Redirects are a Beautiful Thing and other updates!

Step 2 in the documented website updating process I figured out how to set up redirects from this site to the other site and it looks pretty seamless. I installed a plug-in called “Redirection” and it was as simple as putting in the page links that I wanted things pointed to.

There is something that happens with wordpress websites that make it seem almost unbearable. I haven’t seen anyone talk about it, but I notice it and it’s what really makes website updating such a daunting chore. The actual changes aren’t bad, but when you have a lot of them to make at once, it’s a several step process.

Open the page or post you want to edit, wait for it to load. Make your changes and hit publish, wait for it to load. Hit refresh on the live page and wait for it to load. Check that your changes look right and you are happy with them. Click to open the next page, wait for it to load.

The wait times aren’t lengthy by themselves, but the fact that there is a wait time between every single step adds up to a lot of time “waiting”.

I started working on updating and syncing all of my products with Square today. I had to redo the entire SKU system and go into each of the 37 products one by one. Update the SKU so it matched with the number SKU in Square, wait for the page to update, check/adjust the price, wait for the page to update, update the quantity of stock (or it showed out of stock)and wait for the page to update. Then update the entire page, wait for it to refresh. Refresh the live page and make sure the changes look I how want, and then go back to dashboard and select the next product page and wait for it to load.

I started at 5pm. It’s now 8:30pm, and I still have 5 more products (the online courses) that need a bit more work than just updating the sales page info to do. One step of a project took a third of my day and at least about an hour and 20 minutes was waiting for the page to update/load. There were several times that I forgot to do something in one of the pages and would see it on the all products screen (a product showing out of stock, the wrong SKU #) and I would have to go back into that page and go through the whole process all over again.

That’s frustrating and I’m just done for the day now. I’m tired, my neck and shoulders are aching, and my eyes hurt. However, that part of the project is done now. Tomorrow I’ll look back and cheer because I don’t have that to do ahead of me.

Tomorrow, it’s update the courses pages and then go in and create affiliate links for each product. That will be more of the same as today because it’s a multi-step process with load time in between, again.

It’s a project that I could probably outsource, but in doing it myself, I’m seeing that while having the project done and avoiding some of the frustration myself, it wouldn’t be getting done any quicker and I would essentially be paying someone $15/hour (because I don’t believe in paying anyone less than that) for an hour and a half of just waiting for pages to load. I’ll sacrifice the pay to get the job done, but this is a very big reason that many projects take me a long time to complete. However, in having someone else do it, I’d be free to take care of other stuff that I also need to get done.

I don’t have the means right now to pay someone on anything but a commission basis or in cookies. In the case of doing website updates, there is nothing being sold, so commission isn’t really an option. Once this work is done, I have affiliates signed up and ready to start promoting the products in their spaces for a 10% commission per product. The product pages and information on them have to be accurate and synced though, so I have to get this done first.

My #1 tip for this post, don’t put off website updates. Don’t let it go until you have 30 pages and products that have to be updated and hope to get it caught up when you have the time later. You won’t have the time. You’ll just have to make it, and a lot will end up on hold until you get it done.

🙂