The Importance of WordPress Updates

 In Blog
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WordPress is the leading the web!

Why is it so important to keep my WordPress website, themes and plug-ins up to date?

With each new release the WordPress team of developers fix bugs, add new features and improve performance to stay up to date with new industry standards.

When you do not update your WordPress site, you are risking compatibility issues across new and existing devices and more importantly security vulnerabilities.

WordPress is by far the most popular Content Management System available currently powering 59.5% of CMS websites worldwide.

Due to its immense popularity, WordPress is a popular target for hackers, malicious code distributors, data thieves, and wanna be hackers. This means that if you are not using the latest version of WordPress, then you are using software with known security vulnerabilities. Hackers can search for websites running the older version, and you may become a victim of a hacking attack.

It is essential WordPress and the associated plug-ins are kept up-to-date to make your website less vulnerable to hacking. The updates will also ensure your website continues to run quickly and takes advantage of all the latest advancements in technology.

How can Brown Ink Design Help?

As part of our hosting package keeping WordPress software up-to-date is no longer negotiable, it is now compulsory, so we have included this into our hosting costs.

What you get

  • WordPress Software Upgrades
    (Minimum 2 each year)
  • Plug-In Updates
  • WordPress Theme Updates

Benefits

  • Your website is less vulnerable to hacking
  • Your website will run faster
  • You will always be using the latest technology

Keep your WordPress Website Healthy

1. WordPress Software Update

Currently, WordPress release on average three to five updates a year, in order to make sure your website is secure, free of bugs and working to its optimum performance. These versions are not automatically updated they need to be manually activated. Brown Ink Design will make sure your website is up-to-date all the time.

2. Plug-In Updates

On average each website we build has 5 plug-ins. Plug-ins are generally created by third parties just like apps are created for use on an iPhone of Android phone. Plug-ins also need to be updated just like the WordPress software. The type of plug-ins we use on every website we build are:

  • WordPress SEO (used for manually controlling SEO information on each page)
  • Gravity Forms (used for online enquiry forms)
  • Really Simple Captcha (Spam filter for the online enquiry forms to stop robots from sending you spam)
  • Google Analytics Dashboard App
  • Visual Composer (makes editing your website so very simple, without any programming knowledge)

3. WordPress Security

WordPress is the biggest website platform on the internet unfortunately this also makes it a big target for hackers. This means it is extremely important your WordPress and plug-ins are kept up-to-date.

How does running old plug-ins affect WordPress users?
Out-of-date plug-ins may not be compatible with new versions of WordPress, leaving your site broken after an update to the WordPress. When this happens, we are forced to deactivate the plugin and your website may be left with a void in your functionality unless we can find a comparable tool.

The more urgent issue at hand is security. Outdated plug-ins are more vulnerable to security attacks, sometimes even without the author’s knowledge. This is why we make the WordPress and plug-in updates to your hosting a compulsory item.

Why is this so important?
If your WordPress website is not kept up-to-date there is a very real threat it will be hacked. Statistics show us WordPress websites which have not been updated for three years are 800% more likely to be hacked then websites which are up-to-date.

By paying to keep your website software up-to-date it is like having insurance. If your website is hacked it could cost you thousands to have the problem sorted.

4. WordPress Theme

All our websites are built on a WordPress theme. The theme will need to be updated in order to match and utilise the advancements in WordPress. This requires advanced knowledge and should only be performed by someone with website development experience.

Updating WordPress & Plug-ins yourself

If you request administration access to your website then you will get access to every area. This will allow you to update your website yourself, but please BEWARE. Updating your website without the proper knowledge and testing can go wrong, if you require our help to fix any update issues Brown Ink Design will charge you $120 + GST per hour to fix your website.

Please note your CMS training does not cover how to update your WordPress and Plug-Ins this is a totally different skill which requires different knowledge.

Updating WordPress – The Process

In the interest of being as transparent as possible we will take you through the steps of how we update your website. Because it differs greatly to how you update the software on your smartphone or computer.

Step 1. Back-up your website

Currently WordPress release on average three to five updates a year, in order to make sure your website is secure, free of bugs and working to its optimum performance. These versions are not automatically updated they need to be manually activated. Brown Ink Design will make sure your website is up-to-date all the time.

Step 2. Apply updates to your website

A copy of your website is uploaded to our local hosting server so we can apply the updates to the WordPress theme, the WordPress software and the plug-ins, in a controlled environment.

Step 3. Test your website

Once the updates have been completed we need to complete the following tests:

  • Home Page
  • Internal Pages
  • Online Enquiry Forms
  • Gallery and Portfolio systems (if included)
  • Test all other functionality

Step 4. Upload website to hosting server

After testing is completed and updates have been successful we will then upload your website back to our hosting server to replace the existing website.

Step 5. Monitor for new updates

Knowing your website is up-to-date and more secure is comforting to all our team at Brown Ink. We will then monitor WordPress and plug-in updates to make sure your website is always going to be very difficult for hackers to hack.

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