Relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme: Part 5

Having recently relaunched my website to use a new WordPress theme – the excellent Avada Theme – I thought I’d add a guide to doing this on my blog, to help out anyone else planning this.

Part 5 – Going Live

Backup / Export your existing content – pages, posts, db, WordPress files etc.
Announce that your website is down for maintenance and will be relaunched soon.
Could use Twitter, Newsletter, email, Facebook post etc.
Turn on Maintenance Mode.
Make the required changes to your site. If you’ve used a test system for developing the changes, it could just be a matter of copying and pasting page content from test system to your live site. Or you could be copying and pasting content from Word or similar software.
Test as you go along, using a couple of different browsers (can login to WP if use correct URL)
Address any issues found in this testing, where possible.
Keep track of any additional changes required or ideas for changes and new content which occur whilst making your changes.
At this point, if using an agile/iterative approach, you may need to review your planning for the different phases and cycles, depending on how well this first phase goes.

Part 6 – After Relaunch – has now been Published.

*** If you would like help relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme, please Contact Me, or check out my WordPress consultancy services.

*** There is now a downloadable version of this content.

Pat Walsh provided Kingston Valdes with a professional and personable service that was excellent value. The site was built and tested quickly, we are delighted with the results, and we have already had positive feedback from some of our clients. If you’re thinking of building a new site or adapting an existing one, I’d certainly recommend speaking with Pat about it.

Kathy Valdes, Kingston Valdes

Couldn’t recommend Pat highly enough. He goes beyond what you’d expect of a QA tester, commenting more broadly on user experience and even design. He’s quick, efficient and thorough – couldn’t ask for any more.

Rob Calvert, Director, Click

Pat is an excellent one-stop-shop for testing Apps and Websites. He is a self-starter who just knows what needs to be done and gets on with it, and is responsive to requests for any specific testing requirements. He provides test plans and reports as a matter of course and was a pleasure to work with. I will definitely be working with Pat again if the opportunity arises.

Andrew Birley, PM, Storythings

We’ve worked with Pat Walsh on a number of very different projects, from interactive video projects to mobile apps. His work is very thorough and has quickly become an essential and important phase of all the production work we do at Storythings. He’s thorough, diligent, and a pleasure to work with.

Matt Locke, Director, Storythings

Pat performs comprehensive website testing for us, across all the main browsers and platforms, including mobile devices. His flexible approach to testing and clear feedback enable us to have confidence that the business end of our website is still working smoothly after system updates and changes.

Steve Liu, Manager, Wicked Lasers

We hired Pat to help with QA of a music streaming app. We needed someone with that magic “6th sense” of where the bugs are lurking; the ones which developers tend to miss. Pat more than fulfilled this need, with highly methodical approach and a great eye for detail.

Subsequently Pat has provided QA services for a personal app project of mine, finding a significant issue which had been lurking for some time.

Pat is a real asset to any team – highly competent technically but also easy going and a great guy to work with. Highly recommended!

Andrew Ebling, Head of App Development, Composed

Pat came to Composed to respond to our (increasingly urgent) need of QA on mobile and web and I can testify he more than fulfilled the task. On the Android side, his very structured approach (first exploratory testing, then focus on defining test plans for a variety of scopes) and his clear knowledge of the latest mobile technologies have quickly paid off. He was involved directly with the developers (including myself) and this very dynamic relationship enabled us to annihilate bugs swiftly and efficiently.

David Ferrand, Android Developer, Composed

Pat has been absolutely incredible at testing each of our projects he works on. He’s very professional, organised and diligent. I look forward to using him again in the future.

Oliver Thurtle, Director of Technology, Drum

Pat Walsh fixed my site within hours of my contacting him – his WordPress website fix service clearly works!

Douglas Green, Douglas Software

Relaunching your WordPress website with a new theme: Part 5