
In a quickly growing market, your website needs constant updates. In an agile online medium, your website needs constant improvement.
We’ll speak about all necessary updates for a website built on WordPress.
Updates to the WordPress software
It’s well known that WordPress is subject to many attacks. This is not due so much to WordPress’ inherent vulnerabilities, but to the wide use of the software worldwide (WordPress powers about 25% of the websites on the internet at present).
Here’s a breakdown of WordPress attacks:
- Themes (11%)
- Plugins (52%)
- Core WordPress (37%).
The most common attacks are:
- Brute force attacks
- Malware
- File inclusion exploits
- SQL injections
- Cross-Site Scripting
Running an outdated version of WordPress, your website is increasingly prone to such attacks.
To counter them, the WordPress programmers release major updates to the core software, every now and then.
Up to this time, WordPress has come to the 5.2 version. To get stronger and avoid some of (or most of) WordPress vulnerabilities, you need to keep the software updated to the latest version available.
Don’t let WordPress remain downgraded to a lower version.
In the WordPress Admin Dashboard, under Home, you’ll find a subsection for Updates. Click on it and you’ll be taken to a screen like the one below:
By pressing the Update Now button, you decide to update WordPress to the latest version available for your website. As the message says, during the update, the website will be in maintenance mode, and the site will return to normal once the update has been finished.
It’s best practice to make a website backup before proceeding to the installation of any updates.
To make a website backup, you can use a specialized plugin like UpDraftPlus (one of the most popular backup plugins, with over 2 million active installations).
Updates to the WordPress theme
To keep up with the latest changes to WordPress software, themes also provide updates. Also, they might incorporate new functionalities and get more feature-rich, so you can tweak and refine your website and adapt it exactly the way you want, at any given time.
Why do WordPress themes get updates?
- Ensure compatibility with WordPress core updates
- Expand the set of functionalities for a website
- Ensure compatibility with the WordPress ecosystem (software + plugins)
Especially with premium themes, you benefit from updates and improvements brought to the product. One of the main criteria for selecting a premium theme is frequency of updates, and time when the latest update has been made to the theme.
Updates to the WordPress plugins you use
Even more frequently than themes, WordPress plugins are updated. They undergo major or minor changes so that they perfectly integrate into the WordPress ecosystem. The main reason for plugins updates is to ensure compatibility with the latest versions of WordPress and increase their functionality.
Reasons why WordPress plugins are updated:
- Ensure compatibility with WordPress core updates
- Counter attacks and decrease vulnerabilities to security issues
- Adapt to new themes and theme updates.
It’s obvious that premium plugins will provide a more extensive set of updates, as there’s a team that caters to their good functioning and perfect integration with most of the websites.
How frequently should you update WordPress, theme, and plugins?
It’s recommended that you consider updating WordPress, the theme supporting your website, and plugins you installed for it on a monthly basis.
How to Avoid WordPress Update Compatibility Issues
It’s recommended that you pay special attention to compatibility issues.
Some incompatibilities might appear when WordPress is updated to a newer version, and your theme no longer functions properly.
Here’s some advice you might follow to avoid WordPress update compatibility issues:
- Use the default WordPress theme
- Use the Jetpack plugin
- Avoid using third-party plugins
- Use a theme whose features are specific to your website as you want it to look and function
- Avoid making customizations that are not particularly important for your website
- Avoid plugins that add functionalities your website does not imperatively need.
Then come updates to the website itself:
Updates of the website’s content
A website that was perfectly valid several years ago might not be like this any longer. Don’t let the content go stale. It might no longer reflect the market tendencies, and no longer match users’ expectations. In this case, the content of your pages needs updates.
Types of updates needed for content:
- Turn a block text into a more structured text (bulleted list, numeric list, alphabetical list, headings/leads/paragraphs, text supported by images, paginated text, etc.)
- Turn a multiple-page presentation into a one-page, more compact presentation. Thus, the message is more clearly defined and coherent, and easier to follow by web surfers.
- Turn a long-form page into paginated content (text is split into several pages).
- Give a clearer, more concise presentation of the message in the website pages, so users can follow it along those pages.
- Include elements such as infographics, whitepapers, ebooks, videos, all kinds of resources that might help a visitor get a better idea of what your website is about.
Updates of the website’s structure and pages architecture
It might prove that the whole website structure needs updating. The original structure might no longer be in accord with the message that has recently been crafted for the current audience, and the current market trends.
In this phase, of website structure updating, you can successfully use the Yoast SEO plugin. It has a feature according to which you can indicate some content as cornerstone content (main content in site). Depending on the most important pages in the website, you can create a structure that reflects your business uniqueness. Thus, the unique value proposition will be more evident, and users will better remember the brand.
Important to note: a website structure update is not the same thing as a radical website structure change. It means adjustments, adding pages in the same line with the current structure, making minor modifications that allow for keeping the same design in place.
Updates of design, look & feel of the website
Design changes are more of a radical modification to the website. They involve a different choice of colors, typography, layout, images.
Maybe you’ll need to change the accent color, or you’ll have to change fonts for the titles (headings) in the website pages. You might also want to replace an image with another one, to better reflect a paragraph, or add a frame to an image you want to emphasize in a page. Maybe you want to thicken a border for the header or footer, etc.
The new design must be in line with the branding of the business/personal blog. Thus, updates should be made by starting from a thorough analysis of the current look & feel of the website. Based on that analysis (how many conversions at present, dwell time on site, etc.), you can take measures to update the website with elements that increase figures for the expected business results.
Updates for website speed and decrease website loading time
A slow loading site can hurt a lot your business. Every second that you lose can translate into lost clients and revenue. We leave in a fast world, people don’t have the patience to wait for a site to load, they’ll just go to the next one. Also, page speed is an important ranking factor in Google’s organic results.
What does this mean to you?
You need to constantly check your site’s performance and intervene if needed. How can you do this? Our friends from FixRunner have all the answers in their guide How To Speed Up Your WordPress Site.
Updates for mobile responsiveness
Mobile responsiveness is key to the success of any website you create. The mobile-first updates of Google make this feature imperative for all websites that compete for good rankings.
You can test your website pages with the Mobile-Friendly Test.
E.g.:
The selected page passed the test, as it’s mobile-friendly.
However, in the upper part of the screen (in the screen capture above), you’ll notice a message saying there are page loading issues. Click on View Details and you’ll open a list like this:
Take these errors one by one, and make updates to the website, which will improve mobile-responsiveness, site-wide.
Updates due to increasing engagement of users with the website
Engagement, together with conversions, is one of the most important goal of a website. It needs to reach a certain threshold to be effective and meet the expectations. If not, that website needs some updates:
- Include CTAs in your pages
- Update content style and tonality, to better match visitors’ usual language
- Update quality of the content (text, video, infographics, etc.) – so it sounds interesting enough to make them stay on the pages
- Include additional elements of interactivity
- Consider gamification for your website design.
All in all, you could see there’s a wide range of updates your website needs to constantly undergo.
At least 9 aspects might be subject to updates, each type of update having its own recommended frequency.
We hope this minimal list will help you take your website to the next step, and bring it to users’ attention in a more effective way.