How To Create A WordPress Staging Site

Making "live edits" to your WordPress website for significant changes, like adding a new theme, is generally not advisable. A better approach is to establish a staging site on a subdomain, allowing you to implement changes, make adjustments, and launch it live when everything is set.

For a website that your customers rely on for logging in or placing orders, the last thing you want is to edit the live site. With nearly two decades of online experience, I prefer to prepare for the unexpected. What if you halt all your orders for the day? If that’s your only source of income, it could lead to some dangerous consequences. Even if you’re simply working on a new design, doing it live wouldn’t be wise, as it will likely take several days to finalize.

This article will break down into 3 sections:

• Make a backup

• Add a subdomain staging.yourdomain.com 

• Use Softaculous to create the staging site 

MAKE A BACKUP

Step 1: Login to your cPanel account and find Jetbackup5,

Step 2: Click on 'Create Backup On Demand'

Step 3: If you click on the Queue you can see the backup progress. Once it says completed you are done there.

Step 4:  If you click on the Restore & Download button on the left menu, then click on the actual backup on demand you just did, at the bottom there will be a link to 'download'. You do not have to, but always a good idea to have a local copy.

If you are having any difficulty doing this or following these steps, feel free to chat or open a ticket with us and we can make it happen for you!

ADD A STAGING DOMAIN FOR YOUR WEBSITE

Step 1: In cPanel, find domains and click on it.

Step 2: Click on Create A New Domain.

Step 3: Where it says domain, make it staging.yourdomain.com. Here in this example, I'm using a personal subdomain or a subdomain. Please just put: staging.yourdomain.com. Make sure the check box for 'share content' is unchecked. The home directory should auto populate for you. Then click submit.

Step 4: If your dns is pointed the WebFoundr dns servers the subdomain will get added and the AutoSSL should provision. You can find this by simply searching in the top right of cPanel for 'ssl' then find the SSL/TLS Status and click on it. If you have a lot of domains, simply search for staging and you should see your subdomain added from step 3 listed here. All green? You are good to go!

USING SOFTACULOUS TO CREATE A STAGING SITE

Step 1:  Click on the WordPress Manager by Softaculous in cPanel.

Step 2: If you have multiple installations of WordPress they will be listed here. Find the installation you desire to create a staging site on and click the little down arrow on the right.

Step 3:  At the bottom of that page, click on 'Staging'.

Step 4: On the next screen use the drop down to select the staging.yourdomain you created from previous section. Discourage search engines by checking the box next to search engine visibility. Then click 'Create Staging' at the bottom!

Step 5: Your screen will show you the progress of your staging site. It's copying all the data from your WordPress installation to the staging environment.

Step 6: Once done, you'll be presented with the 'Congratulations' page. Click on 'Return to WordPress Management'.

Step 7: You'll see your new staging.yourdomain site listed. Click the little down arrow like you did in step 2. From here you can login to your staging site and do everything you'd like to do. Once ready to go live, navigate back to this screen and then click the button at the bottom to 'Push to Live'. That's all there is to it!

Again, if the instructions and steps above were not clear or you run into any problems! Feel free to contact us via Chat or Ticket and we can assist you!