How to Easily Create a Staging Site for WordPress (Step by Step)

How to Create a Staging Environment for Your WordPress Site (2023 Guide)

Are you looking to safely test out changes to your WordPress site without affecting your live website? Creating a staging site allows you to do just that.

A staging site is an exact copy of your live website that exists in a separate environment. You can freely experiment with design changes, test new plugins and themes, and troubleshoot issues on the staging site. Once you‘re happy with the changes, you can then merge them to your live production site.

Having a staging environment is considered a best practice in web development. It‘s an invaluable tool to ensure updates to your site don‘t introduce new bugs or compatibility issues.

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about creating a staging environment for your WordPress site. Whether you‘re a beginner or a WordPress veteran, you‘ll learn multiple methods and step-by-step instructions to easily set up your own staging site.

Let‘s get started!

Why Use a Staging Site?

Imagine you want to redesign your WordPress site with a new theme. Normally, you would install and activate the theme directly on your live site. But what if the new theme has unexpected issues or incompatibilities? Your live site could break, disrupting the experience for your visitors.

That‘s where a staging site comes in. With a staging site, you can:

• Safely test any changes without risk to your live site
• Preview site redesigns and get stakeholder approval before going live
• Identify and fix bugs/issues ahead of time
• Speed up development by working on a copy of your production site
• Try out new plugins, themes, and custom code in a isolated environment
• Train new team members without giving them access to the live site

The main principle is that the staging site should be an identical clone of your live production site. But the staging site remains hidden from the public and search engines. Only you and your team will access and work on the staging site.

Once the changes on the staging site are tested and finalized, you can deploy them to the live site. How you merge the changes will depend on the staging solution you use.

Speaking of staging solutions, let‘s look at the different methods to create a staging site for WordPress.

3 Methods to Create a WordPress Staging Site

There are three main ways to create a staging environment:

1. Use your web hosting‘s 1-click staging feature (Easiest)
2. Use a WordPress staging plugin
3. Manually create a staging site

Each method has its own pros and cons. Some methods, like using a plugin, are easier but offer less flexibility and control.

On the other hand, manually creating a staging site gives you full control but requires more technical steps. It‘s also not the best for teams since syncing changes is harder.

For most WordPress users, we recommend using your web hosting‘s built-in staging feature if available. It‘s by far the simplest way and only takes a few clicks. Your host will handle all the technical complexities.

The good news is that many of the top WordPress hosting providers now offer 1-click staging sites. We‘ll show you how to set it up with Bluehost, SiteGround, and WP Engine.

If your hosting doesn‘t have a staging feature, don‘t worry. You can still use a plugin or do it manually. We‘ll walk you through all the steps below.

Creating a Staging Site on Bluehost

Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies and officially recommended by WordPress.org. All of their WordPress hosting plans come with an easy staging site feature.

To get started, log into your Bluehost hosting dashboard. Under the ‘My Sites‘ section, find the WordPress site you want to create a staging environment for. Click on the ‘Manage Site‘ button next to the site.

On the next screen, go to the ‘Staging‘ tab in the left sidebar.

You will see two options – ‘Production‘ and ‘Staging‘. The production is your live site that visitors see. Staging is where you‘ll create the clone site for development and testing.

To create the staging site, simply click on the ‘Create Staging Site‘ button.

Bluehost will start generating a copy of your live site. It may take a few minutes depending on the size of your site.

Once created, you can click the ‘Go to staging site‘ button. This will open the staging site in a new tab. You‘ll notice a banner indicating that you are working on the staging environment.

You can now safely work on the staging site to make any changes you want. To deploy the changes to your production live site:

1. Go back to the Bluehost dashboard and the staging tab
2. Expand the ‘Deploy files to production‘ section
3. Select whether you want to deploy all files and database or just some
4. Click ‘Deploy‘ to start moving staging to live

After each deployment, it‘s a good idea to rebuild your staging site to ensure you have the latest copy of the live site to work off of for future development.

Creating a Staging Site on SiteGround

SiteGround is another popular hosting provider that makes staging super simple. The built-in staging tool is included on their GrowBig and GoGeek managed WordPress hosting plans.

To create a staging site on SiteGround:

1. Log into your SiteGround hosting account
2. Go to ‘Websites‘ and click the site you want to create staging for
3. Click the ‘Site Tools‘ button to go to the site dashboard
4. Go to WordPress > Staging in the sidebar
5. Choose ‘Create New‘ next to ‘Staging Copies‘

Give your staging site a name and click ‘Continue‘. SiteGround will create a duplicate of your site in a few seconds.

To log into your staging site, click the ‘Manage‘ button and go to ‘Site URL‘ to open the front-end of the staging site or ‘WordPress Admin‘ to go to the WordPress dashboard.

SiteGround also makes it super easy to deploy changes from staging to live:

1. Go back to the WordPress Staging page in SiteGround
2. Click the three dots next to your staging site
3. Choose ‘Deploy‘ and select the deployment type:
   • ‘Deploy Staging Changes‘ for all changes
   • ‘Deploy Files Only‘ for theme, plugin or uploaded media changes
   • ‘Deploy Database Only‘ if you only modified content/settings
4. The live site will be put in maintenance mode during deployment
5. Click ‘Deploy‘ to start the merge

One extra useful feature is that SiteGround can automatically backup your live site before deployment in case anything goes wrong and you need to revert.

Creating a Staging Environment on WP Engine

WP Engine is the leading managed WordPress hosting platform for businesses and enterprises. All of their plans include one-click staging sites as well as other useful development tools.

Here‘s how to create a staging site on WP Engine:

1. Log into your WP Engine user portal and go to the ‘Sites‘ tab
2. Find the live site you want to duplicate and click the name
3. Go to the ‘Utilities‘ menu and select ‘Staging‘

On the staging page, you‘ll see your production environment and any other environments like staging or development.

Since we want to create a staging site, select the ‘Add environment‘ dropdown and choose ‘Staging‘.

Give your staging environment a name and click ‘Create environment‘. WP Engine will now copy your live site data and files to the new staging area.

Once finished, you can click the URL to access the staging site or go to the ‘Git push‘ tab to connect the staging environment to your Git repositories for streamlined staging deployments.

To merge your staging site changes to live on WP Engine:

1. Go to the WP Engine user portal and the staging page
2. Check the box next to your staging environment
3. Click ‘Deploy environment‘ and select your live production site
4. Choose whether you want to deploy all files and database tables, or pick specific ones to merge from staging to production

Keep in mind your live site will be placed in maintenance mode during deployment to prevent data loss. But don‘t worry, it will only be unavailable for a few seconds in most cases.

Using a WordPress Staging Plugin

If your WordPress hosting does not offer a staging environment, you can use a plugin instead. This is not our most recommended method, as plugins can run into compatibility issues, but it‘s a decent alternative if you can‘t use the other solutions.

The best WordPress staging plugin is WP Staging. It allows you to create a staging site in a subfolder of your live site. It‘s also a free open source plugin.

To get started, install and activate the free WP Staging plugin on your WordPress site. Upon activation, go to WP Staging > Sites/Start to begin.

Give your staging site a name and click ‘Start Cloning‘. The plugin will duplicate your WordPress database tables and files.

After completion, you can find the link to your staging site under WP Staging > Sites. To log in, simply add /wp-admin to the end of the staging site URL.

The staging site is hidden from search engines and visitors by default. To password protect it for extra security, go to the WP Staging > Settings and enable password protection.

Important: The WP Staging plugin creates the staging site in a subdirectory like example.com/my-staging-site. There is no way to create a staging site on a subdomain.

To push your staging site changes live, you‘ll need to manually migrate the changes or use a migration plugin like All-in-One WP Migration or UpdraftPlus.

Manually Creating a Staging Site

The last method is to manually create a staging environment. This is the most time-consuming and technical way. It‘s only recommended for experienced WordPress developers who need full control over the staging setup.

Here‘s a high-level overview of the manual staging site process:

1. Create a subdomain like staging.example.com
2. Duplicate your live WordPress files and database
3. Create a new database for the staging site and import the duplicate
4. Update the staging site‘s wp-config.php file to use the new subdomain and database info
5. Configure your WordPress settings, SSL, permalinks, etc
6. Password protect the staging site

As you can see, there are quite a few steps involved. The process also gets complex if you need to frequently sync your staging and production environments.

Furthermore, the staging site will use the same resources as your live site. This can potentially slow down your site‘s performance.

For these reasons, we don‘t recommend the manual approach unless you have the necessary technical expertise and server access.

Instead, it‘s much better to use your hosting provider‘s dedicated staging tool if available. With a single click, you can create a staging environment that is hosted on separate resources from your live site.

It‘s also much easier to deploy changes from staging to production. You don‘t have to worry about manually migrating files and databases.

Tips for Working With Staging Sites

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when using a staging site:

• Always backup your live site before deploying any changes from staging. This gives you a restore point if deployment introduces new issues.
• Test updates to your WordPress version, plugins, and themes on staging first. Verify there are no issues before updating your live site.
• Don‘t make changes to your live site‘s content, settings, orders, user data, etc. while working on staging. This can lead to overwritten data and inconsistencies.
• Add a ‘noindex‘ meta tag to your staging site‘s header. This tells search engines not to index the staging site.
• Restrict access to your staging site with htaccess password protection or by whitelisting IPs. You don‘t want to accidentally leak unfinished changes to visitors.

By following these guidelines, you can ensure a smooth development process and avoid any disruptions to your production website.

Revisions, Staging, and Deployments Made Easy

Staging sites are a crucial tool in a WordPress developer‘s toolbox. It gives you a safe space to build, test, and preview any changes to your WordPress site – all without touching your live environment.

As we covered in this post, the easiest way to create a WordPress staging site is to use your hosting provider‘s built-in staging environment tool. With a 1-click staging feature, you can instantly clone your live site and deploy merged changes back in seconds.

Quality WordPress hosts like Bluehost, SiteGround, and WP Engine all offer quick staging sites as part of their managed platform.

If your host doesn‘t have a staging feature, the next best option is to use a plugin like WP Staging. You can set up a staging instance in a subfolder of your site with just a few clicks.

For those who want the ultimate control and flexibility, you can also manually create a staging environment. But this requires performing the server setup and configurations yourself.

By incorporating staging sites into your WordPress workflow, you can deliver a better product to your visitors. You‘ll catch bugs and errors before they affect your audience. Development will be faster and less stressful.

The next time you‘re planning a major site change, design revamp, or feature addition, be sure to do it first on a staging site. It will make a world of difference for your WordPress site!