Updating WordPress gives you access to the latest WordPress features, improved performance and better security. This week we look at why it’s a good idea to update your WordPress website and offer tips and suggestions for making updating WordPress even easier
Why update WordPress?
The good news is updating WordPress is really easy. It’s a simple way of protecting yourself from hackers. Getting access to the very latest WordPress features and improving website performance.
But I’m too busy. I’ll update later…
Whilst WordPress is easy to update, it’s still tempting to postpone updates for a later date.
Each time you ignore an update message, you’re possibly missing out on new features. You may also be increasing the possibility of some nasty individual taking advantage of an unpatched security loophole and compromising your beloved website.
It’s a sad fact hackers are constantly probing WordPress websites looking for vulnerabilities.
Updating WordPress is a quick way of patching security weak spots and keeping hackers out of your website.
Reasons to update WordPress
Updating WordPress is incredibly important for the health of your website. You’re also likely missing out on some funky new features.
Here are a few reasons why it’s important to update WordPress
- New features.
- Fix security holes.
- Improve performance.
- Greater choice of plugins and themes.
- Makes it easier to maintain and update your site.
- Better security.
Tips for updating WordPress
Over the years we’ve helped update thousands of WordPress websites. Here’s a few tips we’ve found useful when updating WordPress;
- Auto-update (by default) – More control you can tell WordPress to only do minor versions. Or you can disable this completely allowing you to manually update. This may be preferable if you want to time the updates.
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Take routine backups – This is a biggie. If an update isn’t what you expected and things aren’t working like they should you can quickly roll back to a previous version of your website.
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Test your updates first – This takes a little bit more effort, but is well worth it. Bring up a development version of your WordPress website locally or on a secondary domain, such as dev.mydomain.com, apply the updates to your dev server. If everything works push the updates to your live site. Of course. Still take a backup of your live site first!
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Do your research before update. Go and check the release notes. Check the changelog before updating. The WordPress developers and WordPress plugin developers will typically flag any issues which might require changes to your WordPress theme.
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Keep your own changelog. When we update client’s websites, we quickly note what versions we’ve changed from and when. This helps you keep track of when you’ve made changes to your site.
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Keep an eye on the WordPress community. There’s
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Set time aside in your calendar when you’ll login to your WordPress website and check for updates. This is particularly handy when updating plugins.
How do you go about updating your WordPress website? If you have useful tip for updating WordPress which you wish to share, please tweet us @ecenica.
In the meantime if you’d like help updating your WordPress website please get in touch.