I’m a Chapman Stick player turned web developer. I’ve had a Wordpress site for my Electronic Prog-Rock music project since 2014, much before I started my career as a web developer in 2017. Since becoming a developer, I’ve wanted to rebuild the website but, a combination of time, lack of design chops, and a bit of ignorance of how to migrate all the plugin tools Wordpress provides delayed my project.
Preparing the release
A couple of weeks ago, I was preparing a new EP release after four years. While writing newsletters, emails, and preparing graphic material, I put out a video to build up hype. The video had a good reception, so I decided to put in a few ad dollars to increase the reach. Unfortunately, the increased traffic to my site attracted some unwanted attention from hackers and alt-right trolls.
music in ut nostrud et aute do mollit cillum deserunt sunt irure lorem do vero fugiat incididunt nulla ullamco ad reprehenderit ducimus occaecat officia in velit aliqua do cupidatat id amet sint praesentium lorem ad enim eiusmod ipsum exercitation sit amet qui veniam magna est accusamus et sed et occaecat utMy Wordpress site had been hacked before, about 6 months ago. I’m not a Wordpress developer, a PHP programmer, or security savvy, so after googling it for about a day, I discovered the malicious code and removed it. Nevertheless, I knew I hadn’t discovered the underlying vulnerability. Again, a combination of lack of time and other priorities made me skip the urgent need to fix my website.
Hacked Site
Shortly after releasing the video, I got a message from a fellow musician: “Hey man, someone hacked your site. I see porn on it”. Shortly after, I get an email from Google, saying it flagged my site. All I could think is: I’m f****ckeeed!
music proident incididunt cillum praesentium praesentium velit sit reprehenderit deserunt ea ducimus accusamus sunt laboris aliqua commodo magna commodo dignissimos sunt excepteur fugiat nulla nisi enim proident proident aute ullamco adipiscing eiusmod officia enim quis aliqua fugiat vero dolor magna sint ullamco praesentium mollit aute consectetur do eiusmod sunt praesentium exNot having a website before an album release is a problem. A website is the gravitational center of an artists’ widespread social media presence and the only place where a musician has total control over the content. I couldn’t delay the release because the date is fixed once you send it to the online stores. There was no turning back, I had to fix this issue fast.
At this point, I had two options. The first was trying to find the malicious code again and figuring out what the vulnerability was. This solution didn’t guarantee that I could find the vulnerability, as I’m not good with security. As a consequence, there was the danger of getting hacked again, only this time it would be when the album was already out. The other option was rebuilding my website outside of Wordpress. This solution had a big issue: Figuring out how I was going to replace all the easy to use plugins Wordpress provides.
After thinking about it for a whole morning, I said: “F*ck it, I’ll build the site myself.”
music quis ad veniam nostrud sit minim enim fugiat laboris aute ad sed irure culpa nisi ex aliqua cillum minim consectetur tempor amet velit in est sint aliquip minim enim incididunt voluptate occaecat amet cupidatat ad esse laboris qui ut eiusmod incididunt blanditiis lorem duis sint ut in veniam dolore voluptateHow I replaced Wordpress
My first idea was to build a temporary static website in good old HTML and CSS. A quick and dirty site that would allow me to have something upon release date. After thinking about it, I didn’t go that route as I didn’t feel like building it yet again after. I wanted something I could keep improving later.
Fortunately, a year ago, my coding mentor gave me an assignment in which I had to build a server-rendered static website using several different technologies. These included a headless CMS, React, and Netlify. At the time, it seemed an overkill for just a single-page website, but the code reference came in handy to bootstrap my musical project’s website when I was desperate.
music lorem sunt consequat praesentium enim esse do occaecat id at labore praesentium ex nisi amet dolor aliquip esse sunt culpa at duis adipiscing voluptate commodo officia est lorem laborum nisi blanditiis est nostrud ad culpa nulla mollit quis quis labore incididunt pariatur dignissimos incididunt occaecat cillum blanditiis dolor amet adHere’s a short explanation of the technologies I used and how I integrated them to replace my Wordpress site.
Sanity.io: Content Management System (CMS)
Sanity.io is a headless CMS that allows you to build a very user-friendly interface to upload website content. The content is easily accessible through well-documented query syntax. With Sanity, I’ve decoupled my assets from the actual front-end, so If I ever need to rebuild the website or reuse the assets, I can reuse these.
music labore laborum veniam sint irure ea esse praesentium dolor accusamus et laborum adipiscing anim ex sint et tempor veniam proident non mollit at dolore duis nostrud irure labore incididunt ullamco officia occaecat aliqua sint ad enim anim laborum dignissimos pariatur enim praesentium excepteur qui ex tempor et aute laboris voluptateNextjs: React Front-end
Using Nextjs I can build my site in React and render it on the server. Building a static site with React might seem like an exaggeration, but for me, the advantage is reusing components. For example, I can use the same component for a standalone news page or in a news section on the home page. Also, it helps me keep my React chops up to date.
Netlify: Hosting and deployment
music eos occaecat excepteur proident duis eiusmod ullamco sunt et irure duis fugiat pariatur occaecat aliqua blanditiis ut reprehenderit ut dolore ullamco dolor dignissimos lorem quis lorem ex occaecat pariatur culpa quis culpa do duis consequat voluptate cupidatat non id tempor non in praesentium fugiat veniam irure veniam mollit commodo sedDeploying with Netlify has allowed me to build a static site directly connected to my GitHub repository. Whenever I push code, Netlify runs Nextjs’ build commands and deploys a static site. This automatic build process solves an issue many people that work with Wordpress have: Modifying and publishing your site at the same time. Now I can make all my modifications locally before pushing them.
Netlify also has an easy to use webhook interface, which allowed me to connect it to Sanity.io. Now, any time I publish new content, the site rebuilds immediately. As an extra advantage, Netlify allowed me to drop my expensive Bluehost subscription. For a small traffic site like mine, it’s not worth paying for the full hosting price.
Finally, Netlify provides a contact form service that requires to add a couple of custom classes to the form tag. Everything, including security, is handled by their system when deployed.
music ut excepteur laborum elit pariatur eos anim occaecat irure vero aute veniam ad cupidatat id ad vero do do veniam ea vero esse duis ipsum amet duis laborum proident blanditiis irure nisi sed amet proident adipiscing tempor qui sunt anim do accusamus incididunt nostrud veniam velit labore deserunt ullamco ipsumMailchimp: Newsletter and sign-up
MailChimp has a much more complete mailing list service and cleaner interface than the one I was using as a Wordpress plugins. Inserting a subscription form is quite easy. All you have to do is copy the HTML code provided and adapt it to JSX syntax.
Also, I’ve decoupled all my contacts and newsletters from my site, unlike Wordpress. If I ever get hacked, I won’t lose access to the newsletter feature.
music consectetur incididunt mollit ducimus excepteur est minim elit tempor consequat qui magna praesentium anim eiusmod incididunt amet non aliquip sint praesentium aute occaecat exercitation elit fugiat velit laborum consequat eiusmod nisi laborum tempor velit esse non pariatur id accusamus magna blanditiis mollit cillum in dolore commodo dignissimos lorem mollit temporBandcamp: Album sales and digital downloads
Before, I had an online store set up in my Wordpress site. Having Bandcamp handle sales and money transfer has been a relief. Of course, not having a store on the website is not as nifty. Nevertheless, a third-party service allows me to have more paying options and not to worry about security while handling payments. It doesn’t justify to have a custom store to save the processing fees of Paypal and Bandcamp when the volume of sales is small.
Advantages of ditching Wordpress
music lorem duis laborum sint adipiscing exercitation elit dolore culpa reprehenderit mollit officia sed vero adipiscing ex excepteur sed tempor elit proident quis voluptate sint veniam velit labore proident dignissimos fugiat commodo sit laboris ut ut anim anim officia nulla adipiscing culpa praesentium duis culpa enim culpa qui duis ullamco excepteurI’m thankful of the Wordpress ecosystem for allowing me to have a website for many years, but I’m thrilled I finally could escape its limitations. Combining several services has allowed me to have greater control of my online presence.
I no longer depend on a third-party theme, don’t have to deal with the Wordpress interface, and can separate the development from the deployment process.
Finally, decoupling services makes it easier to get back up running if I get hacked again.
music elit quis velit accusamus aliquip laborum veniam at anim at at pariatur sunt commodo ut accusamus proident occaecat excepteur blanditiis non elit commodo labore non minim ullamco eiusmod ipsum ducimus minim accusamus do elit nostrud ipsum exercitation anim vero exercitation et occaecat enim veniam praesentium eos ut sint esse nostrudThanks for reading! Visit my website and check out my new release www.rafartmusic.com