I manage usadraftsman.com and I’m struggling with slow pages, constant plugin conflicts, and very limited template control. I’ve tried other approaches and I’m convinced Bricks Builder is the only tool that can give me the speed, stability, and flexible templates I need.
This should not change if you are keeping the existing page/url structure.
I have had none thus far.
Keep away from adding additional plugins. Take the time to learn how to add your own code to meet the needs of what you are needing. Plug and pray is never a good approach.
Keep it simple. People these days are so hung up on flashy cool stuff and make garbage sites. Stick to what you are selling and what meets the needs of your customer base, not what you or your developer “thinks” is a good idea.
This makes things a lot clearer. I’ll rebuild everything on a staging site first like you suggested.
A couple of quick follow-ups:
When you say “keep the existing page/url structure,” you mean literally keep all the same slugs, right? I’m planning to keep every URL identical so there’s no SEO hit.
For handling DB replacements and serialized data, what’s your go-to method? WP-CLI search-replace, a migration tool, or something else you trust?
With ACF, do you usually rely on ACF JSON (local sync) or export/import when moving to a new builder? Curious which one has been more reliable for you.
Any caching or image optimization plugins you personally stick with, and any you’ve seen cause conflicts with Bricks?
Thanks again for the solid advice. It really means a lot
Yes, keeping the same url. Sometimes I have seen where the client has a page title and url that are not the same, as they change the page title, but did not re-populate the url. In that case then change the url to match the page title. But if all is the way it should be with proper naming convention, then you are good to go.
I don’t handle each one by one. I use the WP Migrate DB Pro plugin (WP Migrate - Push/Pull Your WordPress Database & Files). This way it handles everything for you. It migrates your DB, theme, plugins, media, you name it with just a few clicks. If I need to make any changes, then I use WP CLI (which if you get the Standard r above has it included).
Again, I use the above plugin. But if I didn’t, then I would use the native ACF export function. I use MetaBox AIO and always use their naive import export and have never had issues with Post Types, Custom Fields, etc not being put where they belong.
This is personal preference. But because I use Bricks and MetaBox and I am not a fan of Gutenberg, I disable all Gutenberg related resources. Even if you don’t, the ASE Plugin (Admin and Site Enhancements (ASE) – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org) is amazing and a game changer for performance, security for customization – and it is free, which is crazy!