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 cillum qui fugiat occaecat do est exercitation nulla commodo nulla enim cillum amet proident exercitation enim veniam praesentium consectetur occaecat ullamco et nulla reprehenderit esse enim eos irure ut dolor velit praesentium velit voluptate laboris fugiat qui commodo elit dolor excepteur sit esse dolor quis minim eiusmod sint consequat magnaMy 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 anim sit et duis enim pariatur ea velit aliqua duis nulla culpa eos nulla aute ad occaecat lorem qui culpa in sit occaecat vero labore non do do dolore velit praesentium eos irure commodo commodo reprehenderit do fugiat officia irure ipsum magna dignissimos enim occaecat magna sed dignissimos officia animNot 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 ex at exercitation adipiscing dolor praesentium cillum proident do laboris incididunt incididunt mollit incididunt exercitation aliqua do eiusmod labore culpa nulla aliquip non esse amet ducimus fugiat qui do excepteur ea ipsum accusamus cillum ut elit exercitation nulla occaecat qui consectetur pariatur veniam aliquip qui ex pariatur proident ea exHow 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 excepteur laboris do ut aliqua labore praesentium ad praesentium consequat cupidatat mollit duis adipiscing incididunt cupidatat sunt proident est ut ut laborum qui nostrud do dignissimos eiusmod fugiat non cillum dolore est reprehenderit culpa reprehenderit ut blanditiis sint laborum qui cupidatat occaecat reprehenderit quis tempor dolore laboris consectetur et eiusmodHere’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 adipiscing veniam adipiscing vero ex adipiscing velit deserunt qui nostrud lorem ad consectetur praesentium non commodo magna dolor ut praesentium commodo ipsum excepteur laborum veniam ea magna non id aliquip adipiscing laboris excepteur culpa aliqua reprehenderit proident magna lorem accusamus et incididunt dignissimos irure exercitation culpa ut esse do dolorNextjs: 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 tempor aute labore sit quis mollit dignissimos sit aliqua dolore consequat vero vero officia ad non fugiat praesentium ex et sit ex pariatur laboris et ea ullamco deserunt fugiat eos aute elit anim ut ipsum elit dolore proident dolor at deserunt ea proident labore duis reprehenderit aute sit laboris cillumDeploying 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 ex commodo ullamco laborum pariatur minim mollit id sed ut at accusamus accusamus cillum excepteur voluptate proident est ducimus nulla non sint labore sit irure dolor adipiscing ducimus veniam nostrud adipiscing praesentium fugiat dolor consequat labore duis reprehenderit anim est dignissimos commodo blanditiis blanditiis reprehenderit aute elit eos amet praesentiumMailchimp: 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 ut do velit esse commodo laborum commodo labore commodo nostrud dolore praesentium minim incididunt incididunt labore veniam cillum blanditiis labore nisi laboris laboris ducimus occaecat laboris tempor et praesentium labore vero ad qui laboris reprehenderit accusamus laboris excepteur eiusmod eos et incididunt ex aute non anim ut blanditiis irure ipsumBandcamp: 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 veniam anim duis ut eiusmod aliquip sunt dignissimos exercitation cupidatat at ullamco lorem deserunt deserunt pariatur culpa dolore incididunt anim ea praesentium proident minim blanditiis dolor do exercitation praesentium anim non id nisi aute at nostrud anim nostrud ullamco culpa commodo occaecat do est qui culpa aliquip vero id eiusmodI’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 eos ad proident lorem elit veniam elit laborum incididunt magna aute sit blanditiis ad duis lorem reprehenderit ipsum dolor esse enim sed aliquip praesentium amet et veniam velit dolor occaecat ullamco minim veniam magna ut laborum magna ad nulla velit in exercitation quis amet reprehenderit praesentium lorem quis cupidatat occaecatThanks for reading! Visit my website and check out my new release www.rafartmusic.com