Searching for the easiest way to build a new WordPress site while the old site is live? This guide, we will show you 2 methods to build a new wordpress site while the old one is live. Both methods, no coding required.
Coming soon mode per page basis
Many people, they made a big mistake. They thought coming soon mode plugin can be use to for entire website only. If we tell you we can enable the script per page basis, do you like to know more?
No coding required and can be done with just a few clicks work. You only need 2 plugins to do the trick.
Coming soon plugin you can search for free one. Does not really matter. The main reason we strongly recommend Indeed coming soon plugin is their layout look so great. Please kindly have a look at this video. You will be shock with what you will see.
After you activate Indeed coming soon plugin and complete all the steps to make your coming soon layout look good, you are just few clicks away from building a new wordpress site while the old site is live.
- Activate Asset CleanUp Pro, go to settings > plugin manager. Go to plugins with no active unload rules (loaded by default) section
- Tick “Unload it for URLs with request URI matching this RegEx(es)” and put #/slug/#
A few examples for you.
If you want to enable the coming soon mode on all pages including posts except your service page /aaa/ only, then use the below
#/aaa/#If you want to enable the coming soon mode on all child pages of the parent page /tips/ only, for example, /tips/how-to-make-your-website-load-faster/ and /tips/how-to-choose-hosting-package/, use the below
#/tips/(.*)/#If your website using WooCommerce and you want to enable the coming soon mode on all product pages only, use the below
#/product/(.*?)/#If you want to enable the coming soon mode on homepage only, then use
#(^/$)|(^/\?)#Homepage is a little bit tricky. This time you have to “Unload site-wide (everywhere) & add exceptions” and put #/slug/# into the make an exception and always load it if the url is matched by a RedEx
Overall, you can unload coming soon mode on your multiple chosen url slug while the other pages still visible to your audience. This is super useful, can save you a lot of time if compare to staging.
People usually use Asset CleanUp Pro to optimize their WordPress website for speed. This guide, we take one step further and show you how to use it enable coming soon mode per page basis. Cool? If you like our guide, please subscribe to our youtube channel or our mailing list. We will show you more secret there.
Wp staging
WP STAGING – Backup Duplicator & Migration is a great tool to clone your live website into a temporaly location.
This plugin will clone your entire live site to a random name folder ( the paid version you can name the folder ) and sync the staging version with your production version. All you have to do is click “CREATE NEW STAGING SITE”. When the process completed, you can login to the staging site with the same login access. The staging site will be automatically blocking crawler to avoid duplicate content issue on the live site.
In your live site wp staging dashboard, you will see 3 links ( delete, update, open ).
- Delete link – will delete the staging site
- Update link – this is an awesome sync function if your website use WooCommerce. You can push the latest orders to the staging site with a single click.
- Open link – will bring you to the staging site
Now you can start working with your tweak in staging site. How to push the staging site updates back to the live site?
Well, the free version do not allow you to create different database for the staging site. The plugin will create some extra tables to store the update you will make in the staging site. To push the update back to live site, you have to buy the pro version. This is how they make money.
Maybe you have this question in mind. The free version only allow cloning but do not allow pushing back the update to live site, why you still recommend this plugin?
The answer is the free version is a 100% free trial to let you test how it work before you pay a single penny. If you are happy with the functions of this plugin, no harm to pay a fee. The paid version have more functions too. The paid version work on multisites, can define user to access to the staging site and can even choose a specific folder to push back to the live site.
We will give you some bonus tips now. If you are in limited budget and still want to proceed with staging site, our previous video guide may help.
You can clone your live site to /staging/ with a few clicks work with duplicator plugin. The free version will do the job really well. Remember the block crawler access in the staging site to avoid duplicate content issue in seo.
Then after you updating your tweak in /staging/, you remove the live site and clone the staging site back to root folder. Remember to allow crawler access again, else you will be in big problem.
One more extra bonus tip for you. If you have some experience in cpanel, you don’t have to use duplicator to clone the staging site back to the live site. How to replace old website with new one? All you have to do is 4 steps:
- The live site wp-config.php, please change the database name and database user to the staging site database name and database user.
- Remove the live site wp-content folder. Move the wp-content folder to the live site.
- Login to phpMyAdmin, go to wp_options table, siteurl and home ( usually is option_id 1 and 2 ), change the url to your domain.
- After you login to admin dashboard, install find and replace plugin, replace yourdomain/staging with yourdomain
Conclusion:
Both methods above work well if you want to build a new WordPress site while the old one is live. Coming soon mode per page basis is a better option if you want to tweak in small scale and staging is the best option if you want to revamp the website.