Keeping your website up to date is one of the most important tasks that you should be actively doing! If you own a WordPress website or any other platform, are you keeping everything updated?
Your website is probably an important tool in your business, whether it’s growing your brand, increasing credibility, getting traffic through Google Search or any Paid Advertising or even direct sales, if your website is not online, you don’t exist!
Why do we need to keep up to date?
Bug Fixes.
Developers of WordPress, Website Themes, and Plugins are constantly updating their code to fix known bugs, this could be something that was there from launch, through to something that’s developed from Browser, Server Software or a number of changes not controlled by the developer. The updates are there for a reason and should always be done.
Speed & Performance.
The tech world is changing, internet speeds are faster and our patience lessens! Keeping up-to-date keeps your website up with the movement. Don’t get left behind! Keep your Website Updated!
Security.
Unfortunately, in the digital world we live in, there are many individuals and even organizations that spend their whole day trying to hack websites, Breeze Marketing prevents over 1000 attacks on our client’s websites every day!
Whether it’s competition, an attempt to steal your database, customer emails, ad fraudulent links to your or links to their websites which they get paid for traffic, in some cases even steal sensitive data and hold it at ransom, the reasons why these people want to attack your website is endless.
These ‘hackers’ infiltrate a site is through outdated themes, plugins, and old versions of your platform, like WordPress. But before you panic, there is are simple steps to keep them out. While your Website Host should take every action they can to keep the server safe if you don’t take precautions this is simply not enough to keep your website safe.
There are many options to securing your Website, feel free to contact me to learn more, but in this article I’m focusing on the simplest method that doesn’t cost any money, keeping your website up to date!
- First of all! Find out if your Website Hosting includes updates, most web hosts do not provide this service unless specified.
- Next, ensure you have access to your Website Back-end!
- If your website is a few months or even years old chances are it will be full of notifications that require updates from themes, plugins to the WordPress core itself!
- Update your Website! (Warning: Read on before updating)
In many cases, updating the website is as simple as clicking the notification, and clicking update, however, before you do this you may want to ensure your Website Host has a recent backup of your website. In some cases, especially complex websites with many plugins, updating a plugin may cause a conflict between that one and another plugin, this is where things get messy! This can cause parts of your website to break or even break your whole website.
We advise you talk to your Web Host and let them know your plans and make sure you have a backup plan. Most hosts should be able to restore a backed up version in minutes, so make sure you find a suitable time when your website is not as busy.
If you do not have anyone looking after your website or cannot contact your Website Host contact Breeze Marketing.
Breeze Marketing can;
- Assist with creating a backup and getting your website updates, even keep it updated monthly.
- Host your Website with Breeze Marketing! For Complete piece of mind, host your website with Breeze Marketing. Our premium hosting plans include free backups, free SSL certificates and free website updates!