Your site, be it a WordPress or any client managed site (CMS), needs regular updating to allow for proper maintenance and management, but what’s the big deal if you delay doing it and what are the impacts?

We’ve all seen that notice telling us there is a new version of WordPress available and we’ve all been guilty of ignoring it for a few days or weeks thinking “What’s the point? There’ll be another one soon.”

The updates or new versions of WordPress as well as its plugins and other components allow for so much more than you think.

The four major reasons a new version or update is released are:

1. To fix bugs in the programming that may or may not impede smooth running of the program
2. To add new functions, such a new text editor or new functionality to personalize your settings
3. To improve the security of your website
4. To improve the speed and performance of your website

What happens if I skipped/ignored the update?

The worst would be that your site would be hacked and your site would be down for a few days, just like when you do a backup and maintenance of your site. Hopefully, you wouldn’t want to go down that road!

If ever you are hacked, communicate with us right away and we’ll do our best to get you back and running as quickly as possible. We have many resources and qualified people just for this kind of problem.

Get in the habit, start a routine

Updates are important but just as important is to do a full backup of your site and database BEFORE each update. This may seem overkill but if a snag happens during the update, you have a backup at the last moment and can easily be back in business. Snags don’t happen often with updates, but it’s that one time you don’t backup that things might go wrong. Better to be safe than sorry. Tools such UpdraftPlus are available for just such backups.

Once the backup is done, you have two ways to update WordPress:

1. The easiest and simplest is to set your settings to automatic updates
2. A manual update

To set your updates to automatic, go to the updates section from your Dashboard and set the option to Automatic updates.

To do a manual update, you will need an FTP program and a good knowledge of IT.

Both methods are good and allow for the updates to be performed to your website.

To end this discussion, updates to your WordPress site generally are easily and quickly done, and usually go without a hitch. If something does go wonky or you would like us to walk you through it, contact us and we’ll be happy to give you a helping hand.