How to update WordPress: some tips to avoid problems

by Marsh Maxwell Web Digital Group

WordPress Update Anxiety? No fear! In this article I will explain how to update your website without losing data or without generating errors of various types. In view of the new version of the CMS, the 5.3 coming on November 12, 2019, here is a small guide of the steps to follow to update your WordPress site in peace.

Why update WordPress?

Maybe you're wondering why you should update WordPress if your site works great and if you have all the features you need. The update is necessary because the new version offers improvements and corrects vulnerabilities and possible bugs, therefore it is essential for the security of your website. By updating your site WP:

Will have new features;

Will be compatible with recent themes and plugins;

Will improve on performance.

How to update WordPress?

To update WordPress you can follow different procedures. You can do this easily from your site's Dashboard with a handful of clicks, manually via FTP client or via cPanel, wp-config. php and functions. Php.

In this article I will only tell you about the WordPress update through the administration panel , as the other procedures require a little more experience and could lead to some errors if you do not know exactly where to get your hands.

Updating WordPress from the Dashboard is a very simple operation and with a handful of clicks you will have the new version of the CMS on your site. Be careful, though! Before clicking on 'Update now' there are some things to watch out for. Let's see them together.

Tips for updating WordPress

But First Backup!

Before updating WordPress, make a full backup of your website . And this rule applies to any updates needed for your site, such as plugins or themes. If you don't know how to manually backup your site, there are some plugins that come to your rescue. There are a lot of them, but the ones I recommend you to consider are UpdraftPlus and Duplicator. In particular, the latter also offers the creation of an 'Installer' that facilitates the recovery operation.

No to the wild update !

In terms of updates, people are usually divided into two strands: those who prefer not to update for fear of running into some error and those who instead update at the speed of light without checking the various components installed on the site.

So updating WordPress is crucial, but do it with full knowledge . Avoid fury to switch to the new version and wait a few days to give plug-in developers time to make them compatible with the new release of WordPress.

Check plugins and theme

Even if you waited a few days, before proceeding with the WordPress update, check that all the plugins that are active on your site are compatible with the latest release of the CMS. Do the same with the theme you are using.

If all the components are compatible with the new version of WP, then update in peace. This way you are less likely to run into a conflict between WordPress plugins .

Disable caching plugins

If you have active caching plugins before proceeding with the update, remember to temporarily disable them . This is to avoid errors with the database update and not to run into inconsistency problems with the new release and the old pages that have been saved in memory.

Avoid automatic WordPress update

I conclude this short list by leaving you one more tip: do not set the automatic WordPress update . With the automatic update it is easy for some errors to occur, as there is no prior check to see if all the components are compatible with each other. So if you have automatic updates enabled it would be better to disable them.

WordPress update via Admin panel

After making a backup of your site and following the advice I left you are ready to proceed with the update.

When the update is available you will notice a notification at the top of the WP dashboard.

At this point to start the update you must click on 'Update now' and WP will start the update process by putting your site temporarily under maintenance until it has completed the procedure.

After you update WordPress remember to reactivate the plugins you have disabled. At this point your site is updated to the latest version and all you have to do is check that everything is working perfectly.

If you are afraid to take care of the maintenance of your website, entrust a professional who does it for you; if you want you can contact me and I will take care of the updates of your site, while you publish your content in peace.