How To Create And Use A Divi Staging Site Tutorial by Pee Aye Creative

How To Create And Use A Divi Staging Site

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create and use a Divi staging site and explain why they are so helpful and important.

Join subscribers on our YouTube channel and enjoy other Divi video tutorials!

Siteground Hosting Staging Site Example

Siteground is one of my personal recommended hosts for Divi. They have their own built-in staging tool that is really easy to use! If you are using Siteground and want to create a staging site, be sure to follow their own full guides on their site: How To Use SiteGround Staging Tool.

To set up the staging site with Siteground, you need to follow these steps:

Create A New Staging Website

Go to the Siteground and login into your account. From the Websites tab, locate the website and click on Site Tools. Once inside the Site Tools, click on WordPress in the menu on the left-hand side and then click on Staging.

staging sites in Siteground

Look for the option to “Create New Staging Copy” and type in some name for your site. Then click the orange “Create” button to create your staging website.

create new Divi staging copy in Siteground

The system will then process the request, and when it is completed you will see a confirmation stating the staging site has been created.

Divi staging site has been created in Siteground

You will also notice that the site appears as a staging copy in the list down below.

List of Divi staging sites in Siteground

Edit Your Staging Website

Now that you have made a copy of the site, you can go ahead and make the changes on the staging site. So this is when you can test your code, update the Divi theme, update plugins, etc.

You can access the WordPress staging site by clicking the login icon.

log into the Siteground staging site WordPress admin

Deploy The Changes To The Live Site

Once you are done making changes or updates to your staging copy, and you have checked your site and are happy with the result, you can proceed with deploying the changes and replace your live site with the staging copy. To do this, click the menu to reveal the available staging site options that Siteground provides.

staging site options in Siteground

Full Deploy – this option is used to completely merge the staging with the live site. All files and the database on the live site will be replaced with those of the staging copy.
Custom Deploy – this option will compare all changes you’ve made to the files and database of your staging copy with the current live site and gives you the options on what you want to update. This is meant to give you control on every part of the copy that will be deployed to live.

Cloudways Hosting Staging Site Example

Cloudways is also one of my personal recommended hosts for Divi. They have their own built-in staging tool that is really easy to use! If you are using Cloudways hosting and want to create a staging site, be sure to follow their own full guides on their site: How To Create A Cloudways Staging Environment.

To set up the staging site with Cloudways, follow these steps:

Create The Staging Application

Log into your Cloudways account and go to your server and applications. The key here is to click into an application first. Then, once you are viewing an application, go to the bottom right corner of your screen and hover over the orange grid menu icon. Some options will appear, including one called “Clone App/Create Staging.” Click on this option.

create Divi staging site in Cloudways application 1

A dialog box will appear like this.

create a Divi staging site in Cloudways

From the dropdown, you can choose your server. Then mark the checkbox next to “Create as Staging” and click the green “Continue” button.

The system will now create the staging copy, and once it is done processing it will be added to your list of applications that can be accessed by clicking the www menu. It will have a “Staging” tag next to the name.

list of Divi staging site applications in Cloudways

Edit Your Staging Website

Now that you have made a copy of the site, you can go ahead and make the changes on the staging site. So this is when you can test your code, update the Divi theme, update plugins, etc.

You can access the WordPress staging site by clicking the Access Details in the left menu. This works just like your live site access details.

Pull The Changes To The Live Site

Once you are done making changes or updates to your staging copy, and you have checked your site and are happy with the result, you can proceed with pulling the staging site to live, which will update your changes made on the staging site to the live site. To do this, click the menu to reveal the available staging site options that Siteground provides.

Be sure to read the labels carefully. Push and pull terminology can feel confusing, but just read the description and double check it each time.

Pull Divi staging site to live in Cloudways

This will bring up a dialog box with several options. Please see the detailed notes in the Cloudways documentation staging guide about this. This is very important!

Last updated Sep 12, 2022 @ 11:03 pm

Subscribe

Each month we send out a roundup email newsletter with the latest tutorials, product updates, helpful resources, and any other industry or personal news. Occasionally we send an extra separate email here and there if we just can’t wait! So that’s what you will get if you subscribe, and you can always unsubscribe at any time if you just can’t take it anymore 🙂

Blog Post Optin

Please share this post!

Nelson Lee Miller (aka The Divi Teacher)

Nelson is the owner of Pee-Aye Creative in the beautiful state of Pennsylvania. He loves helping small businesses, exploring outdoors, building websites with Divi, and teaching others.

Leave A Response!

By commenting you agree to our Blog & YouTube Comments Policy

6 Comments

  1. Mark

    If using the WP Staging plugin you can always go to the Tools menu in the site’s backend and Export the staging site when you’re finished with it and Import it into the Production/Live site.

    Reply
  2. Gareth Williams

    I have siteground, and had, prior to divi, made my divi site custom categories pages by making a category. php, and since the theme builder and the latest speed core related updates, I thought it high time I removed the category php file, and made the category pages with the theme builder.

    I did this on the staging site in about 5 minutes, and it was all easy enough.

    I did a full deploy, and none of the new theme builder templates I had just made deployed with the staged site to the live site.

    Luckily this was so quick to do that I just took five minutes on the live site and made the new category templates again and all the blog pages worked fine.

    Are theme builder templates not supposed to deploy form staging ?

    There is one other thing with Siteground which is quite confusing, which is the “Protect URL” which you are going to want to do for your staging site, and although it works fine, the siteground videos about how to do this I didn’t find helped me until I had worked out how to do it – this may just be me, but I think they could do much better documentation just on that bit.

    Reply
    • Hemant Gaba

      Hey Gareth,

      I understood the query but I have never witnessed that on my end while pushing staging to live or vice-versa as it is supposed to send all the templates. If you are facing such issues then I would suggest talking to the site ground people and seeing what they have to say about it.

      Reply
  3. Pranada Comtois

    Can I install Divi on a staging site. I’m using SiteGround. I want to use Divi’s Import/Export feature for Divi Library. I want to use Library items from one site for the site I’m building in staging. Is this clear?

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

0

Your Cart