Steps to be followed while going website live on WordPress Sites

General

1. Is contact information, right? (Name, phone, address, email, map, social media link)?
2. Did you test all the contact forms– email should go to client’s preferred email, not yours?
3. Did you test all links? broken links throughout the website and make sure everything is right and working – Please use the online tool https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/broken-links.php? but you have to check each page with this tool, also you can use Screaming Frog SEO Spider Check all external links open in a new tab.https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
4. Did you test Cross-Browser compatibility in Chrome, Firefox, IE 11/edge, Mac Safari (native)  &  responsiveness in iPhone 5/6/6 plus, Android, iPad mini/pro, – All pages
5. Did you create the favicon for the company? Please use https://www.favicon-generator.org/
6. For a redesign work, did you keep all URLs, title, meta information, Google Analytics same as old site unless the client provides new info?
7. Did you change public display name in blog/pages to client’s company name or admin? for WP Go to Settings – > General Settings –  Site Title, Tagline, Membership, Check Site Language, Time zone
8. Have you done the backup of a final version of a website?
9. Old website URLs are 301 redirected to new URLs
10. Search and Replace URLs, currently, we are using Better Search Replace Plugin, don’t forget to update Guids
11. Check for Mail Exchange on cPanel and change to “Remote Mail exchange”, If using third party email service provider. eg. Outlook, Gmail etc.
12. Do not use Email address published on website as a  admin login email.  

WordPress

1. Are WordPress core, themes and plugins up to date?
2. Did you delete unnecessary/unused pages, plugins ? Please make sure DO NOT delete theme demo pages, just put into private mode.
3. Did you rename the theme name to project’s name?
4. Did you install ManageWP and configure to backup monthly?
5. If you have modified any plugin, did you disable update notification for that plugin?
6. Did you disable user registration if not required? Just tick off “Anyone can register” in General Settings.
7. Install & Setup Common Plugins: Comments Disable – AccessPress, Easy Updates Manager, Intuitive Custom Post Order, Post Duplicator, Cache Plugin,  Enable Media Replace, Yoast SEO
8. Install and activate Advanced CF7 DB plugin or Flamingo Plugin
9. Deactivate Theme Licence from Development Website and then Activate to Live Website
10. Make sure cache plugin(s) are activated
11. Check the website homepage on a social link for share. eg. facebook- https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/, For Twitter –  https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator
12. Add Broken Link Checker and select all post types used on “Looks for links on ” tab and set notification email to support@netplanetdigital.com.au
13. Go to Theme Options and Save again theme settings 
14. Change  Google V3 Captcha Keys on contact form 7

Woocommerce

Don’t forget to change email notification to customers, not us.  Goto WooCommerce > Setting > Emails. Change Recipients to the Customers email.

Security and Page Speed

1. Performance Tests – https://gtmetrix.com/
2. Did you install Wordfence security plugin and set up high security? Also set alert on critical issues to client’s email and company’s admin email.
3. Did you minify HTML, CSS, JS and Gzip Compression? – Install cache plugin. Lite Speed Cache, Autoptimize, WP Rocket recommended.
4. Did you optimise big images? TinyJPG  www.compressor.io/compress is recommended.
5. Did you disable Directory browsing for the public? in .htaccess write after END WordPress Options -Indexes
6. Check https Redirection sometimes you have a to insert code under to .htaccess to force htpps

Please insert this code into .htaccess after standard WordPress Code

# Custom
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set X-XSS-Protection “1; mode=block”
Header set X-Content-Type-Options nosniff
</IfModule>

Options -Indexes

# Block WordPress xmlrpc.php requests
<Files xmlrpc.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>

#Custom

Option #1- non www

Force http to https

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301,NE] 

Full example including the default WordPress code

Below is what your .htaccess file looks like with both the new HTTPS code and existing WordPress code.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301,NE] 

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
Options -Indexes

Force HTTP to HTTPS

Option #2 www

Force http to https

In this example, make sure to change ‘example.com‘ to your actual domain name.

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L,NE]

Full example including the default WordPress code

Below is what your .htaccess file looks like with both the new HTTPS code and existing WordPress code.

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L,NE]

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Options -Indexes

# Custom
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set X-XSS-Protection “1; mode=block”
Header set X-Content-Type-Options nosniff
</IfModule>

# Block WordPress xmlrpc.php requests
<Files xmlrpc.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>
#Custom

1. Did you disable XML-RPC by htaccess if you are not using it? learn why?

SEO

• Disable Microdata Rich Snippets from Porto theme option, If you were using Porto Theme.
• Can search engine INDEX the site? (If you have set “noindex, nofollow” during WP setup, remove it.)
• Did you configure SEO plugin? – Yoast is recommended
• Did you setup meta Title, Description for main pages? Get right info from the client or your account manager. If there was the old site online, search the site on Google as “site:abc.com” and copy existing title and meta info to go in the relevant pages.
• Did you setup Social markup in Yoast SEO?
• Test website with SEOptimer use logins Tools
• Did you create dynamic 404 not found page?
• Did you check W3C validation and fix major errors?
• Did you put Image Alt and Title tags? (don’t leave it empty at least for homepage)
• Did you include Sitemap? – XML and HTML both
• Did you create robot.txt? You can Create with Yoast
• Add Your Sitemap To Your Robots.txt File. Learn More.
• Did you redirect non-www to www version? Only for Non WordPress Websites
• Did you set up Google Analytics? (Please use the existing code if the website is redesign work. If it’s a new site create request new GA from Client manager.
• Did you ping (send to index) site to search engines once the site is live and approved by the client?
• Did you setup Page SEF URLs (permalinks)?

Woocommerce Testing Checklist

https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/wiki/Core-Testing-Checklist

This list outlines general items to test before a release of core. Release specific items are not included.

WP_DEBUG should be enabled at all times, and we generally test against Twenty Twelve theme since its clean and easy to spot issues.

Code

1. Run PHPUnit – check for errors, particularly from installer.
2. Run e2e tests on a clean install with dummy data.

Admin

1. Activation on a new install
2. Ensure wizard is triggered.
3. Run through all wizard steps.
4. Activation on an existing install.
5. Navigate through all admin screens, including all settings screens.
6. Save settings. Ensure there are no errors.
7. Enable/configure some shipping methods.
8. Enable cheque gateway for testing.
9. Create a new simple product.
10. Create a new variable product
11. Include a global attribute.
12. Include a new product attribute.
13. Frontend/Checkout

Whilst logged out:

1. View shop page and paginated pages. Check display. Add to cart.
2. View category archive. Check display.
3. View single product (simple). Add to cart.
4. View single product (variable). Add to cart.
5. View cart page.
6. Check items are displayed correctly.
7. Calculate shipping. Refresh. Do changes persist?
8. Increment/decrement item quantities and save.
9. Proceed to checkout.
10. Enter details and checkout with Cheque or BACS.
11. Make a mistake – are errors shown?
12. Place order.
13. Are the details correct after order placed?
14. Check order emails are received and working.
15. Repeat the above after logging in, then:
16. View account page. Is the order there?
17. Go to order admin. Is the order correct?
18. Mark order completed. Confirm emails are sent