Now that you have a new site you need to make sure it has a safe home environment. Your home should use or have:
- A suitable hosting environment with:
- FTP or similar connectivity
- File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is used to transfer files to your Web server. Some theme files can be edited directly through the WordPress interface but it is safer to download them from the server, edit them locally then upload them again. Your hosting service should provide you with FTP credentials. They can also be acquired by logging into your hosts control panel. FileZilla is a free FTP program you can use to transfer files.
- Backup Plugin
- Use a backup plugin such as BackWPup or UpdraftPlus that will backup your database, uploaded content and plugins to an external location such as DropBox. Set this up immediately.
- Security Plugin
- Use a security plugin such as Wordfence Security that will alert you to security problems and block malicious traffic.
- A Static Home page for your WordPress site.
- In WordPress the default setting is to show posts on the home page. If you are creating a site with a mix of static and blog content, it makes more sense to use a static page for your site’s home page, and a different page for the blog home page. Learn how to configure your site to use a static front page.
- Simple theme than can easily be modified – avoid bloatwaree
- When choosing your theme look for one that fits the overall organization and look that you need. You don’t need your theme to fulfill all of your needs. You can customize a child theme to implement design changes and add additional features. You can also use plugins to add functionality. Don’t expect your theme to do it all.
- A child theme ★ ★ ★
- A child theme allows your team to make modifications to your theme in a way that ensures they won’t be lost when your theme is upgraded. Rather than editing your main theme, they should create a child theme and make all of their edits to that.
- Classic Editor Plugin
- WordPress 5.0, released in December 2018, introduced a new block editor that replaced the classic editor in WordPress. This new editor is meant to make it easier to add different types of content to your pages. However it can sometimes be confusing. If you install the Classic Editor Plugin you can edit the settings to let users switch back and forth between the block and classic editor. Thus you can use whichever one you prefer. Along with this I would also install TinyMCE Advanced which adds useful features to both editors.
- Search Engine Optimization Plugin
- Yoast SEO offers useful tools to customize your page titles, descriptions and more.
- Google Analytics installed
- Google Analytics provides us with a very robust tool for monitoring our site traffic and plays a useful role in search engine optimization. You can add the analytics code manually to your header or with a plug-in. Those of you building in WordPress may like Google Analytics by MonsterInsights.. Learn more about setting up analytics.
- XML Sitemap Plugin
- The Google XML Sitemaps plugin allows you to create and modify sitemaps you can submit to Google and other search engines. Once your site has launched you can submit the sitemap to the Google Search Console. This will help to ensure that your site is indexed more quickly.
Note to Developers:
I have additional resource links for WP at https://www.heidicool.com/givecamp/resources/.
