Checklist For Developing A WordPress Website

access_timepersonjunaidte14folderTech, Wordpress

WordPress is a very powerful and popular content management system to design and develop professional websites. In this blog post, we have provided a checklist for developing a WordPress website.

Setup

  • Prepare content
  • Buy hosting service (features to consider for good host:)
    • Support
    • Website scalability
    • Automatic backups
    • Website security
    • Restrictions and limitations
    • Make sure the host support recommended requirements for WordPress
  • Choose and buy a domain name (should be:)
    • Unique
    • Easy to remember
    • Easy to type and speak
    • Avoid numbers and hyphens
    • Try .com domain first
    • Should be as short as possible
    • Avoid copyrights
    • Use word combinations intelligently
    • Tools like https://www.namemesh.com/ can be helpful
  • Install WordPress

Build

  • Disable search engine accessibility
  • Create coming soon page (optional)
  • Choose a theme (free/paid)
    • Choose a theme which doesn’t add functionality (plugins are used for this)
    • Define the primary goal of your website
    • Choose a design which best fulfills the goal
    • Test a few options before finalizing the one
  • Choose plugins (free/paid)
    • Select plugins which do one task
    • One task per plugin – one plugin per task
  • Create pages and posts
  • Customize the appearance of the website using the customizer

Launch

  • Test
  • Enable search engine accessibility
  • Remove coming soon page (if added)
  • Launch the website

Develop A Child Theme

  • Recommended for the parent theme customization
  • Changes will remain intact when parent theme is updated to the latest version
  • Need to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP for developing child themes
  • Setup a local development environment
    • Good for testing new features and changes before deploying on the live published website
    • Tools
      • Local by Flywheel
      • Wamp Server
      • XAMPP Server
  • Migrating Live Website To Local
  • Theme unit testing
    • Download the provided XML content in the above link
    • Import the content in WordPress installation having a child theme
    • Test the website thoroughly
    • To test widgets, use the Monster Widget plugin (free)
  • Move the child theme to the live website

Building Custom WordPress Website For Client

  • Content Strategy (already available)
  • Information architecture (already available)
  • Design and assets (already available)
  • Setup
    • Define roles and responsibilities
    • Clearly define objectives and deliverables
    • Define costs, milestones, and deadlines
    • Pre-Project setup
      • Setup the website
      • Setup a local development environment
      • Create a version control repository e.g. Git
      • Build a staging environment
      • Multiple environments (local, dev, staging, live)
    • Using version control
      • Master branch
      • Development branch
      • Feature branch
  • Configuration and testing
  • Deployment

Advanced Tools and Workflows

  • React and Gutenberg
  • Build tools and task runners
    • Installers
    • Dependencies
    • JS libraries
    • Minifying source
    • Organizing and compiling code
    • Syntax verification
    • Task runners
      • Gulp
      • Grunt
  • Automated testing
    • Test code without pushing to the server
    • Prevent unknown bugs and issues
    • Unit testing (make sure the feature outputs correct results)
    • Integration tests (make sure the feature work with other parts of the project)
    • UI regression testing (simulate user interactions)
  • Static site generators
    • Convert CMS based dynamic sites to static sites
    • Tools
      • Jekyll
      • Gatsby
      • VuePress

References:

Leave a Comment