Staging Site Questions

Web Design
#1

Client is looking to redo their site - mostly design.

I took a look at their backend, and I’m thinking to switch up the builder to Elementor Pro because it’s the most flexible template for blogs (it’s a blog heavy site). I probably would also change the theme to “hello elementor” since it’s much lighter than what they currently have.

The thing is - they’re looking to publish a page at a time.

I’ll obviously be building it using a staging site - the question is, is this at all possible?
Also, any idea of a good staging plugin? Specifically looking for one that will replace the current urls (not redirect).

Thanks all!

#2

Why not work on their current site. Start in maintenance mode and then publish as you go along

#3

It’s unlikely you could change the theme and still publish 1 page at a time. Once you change the theme, any older page will not look right.

Why do they want to do one at a time?

#4

They want to keep their current website up while the development is happening, that’s why maintenance mode won’t work.

They would prefer to do one at a time because they want to update asap.

#5

Once you push the staging site live, you can keep on working on the additional pages one by one, but the old stuff won’t be there anymore

#6

Thanks!

What about SEO?
They want the urls to stay the same - is this possible? Or will redirects be required.

Not any complicated pages…
site.com/about
site.com/services
site.com/blog
site.com/blog/blog-post

Don’t want any of them to generate a new url (or even worse, something like site.com/services-2)

Thanks!

#7

You can change the permalinks to match the old.
Maybe keep a copy of the sitemap/urls just in case, so you can look back.