wordpress and clients

Hi ho folks!

Great discussion :) To throw my own few thoughts in..

Here is my general 10 step WordPress workflow with clients:

1. Sign contract
2. Get half up front (I use Freshbooks for this)
3. Get them to fill out a content collection form like this
4. Send a few possible design choices - I don't call these templates or explain to clients what templates are. They know up front they can choose from a few designs and we will customize it for their content and brand.
5. Setup a private WordPress on theirname.mydevelopmentsite.com and install the selected theme
6. Collect all their content and assets like logos and add it to the site
7. Give the client a few revision rounds (no more than 3) to make tweaks to the extent the theme, a little css, and some photoshoping allows
8. Get from the client in writing (email or Basecamp is fine) that they sign off on the project being ready for launch
9. Get second half of payment
10. Launch the new site in the middle of the night on one of my servers (see below) and send the client instructions on how to update the content if they will be doing so.

As to a hosting account, yes I think a basic hosting account will do for hosting your own sites and client sites during development :)

What I like to do is get my clients to pay me for hosting and host their sites for them. This gives me some extra money to get a bigger server and I end up getting out to host my sites for free thanks to my clients ;)

Hi Messisbugo,

I'll try to help out if I understand correctly.

Regarding WordPress, I've implemented this in a few projects, and usually I have three logins on a standard build. The first is the "SuperAdmin" which is what is created when you first install the WordPress. I usually have an insanely difficult password strength on this user and keep the information locked up with encryption. The second login I have is for my company that has Admin access. This is usually what I will use to make any modifications on the site, ie. installing plugins or themes, etc. The third login will be the clients Admin login, so they can go in and make modifications that they want depending on their level of "techie".

Regarding your client "follow live", if you're developing locally, that really isn't an option without some work. What I've normally done so that it is easier to show my client what is being done is to have a subdomain where I manage all my version control and what not. This could be something as simple as "dev.yourdomain.com". It also makes setting a product to production real easy because the database is already loaded and all you have to do is change the database pointers when it's "go live" time.

If you don't want to use a development subdomain, I've seen some tricks with Dropbox or maybe Google Drive that allows you to "host" a website, but I don't think it will work with WordPress since it is dependent on a backend DBS.

It looks like you did everything in the right sequence though, so good job. I hope they do pay on time, that's always a pain! :D

Cheers,

Elijah

Hi Elijah. So, the only way is to purchase an hosting plan for my personal website, and add a subdomain where I can upload all my client's works. In this way I will have a database for every clients and when a site is done I do what you said about "live time". Right?

Since I am not really expert yet, do you think that a basic hosting is enough? Do you have any suggestion? I'm thinking to use a framework like genesis or headway, I have to be careful about certain features choosing the hosting?

Thank you very much

I wouldn't say that's the ONLY way. You could technically host the server yourself if you know how to do all of that. I will use my in house servers for more sensitive projects that involve ecommerce, but that's about it. Yes though, adding subdomains to your own domain is also an effective way to have "live" updates for your clients. Yeah, the only difference is when using your own domain for the subdomain you'll have to backup the DB and import it on your client's hosting account. That's at least what I would recommend and another method that I've used in the past.

Basic hosting is usually enough, depending on your client, this could change, but I've never had anyone need anything more than basic. (My largest client was a "medium" sized company) I'm unfamiliar with genesis or headway, maybe someone else can chime in about that? Bluehost has always been good from what I've seen. Just make sure that whatever host you pick has the PHP and MySQL functionality (most do).

Ok thank you