Last Updated on January 6, 2021

WordPress Prep

Prelaunch Checklist

Please go through this list and make sure that everything is ready

    • First things first, make a complete backup of the site using Backup Buddy (Always make a backup before updating plugins/theme etc.)
    • If backupbuddy hasn’t been used on the site before when you get to the page you will see a setup wizard screen.  Please set it up with the following options:
      1. Email: you@example.com (I don’t want to receive error notifications)
      2. Password: sebo
      3. Send Backup Where?: Local Storage Only – Not Recommended
      4. Frequency: Starter should be fine unless they are very active on the site then go ahead and set it to Active Blogger
  • Google Tag Manager code is added to the site (in the correct location) – Use The7 Sebo Addendum plugin to add GTM ID for The7 Themes
  • Make sure all of the demo content on the site is deleted
    • Don’t forget to check in the different custom post types the theme creates
    • You should also disable post types you aren’t using (testimonials, photos, portfolio, etc.)
  • Update the Theme to the latest version
  • Update all plugins and WordPress to the latest version
  • After updating everything, quickly skim the site to make sure nothing is broken.
  • Make sure there aren’t any broken links on the site
  • Do redirects (redirect relative OLD urls to relative NEW urls)
  • Test all forms – Make sure they all go to a thank you page (make sure those thank you pages are used in Google Analytics), Make sure the form notifications are setup and going to the appropriate email address, Make sure Anti spam honey pot is enabled on each form.

DNS Prep

In addition to prepping the WordPress you should also prepare the DNS records to be updated.  Make sure you:

  1. Have access to the DNS records
  2. set the TTL for the DNS A record to be as low as possible – this will allow the site to launch faster

Create Hosting Account

Setup a Hosting Account
(If they don’t already have a suitable web host)

If the client will be hosting with Sebo Hosting then have them go to sebo.io and order the appropriate hosting package. If the client will be hosting directly with A2 then have them order with our affiliate link found in the footer of sebomarketing.com.  You may also order on behalf of the client if you have their billing information.  Make sure you create the account with their emails. If you create the account for the client please don’t forget to send the client the log in credentials and in the case of A2 Hosting, please add us as a developer on their account.  Use the same email address set for Sebo’s A2 account. *If the client already has a suitable hosting account that they will be using then skip this step*

cPanel Setup

cPanel Setup

If you are launching on the primary domain for the cPanel account then you can skip the first step.  Otherwise do all steps for add-on domains.

  1. In the search box in cPanel type in “addon” and then click on “Addon Domains”. Now enter the new domain name.  The subdomain will autopopulate as well as document root. Click “Add Domain”
  2. Return to main menu for cPanel and this time search for “sql” and launch “MySQL Database Wizard”.
    • Database Name – type in the domain url without “.com”
    • Create a DB User:
      • Database Username – make the username the same as the database name
      • Generate a long (24 characters sounds good) password. Either keep this password in your clipboard or paste it in a notepad for future use.  You don’t need to save the password.  Once we use it you don’t have to remember it.
  3. Now go to the WordPress admin

BackupBuddy

Let’s Back this Baby Up

  1. Return to the staging/dev site.
  2. Go to BackupBuddy and make a complete backup

Download Complete Backup and importbuddy.php

When it prompts you to set a password for importbuddy.php just use “sebo” to keep it easy.

You can also send the backup to the new server with FTP or sFTP but if you are working from Sebo our internet is fast enough that usually downloading and uploading won’t take very long.  If you want to send with FTP then you will need to create yourself an FTP user on the client’s hosting.

Update DNS Records

Update the DNS A record to point to the new server.  You can find the IP address of the server on the right hand side of the cPanel under “General Information”. You will also need to make sure that “www” is either a CNAME record pointing to “@” or if it is an “A record” then you will need to update the IP address for that record as well.

How you go about doing this will vary depending on the DNS registrar.

Upload Files to cPanel

Upload Backup to New Server

  1. Return to the cPanel account and go to “File Manager” and navigate to the root folder for the website.  The root folder for the primary domain will be “public_html”.  For add-on domains the folder will be their domain name.
  2. Open up the settings and show hidden files (you may need this later)
  3. Delete robots.txt file if one exists
  4. Upload both the backup file and importbuddy.php (if importbuddy.php has to be named exactly that.  If it is different then fix the name now)
  5. Now you will need to change your computer’s hosts file to finish the migration

Hosts File & ImportBuddy

Change Your Computer’s Host File

To minimize disruption for site visitors when updating a website, you should update the site behind the scenes.

  1. Use this short tutorial to learn how to modify the file for your computer
    https://support.rackspace.com/how-to/modify-your-hosts-file/
  2. The IP Address you are going to use is the one you saved to your notepad.
  3. Navigate to the live domain.  If you forgot to delete the index.html file, it will say “Hello, World” otherwise, you will probably see a “Forbidden” message.

Change Hosts file on Mac

Change Hosts file on Windows

Run Importbuddy.php

Now that you told your computer that when you go to the live domain.com it should serve up the information from the new WebFaction application you created, you can now run the importbuddy process.

  1. Open an incognito window and go to the http variant of the website adding /importbuddy.php to the end of the URL. The reason we go to http variant is because we don’t have a valid SSL certificate on this server yet so we need to run the migration without it for now.
    • Example: http://www.clientdomain.com/importbuddy.php
  2. Put in the password you created for the importbuddy script – “sebo” is what I use
  3. Follow the Restore Process
    1. Step 1: Click Restore Backup
    2. Step 2: Just wait a few moments for it to work its magic
    3. Step 3: Fill in the blanks
      • Database Server: localhost
      • Name, User, Password: the database info you created earlier
      • Database Prefix: type in 4-6 random letters followed by an underscore – Example: gxzto_
    4. Step 4: Just wait another moment
    5. Step 5: Make sure the “New URL” is what the site default previously was (either with www or without www) You can find this out by doing a site: search and see what results show up (with or without)
    6. Step 6: Make sure you select the button that says “No Change (default) Public- Do not discourage search engines from indexing this site” so that the site can be indexed by Google and then click the “Finish Cleanup” button to delete the migration files.
    7. If the import process completed without any errors now you can go change the actual DNS records.

AutoSSL

Make sure SSL Certificate Installs

cPanel will try to install the SSL certificate for the domain the moment the domain was added to the account but it won’t be able to configure/install until the DNS records are pointing to the server.  About 5 minutes after you updated the DNS records you should be able to go to “SSL/TLS Staus” within cPanel and run AutoSSL to get it to install an SSL certificate for the new domain.  Once you push the button it can run in the background and you can go to other sections of cPanel if you need to.

Make sure you don’t forget to make sure that the SSL certificate successfully generates since we already pointed DNS records to the new server and so once the records propagate the site will start displaying a security warning error.

Migration Cleanup

  • Open up your LastPass vault and search for the dev/staging WordPress Credentials.  Update the URL to be the livedomain instead of the staging domain and remove “Dev” from the name.  Save your changes.
  • Now log in to the live site WordPress (LastPass may take a minute to update and pop up the credentials for the site)
  • Go to Settings -> General and make sure that both “WordPress Address (URL)” and “Site Address (URL)” are the same as the site default (www or no www).  If not, update them to be the site default.
  • Return to your host file and remove the customization.

Update GTM, GA, SC

Make sure Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Search Console have all been updated to reflect the new site.

GTM

  • Integrate Google Analytics
  • Set up event goals if needed
  • Set up call tracking DNI if needed

Search Console

  • Clear crawl errors
  • Monitor crawl errors and fix each week for a couple weeks
  • Upload new sitemap
  • Make sure the URL matches the website default (www or not)

Google Analytics

  • Update goals and filters
  • Make sure the URL matches the website default (www or not)

Backups and Security

Schedule Backups

  • Configure Backup Buddy to schedule database only and full backups
  • Database should run twice weekly at the least
  • Full backups should run twice monthly at the least
  • Tell BackupBuddy to keep 1 full backups and 5 database backups (You can do more if the site isn’t hosted by Sebo)

If a site is edited daily or has ecommerce, you’ll need to increase the backup frequency to be more often.

Configure Security

  • Install/Activate All In One Security and Firewall plugin
    • Go through the settings and enable the ones that make sense to the client
    • Common settings
      • User Login submenu
        • Enable login lock down feature
        • Allow unlock request
      • User Registration submenu
        • Enable Captcha on registration page
        • Enable Honeypot
      • File Systems Security submenu
        • Click set recommended permissions on the files that need it
        • Disable ability to edit PHP files
        • Prevent access to WP default install files
      • Firewall submenu
        • Check all options on the first tab
        • Enable 6G firewall protection
        • Block fake Google bots
      • Spam Prevention submenu
        • Enable Captcha on comment forms
        • Block spam bots from posting comments
  • Add reCAPTCHA to all of the forms – while at it, you might as well add the reCAPTCHA key to All In One Security