How to Train a WordPress Website for Your Business
WordPress is one of the most popular platforms when it comes to building a website. It’s extremely user-friendly and can be used by anyone who has even a basic understanding of website creation.
The problem is that because it’s so user-friendly, anyone can create a WordPress website, and if you don’t take the time to properly train your staff, you’re setting yourself up for potential disaster when it comes to the functionality of your website.
Even worse, a ton of plugins and themes can make your WordPress website look and function exactly like you want it to look and function. This means that if you don’t thoroughly test your website before you go live, you could end up with something that looks amazing but doesn’t work properly.
To avoid this, you need to take the time to train your staff. This means taking a step back and making sure that everyone who has access to the WordPress backend knows exactly how to properly use it. In this article, we’ll discuss how you can train your WordPress website staff so that when disaster strikes, you can confidently recover.
Create A Roster Of Tasks
Before you begin training, you need to create a roster of tasks that will be necessary for your website to function properly. The tasks will include everything from uploading a logo to setting up a basic web structure. While you don’t need to include every task on the roster, you should have a pretty solid idea of what needs to be done before you begin training.
It’s also a good idea to create an excel file with all the necessary information regarding your website’s structure so that you can easily access it whenever you need it. Keep in mind that as your website’s engineer, I’ll be accessing this file whenever there’s something needing to be fixed on your site. So make sure that the information is easily accessible.
Set Up A Regular Testing Regimen
Once you’ve created the tasks for your website’s backend, it’s time to set up a testing regimen. This means that you will need to test your site frequently to make sure that everything is working properly. Ideally, you should have one test that you run on a regular basis so that you can catch any issues before your customers do. When you encounter an issue, you will need to fix it as soon as possible before any further damage can occur.
Some of the issues you could run into include URLs that are incorrect or difficult to access, images that don’t load, text that’s displayed improperly, or contact forms that don’t work. There are a ton of issues that you could run into, and it’s crucial that you find the root of the problem because the last thing you want is to troubleshoot unknown problems caused by random plugins or themes used on your site. When you identify the source of the issue, it will be much easier to fix it.
Create A WordPress Rescue Plan
Once you’ve tested your site regularly and found it to be working properly, it’s time to create a plan for when disaster strikes. This is where things can get tricky because while you want to ensure that your site will be accessible in case something goes wrong, you don’t want to make things overly complex. To avoid this, you will need to create a plan that includes the basic steps you need to take to get everything back up and running again. This could include anything from backing up the site to updating the database or changing some settings.
If you’ve taken the time to set up a testing regimen and identified the source of the problems, it will be much easier to develop a plan for recovering from these issues. When you encounter an issue that you don’t know how to fix, it can be frustrating because there’s no roadmap for getting things back up and running again. Having a plan for fixing these issues will greatly simplify the process of getting your site back online again.
Create A Backup Plan
After you’ve set up a plan for recovering from issues, it’s time to create a backup plan. This means that you will need to make sure that you’ve backed up your site regularly. If you’ve ever had a hard drive crash or corrupted data because of a virus, you know how crucial it is to have a back up. With a little bit of planning and discipline, you can ensure that your backups are always complete and that you don’t run the risk of losing any data.
When you create a backup plan, it’s crucial that you create a schedule for performing the backups. You should do this on a weekly basis or every other week so that you have a fresh backup when needed. It’s also important to make sure that you test the backups regularly to ensure that everything is working properly. If you follow these guidelines, you will be able to rely on your backup plan without fear of losing any data.
Create More Than One Back Up
One of the things that can cause you extra headaches when doing your backups is losing data because of a corrupted backup. To avoid this, you will need to take a few extra steps. When you create your backup, it’s important that you test it occasionally to make sure that you didn’t accidentally delete any data while trying to back up your site. If you tested it properly and found that all your data was backed up successfully, it’s a good idea to create another backup and this time, test it every hour or every other hour to ensure that all the data was backed up correctly. Even if you think you’ve tested your backup successfully, it’s still a good idea to test it once a day to make sure that nothing was missed while backing up the site.
If you’re doing your backups correctly, you shouldn’t have any problems. However, if you do have problems, you can be sure that you’re taking the right steps to fix them. Make sure that you follow all the steps outlined above and your WordPress website will be ready to go live in no time.