Website designer, Owner
WordPress is a website content management system (CMS) that powers about 40% of websites worldwide. Professionals and business owners choose it due to its almost limitless capability for website design, functionality, and features. It is supported by thousands of developers across the globe who contribute to its ever-expanding capability. WordPress is an open-source platform that originated as a simple blogging tool to publish blogs and articles on simple websites. Since its beginning, it has expanded to the point where just about any website with any feature is possible.
There are three main moving parts to a WordPress website.
These three parts are combined to achieve each website’s design, functionality, and features. Another way to think about them is like your car. The three main parts of your vehicle are the body, the engine, and the transmission. The body provides the styling and appearance, while the engine and transmission deliver the vehicle’s functions. This is where the maintenance part comes into play. As you can imagine, your vehicle can only run smoothly for so long before it requires some maintenance here and there. You can ignore the maintenance on your car and probably get down the road for quite a long time, until something finally breaks. However, when that day finally comes, a simple maintenance task here and there becomes huge and expensive repair bills all at once.
Your WordPress website works the same way. Things can start to break down when the three main parts are ignored and not properly maintained. Developers release updates for three main reasons.
A website that is not properly maintained will eventually develop security vulnerabilities. If it is not safely updated, it will also develop conflicts with other themes, plugins, or updated versions of WordPress.
The first step is to access your website’s dashboard. To access a WordPress website dashboard, type your website’s URL followed by “/wp-admin” in your browser.
For example, yourwebsite.com/wp-admin.
Enter your username and password and enter.
Once you have successfully logged in, you will see a screen like this:
Once you are in your dashboard, if your website has available updates, you will immediately see them in three places. The update icon at the top of the dashboard task bar and the menu item “Updates” will show your website’s total number of updates. This would include WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates. The last location updates are indicated further down the left-hand menu labeled “Plugins”. The update icon here will only reflect plugin updates and not include other updates for the website.
The quickest way to get to your website’s available updates is to click either the update icon in the top bar or “Updates” at the top of the left-hand menu. Your next screen will look like this:
The update screen will show available updates for:
As you can see, this website has available updates for the plugins used and its WordPress theme. There are no available updates for WordPress itself.
The next step is to look at the available updates, paying particular attention to the information displayed with each update. Developers release updates with an annotation stating whether they have tested the updated version with the current version of WordPress. Below are the developer notes for compatibility with these available updates.
We recommend that it’s safe to update any plugin the developer states is compatible with your version of WordPress. Remember that this information may change if you update your WordPress version. If any of your updates say “unknown” for compatibility with your version of WordPress, it does not necessarily mean it is incompatible. It simply means a developer has not updated the information or yet tested the latest version with WordPress. We recommend playing it safe until the developer states it is 100% compatible.
Once you have decided which plug-ins you’ll update, select them and click the “Update plug-ins” button.
Your dashboard will show a temporary message stating that updates are underway. Once the updates are complete, you will see quick notes for each update. The message displayed will either state that the updates were successful or unsuccessful. If the updates were unsuccessful, it would be accompanied by a message explaining why. A common reason an update would be unsuccessful is if the plug-in is a pro version and requires a current subscription to enable updates. Other reasons may be problems with the server where your website is hosted or a temporary problem with the WordPress repository. If you could not update your website successfully, you might consider contacting a website professional for technical assistance.
Once your plugin updates are complete, you can repeat the process for any theme updates you may have. Lastly, if your version of WordPress core has an available update, we recommend you perform it last. Many plugin and theme developers release updates to maintain compatibility with future WordPress releases. Because of this, we recommend updating your plugins and theme first, then updating WordPress.
Websites built with Elementor® usually require an extra step after updating Elementor®, Elementor Pro®, or any plugin installed as a companion to Elementor. Elementor is a popular and powerful visual website builder that gives designers tremendous ability to customize the design of their websites or projects. When Elementor’s developers release updates to their plugin, it often rewrites many of its CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) scripts. As a result, updates performed can cause the styling to appear to be broken on the website’s front end. This is easily remedied with one quick and easy step.
After updating Elementor, go to the left-hand menu of options and find Elementor. Once you hover over Elementor, a slide-out sub-menu will appear. Click “Tools.”
Elementor will automatically update its database in the background. However, if it is taking some time to complete, you can click the “click here to run it now” button. You may have to do this twice if you are using the free and pro versions of Elementor.
Once that is complete, click the “Clear File & Data” button. It will cycle for a moment and then show a green updated icon indicating that the process is complete. After that, click “Save Changes” at the bottom.
Once that is complete, clear your website’s cache if you use a caching plugin. After completing these steps, check your website to ensure it appears and functions appropriately. Repeat the process if the website still appears “broken” or jumbled. Once completed, your website will have been safely updated.
Proper website maintenance is crucial to ensuring it continues to perform and serve your business or organization. If you have a WordPress website and don’t have the time to maintain it properly or feel uncomfortable performing maintenance, check out our website service and support plans. We have tiered plans that meet your needs and match any budget, and will give you peace of mind that a professional web agency is keeping your site in excellent health!
