Keeping your WordPress site updated is crucial for maintaining security, functionality, and performance. However, managing updates involves more than just clicking the “Update” button. This guide covers essential steps to take before updating, the update process itself, the importance of offsite backups and potential fixes after updating.
1. Preparing for the Update
Before updating your WordPress site, it’s essential to take several preparatory steps to ensure a smooth and secure update process.
Backing Up Your Site
The first step in preparing for a WordPress update is to back up your site. This backup should be comprehensive, covering both your database and files. Their are various free and paid tools like UpdraftPlus that can facilitate this process. Regular backups protect against data loss and allow you to restore your site if something goes wrong. Equally important is storing these backups offsite. By saving your backups on services like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Amazon S3, you safeguard them from server issues or attacks that could affect your website.
Checking Compatibility
Next, verify the compatibility of your theme and plugins with the new WordPress version. This step is crucial to prevent conflicts that can break your site. Review the changelogs and compatibility information for your theme and plugins. Setting up a staging environment is also highly recommended, especially for more complex sites and eCommerce stores. Tools like WP Staging or a subdomain can help you create a clone of your site where you can safely test updates before applying them to your live site. We will often wait for a point release before running major updates. This allows the various developers to iron out the initial bugs that invariably come with a major release.
2. The Update Process
Once you’ve prepared, you can proceed with the actual update process, which involves updating the WordPress core as well as your themes and plugins. The WordPress team is pushing automatic updates. In theory this sounds great however we believe it is better to manage your own updates to prevent unwanted issues. Managing the updates yourself allows you to review the updates and ensure everything runs smoothly. The exception to this is setting WordPress core to auto update minor point releases. This ensures your site will be protected as soon as possible should there be a security release.
We recommend running updates in the following order: first your theme, second your plugins and finally WordPress itself. This allows the theme and plugin developers to catch up to any breaking changes within the WordPress core. The updates for WordPress, while fairly straight forward, are not always as simple as they seem. There are always exceptions to the rules and ultimately he decision on what to update when comes down to experience and is the main reason we offer WordPress maintenance as a paid service.
Updating Themes and Plugins
For theme and plugin updates, navigate to Dashboard > Updates, select the items to be updated, and click “Update.” Using the bulk actions feature, you can update multiple themes and plugins simultaneously, saving time and ensuring that all components are up-to-date.
Updating WordPress Core
To manually update WordPress, navigate to Dashboard > Updates and click “Update Now.” For those who prefer a hands-off approach, enabling automatic updates can keep your site secure without requiring manual intervention. As mentioned previously, we don’t recommend automatic updates except for WordPress point releases.
3. Post-Update Tasks
After updating, it’s essential to verify that everything is functioning correctly and to address any issues that may arise.
Testing Your Site
Begin by testing the frontend functionality of your site. Ensure that public-facing elements such as pages, posts, forms, and navigation menus are working correctly. Next, test the backend functionality to confirm that admin features, the dashboard, editor, and any custom post types or plugins are operating as expected.
Fixing Issues
Common issues after updates include broken themes or plugins, the White Screen of Death, and database connection errors. If a theme or plugin breaks, you may need to revert to the previous version or contact the developer for support. The White Screen of Death can often be resolved by enabling debugging in wp-config.php and checking error logs. For database connection errors, verify the database credentials in wp-config.php. If necessary, restore your site from the latest backup using your backup plugin.
4. Importance of Offsite Backups
The significance of offsite backups cannot be overstated. They play a crucial role in both security and disaster recovery.
Security: Offsite backups protect your data from hacks. Even if your site is compromised, your backups remain safe and secure. Regularly updating and testing your backup system ensures that your data is always protected.
Disaster Recovery: In the event of server failures, offsite backups guarantee that you can restore your site. Scheduled automatic backups stored offsite provide peace of mind and a reliable recovery option. Additionally, offsite backups protect against human error, safeguarding your data from accidental deletions or changes. Maintaining a consistent backup routine and educating team members on best practices further enhances this protection.
Conclusion
Managing WordPress updates involves thorough preparation, a systematic update process, and diligent post-update testing. Regularly backing up your site, especially offsite, is critical for security and recovery. By following these steps, you can ensure that your WordPress site remains secure, functional, and up-to-date.