Why do I need a staging site?
Your website is your face to the outside world. You must keep it up, running and accessible all the time. However, it’s equally important to keep the site fresh, updated and using the most recent tech. And every time you change your site design, add a plugin or even update an existing plugin, you run the risk of breaking your site. This is where staging sites enter the picture.
What is a staging site?
A staging site is essentially a copy, or clone, of your live site that is only available to you and your team. Any changes you make on the staging site, remain on the staging site without affecting your live site. Here you can make whatever changes you want and test them before making them public.
It’s the ideal place to check plugins and to undergo design changes over a long period of time, while your live site keeps running as normal. Once you’ve tested the staging site to make sure it looks and works exactly as you want, then you can push, or copy, the staging site to the live site.
Next steps
Users with a Business, Grow and Scale receive a staging site(s) for testing changes to their site. Check out our article, “How do I create a staging site?” to set up and start working with your stage site.
Note: If your subscription does not give you access to a Cloud staging, you can learn about working with staging sites from our blog post, How to Set Up a WordPress Staging Site.