The easiest and safest way would be to switch to a host that offers a staging environment with 1-click push to production. Every managed WordPress host (eg Kinsta, WPEngine, etc) and even some of the more reputable shared hosts (eg Siteground) offer this.
There are also third-party services (eg https://wpstagecoach.com/) and plugins (eg https://wp-staging.com/) that purport to do this, but I have no personal experience with any of these plugins or services. And these are probably not going to be as seamless as what’s built into a hosting infrastructure.
From “developer to developer”, if a client wants a feature but is not prepared to move to a host that offers the said feature and won’t pay for a 3rd-party solution, our relationship wouldn’t last long.
Good luck!
Umm… Using the 1-click to production could be a risky prospect for people not technically inclined. At least in the setups like this that I’ve encountered, there is no sync from production back to staging. If one makes changes to the production site while the staging remains as it was, then someone decides to do 1-click to production, they will overwrite the production changes, possibly losing content. Either they should be locked out of production so only changes to staging are possible, or they should rely upon export/import tools instead. However, I don’t think import tools will update changes to existing content, an export will be imported as a new post.
There’s not really a good way AFAIK to stage page changes to existing content. Overwriting the entire site is overkill. We can preview, but we cannot save the changes without impacting the existing content seen by the public. We can save a copy to draft, but later committing the changes to existing content can be rather tricky. I can imagine a plugin that would streamline doing so, but I’m not sure one exists.
Thanks to you two!!
I had feared that. I would not risk using a plugin and would not even recommend a WP Website as it is not meant to be used that way.
It is a small local NGO, not a big company having an e-shop requiring frequent and heavy commitings. I am a bit lost there especially because it had never been mentioned :/ They just wanted a WP Website…
Clients often decide they want something without understanding why, it’s just something they heard somewhere. It’s up to you to learn what their true needs are and recommend a practical solution.
Pro devs obviously use staging sites to allow previewing before going to production. It’s not something end users should need and it’s not how end users were meant to manage changes to WP. They’re meant to live edit content, relying upon page preview to verify it’s what they like before publishing. End users can make minor CSS changes to their site if they are knowledgeable enough, but significant theme changes where a staging environment is warranted is meant for devs who know what they are doing, not end users.
