Technology changes at lightening speed–and in the world of self-hosted WordPress sites, you've probably come across this anytime there's an update to the WordPress
core. Plugins may go haywire, things look wonky, themes get jacked, or worse–the dreaded Internal Error or white screen of death. It doesn't have to be a Horror Show.
You can protect yourself and hedge your bets, anytime you update. And it's fairly painless. Backup with a plugin like Backup Buddy from iThemes.com. (P.S. – coupon code at the bottom of this article!)
Backup Buddy is my warm and cuddly security blanket.
I've written several articles about why I love Backup Buddy. This past week, I've been using backup buddy to it's fullest potential on client sites. One of the ecommerce plugins I had on a client site had a huge update, rewriting some of the base code it was using. I updated, and promptly broke some things. I fixed the issue, but I also had secure piece of mind that I could restore my client's site back to the previous version if needed.
Here are some best practices that I've learned (sometimes) the hard way:
Back up your website before you update a plugin, add a plugin or update WordPress core software.
Sometimes plugin providers revamp their entire code–and what worked before you updated makes things look totally wrong or conflicts suddenly with another plugin. Your host server may offer this option for you. With Backup Buddy, I can send my backup file off-server to a storage cloud service. This gives me piece of mind should anything wonky happen to my hosting server.
The WordPress Editor within WordPress can be deceptively dangerous.
If you plan on editing anything–Style.CSS files, functions.php or other template files–please for the love of coconuts–make a copy of the original file. Either in your FTP/file manager area on your server or just with a text editor. Copy the original file and paste into two separate text editor files. Save one file as ORIGINAL_whatever it is. Edit the second file. Upload the new file and overwrite the existing file. If gremlins eat your site or other things go wrong with the newly edited version–restore the original file. Do your best to stay out of WordPress Editor, and please do not edit live in that area–it is too easy to edit the wrong file or miss a closing end tag. Use a handy code editor built for making edits. I use Coda for Mac. It is brilliant. There are many free editors out there.
Creating and/or assigning multiple categories to a post.
WordPress runs part of its magic through categories. If you assign multiple categories to one post–things may go awry, especially for your auto-generated archive pages. As a best practice, please only one Category for each post. You may want to think about your categories as high level shelves for your content. Name them appropriately and do not get too granular. Save the nitty-gritty details for Tags. You may use as many Tags on a post as you want–go crazy. Tag like a OCD housewife. It's okay.
Waiting to Install Google Analytics.
Google Analytics helps you figure out where you stand right now, and forge a path to where you want to be. The sooner you deploy it, the more data you will have to work with. I've created a short walkthrough video on how to install Google Analytics on any website, HTML, WordPress or other. Google Analytics is a free tool that can give you a massive amount of useful data. I recommend gathering at least a month's worth (if not more) and then make changes to your site based on the data–how people are using your site.
And now a Halloween Treat for you: Backup Buddy and all iThemes.com products are on sale for 35% off with the coupon code SPOOKY35 until October 31st, 2013. That means Builder, Webdesign.com membership and/or the WordPress Web Designer's Toolkit are all 35% off normal price. Spooktacular! If you use my affiliate link to iThemes, I truly appreciate it–that's a little treat for me too!
Got any horror stories? Share them below!
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