Our Web Building Task List

29th August 2020

Perhaps the most boring blog post of all time, but here’s the tasks we do on a typical website build. Many of these are not seen by clients.  We are sharing for transparency.

Basic set up tasks

  1. Set up a domain name record (for the development site)
  2. Create space on the server
  3. Add security certificate
  4. Set up database
  5. Set the PHP version
  6. Install WordPress
  7. Set time zones
  8. Add coming soon page
  9. Create user accounts for all
  10. Send Account passwords securely
  11. Delete the standard plugins and theme (leaving the newest theme as fallback)
  12. Delete sample page and post
  13. Install premium themes and plugins and activate licence keys.
  14. Setup transactional email system to send emails from the server
  15. Configure SEO plugin (set no follow on templates)
  16. Configure WordPress security plugins (firewall, alerts scans disable-xml rpc etc.  )
  17. Make the site connect to our master maintenance site
  18. Set up site backup schedules
  19. Set up Project Management System and personalise on boarding.
  20. Customise image cropping
  21. Clear Stencil’s image library account and set a new password for the client’s use
  22. Configure automatic image automation to the sites requirements (ShortPixel)
  23. Reset Userback for client design feedback
  24. Set up blog (if needed)
  25. Customise blog comments setting to the site requirements
  26. Add blog spam protection
  27. Set up Forms (spam protection, email notification GDPR settings, limit submissions )
  28. Test forms
  29.  Set up Google Search console and add Analytics code
  30. Anonymize Google Analytic (as appropriate)
  31. Check WordPress permalinks
  32. Add social share
  33. Set up Newsletter subscriptions
  34. Change all post and pages made by us is set to the client’s account
  35. Optimise database (clear revisions, transient data and any orphan database tables)
  36. Check server resources used (High RAM resources or long Time to First Byte issues)

Basic design tasks

  1. Add Favicon
  2. Create Pages
  3. Create custom 404 (ie. page not found)
  4. Create a custom privacy page to GDPR standards.
  5. Create and thank you pages and connect to forms
  6. Set up WordPress menus
  7. Set site header and text fonts
  8. Save brand colours to the theme and page builder
  9. Set up header layouts
  10. Set up footer layout (with Copyright details)
  11. Set up Search layouts
  12. Set up blog ( any other dynamic achieve pages)
  13. Set up blog singular pages
  14. Basic Browser testing (Chrome Firefox and Microsoft’s Edge)
  15. Check console for errors
  16. Basic mobile and tablet responsiveness

Launch tasks

  1. Set DNS record for the new domain
  2. Turn off “coming soon” page
  3. Check robot txt (allow search engines to crawl)
  4. Set www and non www redirects
  5. Rewrite the database to the new domain
  6. The security certificates working on all pages and post (no mixed content)
  7. Configure and test caching
  8. Check forms again
  9.  Run speed test (Core Web Vitals)
  10. Take external back-up
  11. Remind clients of Google Business pages and the benefits of  encouraging reviews

Monitoring & health tasks

  1. Check uptime monitoring with domain expiry checks (Better Uptime)
  2. Set up visual monitoring (Hexowatch)
  3. Set up keyword ranking if appropriate (Accuranker)
  4. Check security Scans (Malcare and Virusdie)
  5. Set up automatic clearing of the database.
  6. Updating of software and php versions ongoing
  7. Checks on email delivery done monthly  (Mailgun)
  8.  Checks server resources done manually and automatically
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