14
2013
How Important Is It To Keep Your WordPress Site Updated?
An article by Buzz Internet Staff
WordPress is easily one of the most popular website platforms available today. Its popularity among amateur website builders and Toronto business marketing professionals alike is thanks largely to a reputation of ease of use and stability. One of the driving factors behind this stability is the regularity with which updates are made available; unfortunately, many users fail to install these updates when they become available which can lead to a myriad of problems.
That is why this post exists; we’re going to tell you the proper way to update your WordPress websites whether you’re a Toronto business marketing professional or just running a personal website as a hobby.
As with anything, the most important step that needs to be taken before performing an update is to make sure you have an updated backup of your site’s current configuration and content. This is important because updates don’t always go flawlessly and if you don’t have a backup, you could lose everything.
After you have your site backed up, the next step is to update the WordPress application itself whenever a new version is available. These updates aren’t released randomly; they are specifically designed to fix known bugs and security flaws in the present version.
Next to be updated is your WordPress theme. The theme is what gives your site its layout and overall look as it appears to your visitors. This should also be updated whenever possible as it is once again designed to repair bugs and security flaws in the current design. This is arguably the most frequently ignored step as users, particularly Toronto business marketing professionals, often choose to modify themes to make them more unique and personal in appearance.
The final piece of the puzzle are the plugins which you then add to your site in order to make it operate exactly how you want it to. While WordPress makes every effort to ensure 100% backward compatibility, nothing is ever guaranteed and occasionally an update will break a plugin. This will generally be resolved by updating the plugin.
