Re-designing site - a couple questions...

My client has a subpar website and I will be re-designing the site.

Do I do the re-design on a subdomain of his site?

Or can I design it on another domain and then transfer it over?

I've designed sites before but never designed a site and moved it over.

Sorry if the question is nooby. I'll probably answer it through research but I figured I'd ask to gain some insight in the meantime if I can't find any information.

There are 2 ways to do this.

1. Develop the site on your PC and once the design is complete, upload it to the server.

Cons: Your client won't be able to see the progress as the site is hosted on your desktop/local server.

2. Setup a sub-domain like staging.yourclientdomain.com or dev.yourclientdomain.com.

I believe it's a wordpress site. right?
Install All in One Migration plugin on yourclientdomain.com
Take a Backup and download it to your desktop
Install Wordpress at staging.yourclientdomain.com and All in One Migration plugin and "Restore" the file you just downloaded.
Once the design is finalized, repeat the process in reverse order.

Pros: Your client can follow the progress by visiting staging.yourclientdomain.com

You can redesign it anywhere, then transfer it when ready.

When you do transfer you just need to change the url in Wordpress settings, and change all references to the dev url in Wordpress.

I use velvet replace url plugin for that task.

Also keep in mind that if you use a ready made theme there might be some references still to your dev url, such as logo path in the theme settings etc. So you need to check those.

Hmm. Thanks.

I'm going to design it and then transfer it from a [test domain 1] to [test domain 2] just to see if I get the process right.

It seems like it won't be so hard to design and move if both domains are clean (fresh WP install).

But I worry because my clients domain isn't fresh - it has tons of plugins and stuff like that. Like I said, it's already a live site.


Do I do something like

1. backup clients site
2. nuke site -> fresh wp install
3. install re-design
4. fix any url discrepenies?