AP 0901: How Did You Update Your Website with No Transition Time?

AskPat 901 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 901 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

We have a great question coming in today from Jeanette but before we get to her question I want to thank today's sponsor which is DesignCrowd. If you're stuck on how to develop your logo or website or any other design related things, DesignCrowd is a website that helps you guys crowdsource custom graphics from over 500,000 designers worldwide. Whether you're a dentist or an accountant, DJ, photographer, whatever, you can get the perfect design every time or you get your money back. Check out DesignCrowd.com/askpat and learn more about crowdsourcing there and get $100 off your next design when you enter the promo code “AskPat”. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link.]

All right, now here's today's question from Jeanette.

Jeanette: Hey, Pat. I'm Jeanette and I'm from HorrorMade.com. Right now I'm trying to revitalize my website. It really has some things that need to be fixed. I'm curious, how did you go from your old website to this new revitalized version? I mean, it's just so sleek and I noticed no transition time whatsoever. Any advice for someone who's about to take on this task? Thanks, Pat, and thank you for all of the shows you do, I'm absolutely a huge fan. Okay, bye.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Jeanette, thank you so much for the question. Related to website design, the way that the transition was made was thanks to the developers that I had, which allowed us to do a sandbox version of the website first, which means we created basically a duplicate of the existing website, then we created the new website over that. We fixed things, we tweaked things that allowed us to test things in real time without having to worry about messing with the real site. The sandbox site is sort of like a duplicate site that you can work on and develop on. Then as soon as that's done and ready you kind of just flip the switch and then use whatever you've created on the sandbox site. You copy and paste all those files onto the new site and that way you know, because you've tested it on this duplicate site already in a sandbox forum, that it's going to work out. That's the way that the transition was made, although I will say that that's not always possible or not always easy, especially for those of us who are just starting out and you don't have a team of developers, or you don't know code and how to create your own Sandbox website or duplicate website. It can get a little bit clunky if you don't know what you're doing.

What I would actually recommend is if you are transitioning—it's real easy if you are adding a new theme and then starting to tweak things here and there. It's always best to kind of do that at night and at the lowest time of when you get traffic, just so that in case anything happens you can always go back. Speaking of going back, always make sure you save copies and files of what you had before you make a switch over to something new, even if it's switching to a new theme. I've switched to new themes sometimes which is fairly easy to do in WordPress and a couple things have happened. I noticed right away that it's not set up the way I want it to, so then I kind of revert it back and I go, “Whoa okay, let's not go down that road anymore.” Sometimes I've actually changed to new themes and all of a sudden things break. For whatever reason I can't even switch back to the old one, things aren't working, the site's down, and so then I typically get involved with a host at that time. I've learned enough now to just simply revert back to old files which means I get them from my backup and I put them into where it is live and then it's kind of like nothing ever happened. There's a lot of things involved with that. What I would recommend, Jeanette, is to . . . If you have access to a developer or team, to have them do the website, the new one, on a sandbox site. That way you can fine tune it the way you want and then switch it over and turn the light switch on for that new live site that you have, or make changes with having a backup available. And then at night, when there are not that many people on your website.

Also, just kind of one step at a time. You definitely want to devote a couple hours in case you need to change anything over. Typically when you switch to a new theme it's not always going to be an, “Oh, we're done,” as soon as you switch over. There's going to be some things that you're going to have to change around and some things you're going to have to work through. As long as you tell people up front that you are going to be switching over and there may be delays and things like that, I don't think there's anything to worry about. Typically, when people switch over to a new website there are transition periods. I just got very lucky to be working with a team that allowed it so that we could work on a sandbox site and not have to worry about that.

Jeanette, hope that helps and I want to wish you all the best with your newly-updated site. Again, thank you so much for your question. I want to send you an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show as well just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

By the way, if you haven't listened to Episode 900 yet, make sure you do that. This is episode 901. Go back and listen to Episode 900 because there is a secret code or secret clue at the end of that show which will add up with a number of other clues in many episodes between now and Episode 1000 which will then help you in a drawing for some prizes at Episode 1000. Look forward to that and make sure you subscribe if you aren't subscribed already. Again, listen to Episode 900 if you haven't yet. Anyway, thank you guys, I appreciate you.

Here is a quote today to finish off the show, like we always do, from William Wordsworth. That quote is: “That best portion of a good man's life, / His little nameless, unremembered acts / Of kindness and love.” Cheers. Thanks so much and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.