Staying Sane While Maintaining Hundreds of WordPress Sites

Lesson 1

Focus on your strengths, find people to fill in your weaknesses

Shared Dedicated Managed

Lesson 2

Solve problems before they become problems

• Run WordPress updates (Core, Theme and Plugins)
• Keep Daily Backups
• Don’t modify other people’s plugin or theme code directly

Lesson 3

Commit to regular updates

• Create a schedule to run your updates and stick to it
• Use tools like ManageWP

Lesson 4

Make sure your web server is managed

• Separate linux user accounts rather than common or root account per WordPress installation
• Keep server up to date and patched or have someone handle for you, Like a managed WordPress hosting provider

Lesson 5

Separate WordPress installations for separate customers

• Are all of the websites for the same client?
• Are all of the websites using the same theme or set of themes?

Lesson 6

Save time by building tools

"Don’t wait until you get overwhelmed to start looking into automation."

- Sean McCabe

Batch SSL Checker

Injecting a custom mu-plugin for FTP deployments

Lesson 7

Sometimes things break

Use a Staging site to Solve Problems