If you already have content created we will also add it to the website.
- Costs: : $15/hr
Stage 5: Design Customization
- Goal: Finish up the website
- By this time our site is up and running. Content is added to the site. All functionality is in place. We will further take inputs from your feedback to make costume changes you need. This could be based on your personal preference or some survey you did with your users. Whatever it maybe we are up for the job.
- Costs: : $15/hr
Stage 6: Ongoing Support
- Goal: Maintain and manage website
- Once we have over the completed website we will conclude the project but our relationship does not have ended here. We have many services that we offer at discounted rates to clients. This includes a dedicated person available for you if your site has an unforeseen problem. Also, a task like a backlink building, social media marketing, SEO is ongoing works so we can work on some of those areas as well.
- Costs: Depend on the support moded
WordPress Development Process for clients who already have a WordPress website running: Local, Staging, Live
When we are working on larger sites that require maintenance work we never work directly on live site. We will ensure first that these 3 levels are functional first. The local version, Staging version (for client review and QA), and a Live version.
Step 1: Local WordPress Development
- We opt for local development using tools like Vagrant, VVV, or XAMPP. Once we have got a working local copy of your WordPress site we start work on it.
- Themes and plugins testing as we can try out many themes & plugin combinations without risking live site.
- No internet needed to get work done.
- Better performance as not limited by an online connection so development is faster.
Step 2: Push it to Staging
- Staging sites are the middle point between local & live.
- Staging site is located on the same server as your live site
- Test new plugins on the staging site
- Test theme on staging
- Manage custom them using DeployHQ deploy changes from your Github/Bitbucket repository to both staging site and live site
Step 3: Taking it Live!
Once we’ve fully tested changes on the staging site, it’s time to push everything live.