Designing WordPress Website and Uploading it to Domain/Host

For the most part I've worked with new domains and hosting only with fresh wordpress installs.

However, I'm going to be gaining customers that have existing static html websites and their own hosts. I'm going to be hosting their domain on my host and redesigning their site.

My question is:

how do I go about designing their WordPress website on my own computer, then uploading it to my host on their domain without them having downtime?

Is there a step by step guide on this?

Thanks!

 

Personally, I'd take the simple route: set up a basic (effectively blank) test-bed WP install and build on that. Set the "allow search engines to index this site" thing to "off", so your testbed doesn't appear in searches. Since you'll be building from scratch, it won't matter where you build the site theme: you build it, then set up the client's domain, install WP, copy the theme folder over and activate it.

The sandbox can go on your hosting space. Just put it in a /_testbed subdir or something. WP works fine like that, if you do your theme design properly with relative addresses for everything. You're better off doing it online, IMHO - it avoids all those nasty little unforeseen problems that occur because something, somewhere references your local drive instead of the online directory structure!

I do this all the time with theme changes and plugin development: build on a sandbox, then put it into live when it's tested and ready. WP is great for this because themes and plugins really do just plug in, overriding whatever you want and leaving the rest intact.

The real difficulty will be in porting their content from static HTML to WP - that's either a lot of copy/pasting or some very clever coding. Probably easiest to outsource to somewhere with very low living costs as "data entry" and pay pennies for someone to copy/paste, then just verify it.

 

Perfect! Thanks I think I'll look into going this route

 

To run and design wordpress on your own computer you need a local server. The easiest solution is probably something like XAMPP, this will install Apache and SQL with a few clicks so you don't have to do a complicated set up. http://www.apachefriends.org/index.html

When you have your local server you can build your wordpress sites local then upload the database and theme when you are ready for it to go live.

There are a few different ways to do this all, everyone has their preferred method. I usually export the local database then open it and change the local address to the internet address with "find and replace".

 

I personally have a XAMPP server set up on my local PC, and i develop WP sites locally, thus being faster than uploading, testing , etc. Then i export the database, create an archive of the website, upload, edit the wp_config file with the server's database details, import the database and it`s all set.

 

I personally prefer to work online. It's marginally slower (though not much with a decent connection) and it avoids all the possible hazards of having stuff set up differently on your local machine. Nothing is more annoying than having everything perfect, then having to go back to the drawing board because your host's settings screw something up.

Plus there's none of that fiddling around with settings files, imports and exports and all the blah.

It also shows how the site will respond online - remember all those 1990s landing pages with massive graphics on them that annoyed the hell out of everyone? All developed locally with no thought to actual connection speeds.

The main advantage of a local server is, of course, the ability to do a one-shot go-live, instantly replacing the existing site rather than having an offline (or partial online) period during the transfer.

 

If you are using windows then you can use WAMP or XXAMPP or if you are using MAC then use MAMP, I have written detailed docs on this I need to search and I will update this thread.

 

Look forward to seeing those @Imran Shariff

 

use XAMPP for local development.

No downtime? its simple. Design everything in your local machine. Once your done create the domain and database in your own hosting.
1. please make sure the connection is correct db and passwords etc. the one in wp-config.php.
2. upload all the files in the specified domain
3. open wp-options table. and look for 'localhost' change it to 'yourdomain.com'. There are 2 records that needs to be change. The one with http okay?
4. change the nameserver of the domain and point it to your nameservers
5. wait for 30+ minutes (sometimes less) until the new nameserver take effect
6. hit the site and hope that it works.

honestly you may make some mistakes at first but the first thing to check is the wp-config.php. check the db, username and password