Site building crusade

by Sapphire (November 4, 2007)

I’ve got so much going on I haven’t even gotten around to posting about last month’s earnings. I’ll get to it, just not tonight. Right now, I’m too busy building about 20 new sites. Yes, that’s right - overwhelmed with projects, and my solution is to start more.

But there it is, and what I’m rapidly learning is that when you’re building a bunch of sites at the same time, it’s hard to remember everything I have to do. So I decided to create a checklist for starting a site, and figured I might as well do it here as privately, just in case it’s of any benefit to anyone else. This assumes you’ve already got your domain configured and hosted. Also, some steps are Wordpress specific since that’s what I do almost all the time, but I’ve colored the font on those steps blue.

Install Wordpress through Fantastico. Make sure it creates htaccess file; if not, do it manually.
Add www code to htaccess.
Create theme/template; test in every browser available and Netrenderer. Got friends with different operating systems and stuff? Ask them to check it, too.
Create robots.txt file. Specifically block admin type folders for your software (and maybe images, feeds, etc.).
Install plugins, check them, code them into the theme as needed.
If you’re setting up multiple similar sites, you may be able to create some folders full of plugins or templates on your hard drive, then upload them and overwrite the old ones via FTP. Keeping something like this on hand can help with updates, too.

It looks so simple when I type it out that way, but some of those steps are really several steps combined. In any case, it doesn’t matter how simple it is, if you do it over and over. Sooner or later, my brain packs a suitcase and heads for some place with nice beaches, and that’s when I need a list like this.

Category Posted in Staying on Track
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