Keeping your WordPress website up to date is crucial for ensuring its performance, security, and functionality. However, updating a WordPress site isn’t as simple as pressing a button—there’s a right way to do it. As a specialist WordPress web design and development company in Leeds, Yorkshire, Leeds Web Designer has developed a fool-proof update process to keep our clients’ sites running smoothly.
Here’s our guide to correctly updating your WordPress website.
Step 1: Run a Backup of the Site
Before making any changes, it’s critical to run a full backup of your WordPress site. Backups ensure that you have a copy of your website as it is now, so if anything goes wrong during the update process, you can quickly restore it to its previous state.
We recommend using reliable plugins such as UpdraftPlus, BackupBuddy, or All-in-One WP Migration. These plugins allow for easy backups, and many of them can automate the process on a schedule, giving you peace of mind that your site is always safe.
Why this matters: Even small updates can sometimes cause issues with functionality, particularly if your plugins or theme aren’t fully compatible with the new version. A backup ensures that no matter what happens, your site will be back online in minutes, not hours or days.
Step 2: Update the Plugins
The next step is to update your plugins. While there’s a debate over whether to update plugins, themes, or WordPress core first, we believe that starting with the plugins is the most efficient approach.
Why update plugins first? Plugins are often the most vulnerable part of a WordPress site. Developers frequently release updates to patch security holes, improve functionality, and add new features. By updating your plugins first, you ensure that these issues are fixed before updating other aspects of your site.
Potential issues and remedies:
- Incompatibility: Occasionally, a plugin update may conflict with your theme or other plugins. If this happens, you can either roll back to the previous version using a plugin like WP Rollback or deactivate the problematic plugin until a fix is available.
- Loss of custom settings: Always check whether a plugin update will overwrite any custom settings or configurations. If possible, document your plugin settings before updating to ensure you can restore them if needed.
Step 3: Update the Theme
Once the plugins are up to date, it’s time to update your WordPress theme.
Why is this important? Themes control the visual elements of your site, but they also include critical code that affects functionality. Outdated themes can cause security vulnerabilities and may not support the latest WordPress features. Regular updates ensure that your theme remains compatible with both WordPress core and your plugins.
Potential issues and remedies:
- Customisations: If you’ve made any customisations to your theme files, these may be overwritten during an update. To avoid this, it’s best to use a child theme for customisations, so the parent theme can be updated without affecting your changes.
- Broken layout or design: If your site’s design changes after updating the theme, you may need to clear your cache or troubleshoot conflicts with plugins. Testing the update on a staging site before applying it to your live site is always a smart move.
Step 4: Update WordPress Core
After updating plugins and themes, it’s time to update the WordPress core. WordPress frequently releases updates to address security concerns, fix bugs, and introduce new features. Ensuring your site runs the latest version keeps it secure and running efficiently.
Why this is essential: Running an outdated version of WordPress puts your website at risk of malware, hacks, and other security issues. Additionally, older versions of WordPress may become incompatible with newer plugins and themes, leading to a loss of functionality.
Potential issues and remedies:
- Broken functionality: As with plugin and theme updates, there’s always the chance that something could break when you update WordPress. Testing in a staging environment before updating your live site is the best way to avoid this.
- Site not loading: If your site crashes after a core update, you may need to restore your backup or troubleshoot issues with your plugins, theme, or server configuration.
Step 5: Update PHP Version
Finally, you’ll want to check and update the PHP version running on your server. PHP is the server-side language that WordPress is built on, and newer versions are faster and more secure.
Why updating PHP matters: Using an outdated version of PHP can make your site slower and more vulnerable to attacks. Updating to the latest PHP version ensures better performance and security for your WordPress site.
Potential issues and remedies:
- Incompatibility with plugins or themes: Some older plugins and themes may not be compatible with newer PHP versions. You’ll want to ensure that all of your site’s components support the version of PHP you’re upgrading to.
- Server errors: If something goes wrong after updating PHP, check your server error logs for clues. Often, the issue is related to an outdated plugin or theme.
Before you go…
Updating a WordPress website is about more than just pressing “update” and hoping for the best. By following the proper sequence—starting with backups, then updating plugins, themes, WordPress core, and PHP – you can ensure your website remains secure, fast, and functional. At Leeds Web Designer, we follow this process meticulously for our clients to ensure a seamless experience.
If you’re unsure about updating your WordPress site yourself, get in touch with us – we’re here to help!
