The Reasons You Should Have a Staging Website for your Membership Program
One reason WordPress is such a good option for your website that is a member-only is the variety of themes and plugins this software provides and all the customization options available to users.
What's inside Toggle
- What a Staging Site is and Why You Need One
- Check with Your Web Host
- Find a Suitable WordPress Staging Site Plugin
- Final Thoughts
With WordPress it is possible to make improvements to your website with a new plugin, theme or even a customized web-based code.
And when it only takes a few clicks to completely transform the design of your website, include more features or change the layout of your website in a different way, why not experiment for a while?
But there's a problem. Despite the relative accessibility to create a variety of changes to the design of our WordPress websites, the changes could have unintended consequences that users may not like.
In this piece, we'll explain how you can work on your WordPress website without disrupting the experience for users - something especially important for websites with paying customers.
What a Staging Site is and Why You Need One
Like we said, if you test different themes, download new plugins, or just play around with the widgets and menus within WordPress, you could unwittingly put your site at risk.
Take a look at what a new member may think If the design of your website suddenly shifts, a function stops functioning, or the whole site goes down.
They'll at best think twice when they're asked to enter their personal information At worst you'll see them leave the website and never return.
And it's possible they'll continue to speak with others about their frustrations about your website.
The above scenarios can happen in the event that you decide to modify the fundamental elements of your site. This is why we recommend that you utilize a staging website or development environment to test any modifications you're planning to make to your website.
As a membership-site owner is even more essential not to alter the site that you are currently running and build a replica of your web page that only your staff and you can access.
Your staging area is a safe place where it is possible to accomplish what you'd like, without
- Frustrating existing members
- Attracting new visitors
- Data loss, which includes the transactions of customers.
Once you're sure that your modifications haven't created any problems, you'll be able to move them over to the current version of your website.
Sound good? Read on to find out how to make a staging website to host your WordPress membership website.
Make sure to check with your Web host
One of the benefits to choosing a hosting platform that now powers over 30% of sites is that there are a variety of WordPress-optimized web hosting services available.
One of the new features offered by the WordPress web hosting providers, which includes some low-cost basic plans, is the ability to build a quick staging site or testing environment based on your live web page.
The best staging-site services provided by web hosting providers let you easily set up a private test area push the test versions of your website to the live hosting system.
Because of this, you can take as long as you want and as detailed as you want when trying an updated site's configuration. Then, when you're ready, you can make those improvements available to visitors and members in just one or two mouse clicks.
Whatever the case, a staging website can help you stay clear of the inevitable issues which can arise when you use the live site for testing and developing.
Find a Suitable WordPress Staging Website Plugin
If you are looking to select a WordPress plugin to set up a staging version of your site there are two options:
- a plug-in designed for this purpose or
- A more universal-purpose plugin for website duplicate.
Let's glance at the advantages and disadvantages of each approach before listing some plugins that are suitable.
A specially-built stage-site plug-in could be the obvious choice, but there are fewer options as there are fewer plugins that can be used that you can choose from.
Plus, you usually don't have as much control over the process and end result as you do using more common-purpose plugins for copying sites.
A second alternative, a general-purpose site-duplication plugin, gives you more control over the entire procedure.
The most effective plugins in this category let you copy particular areas of your site for instance, the database or your content. You can also choose more options regarding where the staging site is located, including the local WordPress installation, or a separate subdomain.
Though many of the most effective WordPress web-duplication tools are available for free, they're often not as user-friendly as the tools for staging sites that are commercially available.
- WP Stagecoach - a commercial one-click staging-site-creation WordPress plugin with lots of useful features.
- WP Staging - a free work-in-progress WordPress site staging plugin and cloning.
- Duplicator - an effective however more complex WordPress duplication plugin for websites.
As you can see, when you're willing to pay for premium software, it's a lot more straightforward. Although some of the free alternatives may take some work, they're certainly an option for building an WordPress website for membership staging.
Final Thoughts
We hope that you have now understood the advantages of creating a staging environment for your WordPress site for membership.
It's possible to get away with the simplest of codes for a private blog, but when managing a membership website for a professional, you have a greater obligation to care for the members of your site, no matter if they pay for access or not.
How will you create the staging website for your membership website? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.