How To Manage Multiple Websites On WordPress

5 months ago 107

ARTICLE AD BOX

WordPress is the most fashionable contented absorption strategy (CMS) successful the world.

Many sites worldwide usage it for bully reasons: It extensibility means that you tin physique much than conscionable a website; its open-source quality means you ain your site, and it tends to fertile beauteous good successful hunt engines. Your lone bounds erstwhile it comes to WordPress is your imagination.

However, similar a batch of different forms of websites, it does request immoderate attraction to negociate to marque definite it’s harmless and secure.

This tin beryllium a spot intimidating for a caller user, but with a spot of planning, you tin person a absorption strategy for your WordPress websites that works and is scalable for your business.

In this nonfiction I’ll stock the questions I inquire myself to negociate WordPress successful a scalable fashion.

Which Version Of WordPress Is Right For You?

The archetypal question to inquire is earlier your WordPress website is adjacent built and however your task is structured.

If you are moving aggregate instances of WordPress wherever each 1 is comparatively similar, WordPress multisite whitethorn beryllium suitable.

This is wherever you tally 1 lawsuit of WordPress but person aggregate websites moving disconnected 1 database, and 1 transcript of each plugin and theme. It means scheduled tasks, specified arsenic plugin updates and backups, lone request to tally connected 1 codebase.

WordPress multisite is large for larger sites that are each comparatively akin – truthful subdomains for each department, oregon antithetic languages oregon locales are cleanable for multisite.

If you have, for example, a tract and a blog subdomain, some moving connected WordPress, past I’d urge looking astatine this approach. You tin adjacent person a WooCommerce solution successful 1 of those subdomains.

If you’re an SEO bureau moving aggregate WordPress sites, I urge managing each lawsuit separately.

The bespoke quality of lawsuit enactment could mean that the magnitude of plugins and themes installed and disposable for each idiosyncratic volition beryllium massive.

There could beryllium lawsuit confidentiality issues. Every lawsuit could perchance spot each other’s themes and plugins.

Also, determination are imaginable information implications with 1 constituent of failure. If 1 tract is compromised, past each the different sites successful the web could beryllium astatine risk.

Furthermore, not each hosts enactment WordPress multisite, truthful you truly should talk to your host. It besides requires a spot much method cognition to implement.

Should you privation to analyse multisite, past WordPress has a usher connected how to instal WordPress multisite network. However, for the remainder of this guide, I presume you’re utilizing the vanilla mentation of WordPress.

Begin With Tools You May Not Know You Have (But Don’t Rely On Them)

WordPress and your big whitethorn person immoderate tools disposable to you that you tin usage to automate immoderate of the management.

Speak to your big and find retired if they connection backups, however often, and wherever they are stored (backups hosted connected the aforesaid server arsenic the WordPress sites are adjacent to useless!).

If they do, spell done the process of restoring the backup of a staging server and papers that process. Some hosts besides enactment their backups down a paywall, truthful you don’t privation to trust connected them.

WordPress has the quality to alteration auto-updates. Before enabling this, tally done a trial update of each plugins and themes connected a staging server and review.

If themes person been edited without the instauration of a kid theme, past taxable edits volition beryllium overwritten. Likewise, if changes were made to the plugins, past determination could beryllium errors.

If things haven’t been updated for a while, jumping from a precise aged mentation of the tract to the latest whitethorn fail. Running done these changes connected a staging server and investigating thoroughly earlier deploying to unrecorded volition minimize imaginable issues.

If some those tests are completed fine, they should beryllium harmless to auto-update. Even if determination is simply a occupation and the tract triggers a fatal error, the update volition usually rotation backmost to a moving mentation of the site.

Even with some enabled, delight don’t trust connected them. There are often gotchas, particularly with much analyzable solutions, that you whitethorn request to enactment around.

This is learned cognition you enactment into your program of action. Furthermore, hosts tin spell bust oregon alteration their offering, often astatine abbreviated notice, truthful it’s a bully thought to person a host-independent plan.

Prepare A Plan

Before managing aggregate WordPress sites, you request to person a plan. This is what you bash connected a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

For “daily” tasks, they should beryllium automated – these are your uptime and information monitoring, automatic backups, and updates.

Weekly tasks are much manual tasks – immoderate updates that were missed by the regular tasks, ocular checks, and investigating if functionality connected the tract works arsenic intended.

Every month, immoderate clip should beryllium dedicated to analyzing Google Search Console errors, investigating the loading clip of cardinal pages, and searching for breached links. You should besides dedicate immoderate clip each fewer months to reappraisal plugins and place ones that person been either abandoned oregon removed from the WordPress repository. Doing specified reviews tin assistance fend disconnected information issues arising successful the future.

For play and monthly tasks, prime a fig of pages to look at. These are cardinal pages – either precocious conversion oregon postulation pages oregon pages that person unsocial functionality.

If you person an ecommerce site, spot a trial bid too.

Finally, you should enactment a program successful spot for what happens if thing goes wrong. This is typically if the tract gets hacked, oregon if the tract goes down for a sizeable magnitude of time.

Do a dummy reconstruct of the site, to marque definite it works, and person a program for what occurs erstwhile a insignificant information breach (such arsenic a vulnerability) is discovered. A good built website with up-to-date plugins and themes, connected a bully host, is improbable to beryllium hacked, but nipping information vulnerabilities successful the bud tin assistance this. Below, I stock a fewer tools that person information monitoring linked to services similar Patchstack.

Store this program somewhere. I person a spreadsheet I usage to negociate my clients, containing the lawsuit sanction and contact, what bundle they are subscribed to, the cardinal pages, arsenic good arsenic immoderate gotchas associated with the client’s sites. After mounting this up, you’re acceptable to go.

Tools You Can Use To Manage Multiple Websites On WordPress

Thankfully, to prevention time, determination are a fig of tools to assistance you negociate aggregate WordPress sites.

These volition thin to let you to update aggregate sites from 1 dashboard, and grip things specified arsenic information and uptime monitoring.

They are mostly precise similar, and unless you person a peculiarly atrocious experience, you are improbable to determination them.

Here are immoderate of the main players:

ManageWP allows escaped updates and monthly backups for free. Payment services are usually “addons,” which commencement astatine $1-$2 per tract for each addon specified arsenic EU and U.S. server backups, uptime monitoring (which integrates with Slack), information and show monitoring, and nexus monitoring. A tract with each premium add-ons would outgo $9/month. If you person implicit 25 sites, you tin bundle services, with a maximum outgo of $150/month, for 100 sites. For afloat disclosure, I usage ManageWP.
MainWP besides allows escaped updates. It’s fashionable successful the manufacture but a spot much complex, arsenic it offers 30+ extensions that grip information and uptime monitoring, arsenic good arsenic integration with fashionable plugins similar WooCommerce, Yoast, and WP Rocket, truthful you tin analyse and update each your sites successful 1 place. You volition request to acceptable up backups separately, and it costs $199/yr for unlimited sites oregon $599 for a beingness license.
InfiniteWP has a escaped tier which allows you to update WordPress and plugins, and backup manually that you tin download. Its premium tier, however, allows scheduled backups to the cloud, malware scanning, uptime monitoring, breached nexus checkers, and 15+ different features. Pricing for premium is tiered, starting astatine $147/year for 10 sites, up to $647/yr for unlimited sites and users.
WPRemote allows you to update plugins and themes for free. It has premium tiers with backups, staging tract creation, uptime monitoring, and information and vulnerability scans. Premium tiers commencement astatine $299/year for 5 sites astatine the “Basic” level to $9,999/year for 100 sites astatine the “Pro” level.

A Simple Plan For Managing Multiple WordPress Websites

If you are portion of in-house development, oregon a selling squad managing aggregate akin WordPress websites, past a WordPress multisite installation whitethorn beryllium suitable for your needs.

For the immense bulk of agencies, aggregate WordPress installations with abstracted databases and perchance hosts is the mode forward. Running an full agencies clients websites done a WordPress multisite installation would go unwieldy quickly.

For some approaches, a fewer elemental steps tin beryllium taken to assistance negociate aggregate WordPress websites:

Prepare a task database for each WordPress sites to beryllium divided into daily, play and monthly tasks.
To begin, tally done each task with each client, to manually place imaginable gotchas, and see these successful your notes.
Come up with a catastrophe betterment program for worst lawsuit scenarios.
Offload arsenic galore tasks arsenic possible, specified arsenic information and uptime monitoring and backups to a 3rd party.

Doing this volition support your website secure, up to date, and with each performant optimisation successful the latest versions of WordPress connected your sites arsenic rapidly arsenic possible.

More Resources:

Featured Image: fizkes/Shutterstock