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I know the term “staging site” might sound a bit techie, but trust me- this is a thing every small business owner needs to know about.
Think of a staging site like a rehearsal for a big performance: you get to test everything out behind the scenes before it’s showtime.
This way, any mistakes can be caught and fixed before your audience sees them.
It’s so important that I implement a staging site on every website before I’ll even start working on it. Why? Because it protects your public-facing website from glitches, bugs, and broken features that can pop up during updates.
I want to make sure you understand exactly what a staging site is, why it’s crucial for your website’s safety, and how it fits into your workflow, so you can confidently manage your website without fear of breaking something important.
What is a Staging Site?
Think of a staging site as a practice area for your website.
It’s more than a draft; It’s an exact copy of your live website (also called “production”), but it’s hidden from the public.
You can safely make changes, test updates, or try new designs here before showing them to the world.
How Does Content Move From Staging to Production?
Once you’ve tested and are happy with the changes on your staging site, you can “push” them live.
This means transferring everything from staging over to your real, public site.
When you do this, it overwrites whatever is currently on the live site, so make sure you’re 100% confident before hitting publish!
Two Paths to Publishing
You have two options for publishing updates:
- Publish from Staging: Test and perfect everything on your staging site first, then publish it all at once to the live site. This is the safest route because you know exactly what changes are being made.
- Publish Directly on Production: Sometimes, you might choose to skip staging and publish changes straight onto your live site. This is faster, but it comes with more risks- like if something breaks, everyone sees it. Also know, you may lose your work. Also, the next time you publish your staging site, it will stomp over the existing production site.
What’s the Difference Between Working in a Draft and Working in Staging?
When it comes to making changes to your website, there are two main ways to go about it: working in a draft or using a staging site. Both have their place, but they serve different purposes.
Working in a Draft
A draft is like an unpublished version of a single page or post on your staging or live (production) website. You can write, edit, and format your content in a draft, but it’s only visible to you (and anyone with admin access).
When you’re happy with it, you can hit ‘publish’ to make that page or post live. This is a quick way to make small changes or updates to specific pieces of content, like blog posts or individual pages.
Working In Staging
A staging site is a full copy of your website where you can experiment with larger changes.
Similar to your live site, your staging environment also allows you to create drafts and publish pages or posts.
However, the key difference is that no one outside your team will see these changes while you’re working on them in staging.
Once everything is tested and you’re satisfied, you can push all of the content from staging live, including pages in draft and any published updates.
Note: Content needs to be “published” on the staging site, before the staging site is pushed to production, if you want that content on your live, public-facing website.
Key Differences Between Staging And Production Sites
- Scope: Drafts are for editing individual posts or pages in staging or in production, while staging lets you experiment with everything on your site.
- Safety: Working in staging is safer because you can test big changes, like new themes, WordPress updates or plugin updates, without risking your live site. If something breaks, you can roll back your staging site or you can recreate your staging site from your production site.
- Publishing: Publishing a draft only affects one page, while staging updates your entire site all at once.
Understanding the "Stomp-Over" Effect
When you push content from staging to production, it completely replaces (or “stomps over”) the existing live content.
Think of it like redecorating a room; Once you paint the walls a new color, the old paint is gone for good. You can’t have both colors showing at the same time.
Why Not Just Work Directly on Your Live Site?
Some people may skip staging altogether and update their live site directly.
While this might save time, it can lead to costly mistakes- like accidentally breaking a feature or displaying unfinished content.
Staging helps avoid these risks.
Need Help Using Your Staging Site?
Not sure how to set up or manage your WordPress staging site?
Want guidance on how to safely test and launch changes without breaking your live site?
Book a WordPress Help Session, and I’ll walk you through everything from staging basics to launching your changes smoothly, so you can keep your website running perfectly without the stress.
