It’s been weeks, if not months, in the making – and your beautiful, brand new WordPress website design is now ready to be shown off to the world.
But the hard work isn’t quite over yet. There are still a few things to consider after launch. Here, I’ve put together a quick checklist of the things you’ll need to have in place after your site has gone live – and why it could be easier to ask a third-party company, such as Design FX Studio, to take care of these essentials on your behalf.
A suitable hosting package
First thing’s first, you’ll need to find a company to host your website for you, otherwise, it won’t be visible on the web.
Hosting packages come in various guises, and costs will vary from provider to provider. Most charge on a monthly or yearly basis. You’ll need to pick a service that’s not only affordable, but that also offers everything you need to power your website with minimum downtime. If you’re not sure what to look for in your hosting package, check out this handy post from WhoIsHostingThis.com – or, better still, ask your developer for their recommendations. After all, they built the platform, so they will have a good understanding of what you need.
The right domain name
Your domain name – ie, your website address – needs to be memorable, easy to spell, and a good reflection of your site’s content. Most businesses will use the company name as their URL. You can check your preferred domain name’s availability and purchase it in a matter of minutes using domain registration services such as GoDaddy.com, FastHosts.co.uk or 123-reg.co.uk. Or, you could ask your designer or developer to do this for you.
Regular security updates
Because it’s an open-source platform, WordPress is slightly more vulnerable to security attacks than other platforms. But you can dramatically reduce the risk of succumbing to cybercrime by making sure that all of your plugins – and, indeed, the version of WordPress you’re using – are up to date.
It’s easy to forget to update WordPress on a regular basis, which is why it’s often safer to leave this task in the capable hands of your development team.
Ongoing maintenance
Most of the time, your WordPress website will be running smoothly. But despite all of your best efforts to prevent them, unexpected errors can occur.
If there’s a problem with your site that’s preventing you from reaching your customers, or the whole thing goes down entirely, who will help you get it up and running again? You need to make sure you have access to a developer who can be on hand to fix any unexpected issues before they begin to impact on your business.
Sound knowledge of how WordPress works
One of the biggest draws of WordPress is that the platform makes it easy for you to update your site’s content yourself. You can add, edit or remove pages with ease, and photos and videos can be uploaded with minimum fuss, too. But if you’re not familiar with the back end of the CMS, you’ll need to learn how it all works.
There are plenty of tutorials and resources available on the web for would-be WordPress gurus, but sometimes training can be more impactful if you have the opportunity to sit down with an experienced designer for an hour or two and get to know the software’s main features. And in some cases – particularly if you’re really strapped for time – it might make more sense just to ask your developer to make basic changes for you, instead.
Of course, you could decide to handle all of the above yourself. But if you have limited technical knowledge, or just don’t have the time to spend researching what needs to be done and when, it may make more sense to ask your developer to make these arrangements for you.