As the face of your business, your website needs to be functional, glitch-free, and secure.
But even if you design the most high-quality WordPress site around, it’s not going to remain perfect indefinitely. It is going to need some maintenance.
There are some routine things you need to do to keep your site running smoothly, and updating your WordPress plugins is one of the most important.
Why is that?
Well, if you miss this important step in site maintenance, you could face performance issues, downtime, or even expose your site to malicious attacks.
Read on to find out more.
Why Updating Your WordPress Plugins Is Important
About WordPress Plugins
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in the world because of its versatility. Part of the reason it’s so user-friendly is because of the tens of thousands of plugins available that allow you to do virtually anything you want on your site.
These plugins aren’t just created by the WordPress platform. In fact, anyone can create their own third-party plugin and make it available to other users. That means your choices are almost endless. But, it also means not every plugin is compatible with the version of WordPress you’re using, the other plugins you use, or your theme.
Why Update Your Plugins?
WordPress itself is constantly being tested and updated to ensure it’s safe and secure. Alongside that, plugins are also being tested and tweaked by developers.
New updates may include useful new features, security fixes, or other improvements – much like the apps you use on your smartphone.
As WordPress evolves, the plugins evolve alongside the platform. That means all your plugins (and themes) need to be updated to keep everything running smoothly.
Not only does updating your WordPress plugins help ensure your site is secure and functioning, but it also helps you get the full benefits of the plugins and any extras or improvements that are added along the way.
What Happens If You Don’t Update?
Failing to update your WordPress plugins can have repercussions for your website in three key areas:
Security
Hackers work very quickly these days. A plugin that may have been safe a month ago may no longer be secure. Outdated plugins are one of the biggest security vulnerabilities on your site, giving hackers a crack to slip through.
Plugin updates often contain patches to strengthen them against cyber attacks, so updating them is essential for site security.
Performance
In spite of intensive testing, bugs and glitches can show up in plugins after they’re released. These bugs can wreak havoc on your site, impacting loading speed, usability, and more. WordPress plugin updates address these bugs.
Features and Functionality
WordPress plugin developers want their offering to be the best there is, so they’re always looking for ways to give you more value by making the plugin better. If you don’t update your plugins, you’re not going to get these extra features.
What’s The Most Efficient Way To Update Your WordPress Plugins?
You can either update your plugins one by one manually or set them to update automatically.
But bear in mind that the update process isn’t as straightforward as it appears – even if it’s automated. There are steps you need to follow to ensure the updates are beneficial to your site and don’t cause any problems.
It’s not uncommon for plugins to be incompatible with other plugins or themes. This can manifest in poor performance, wonky visual issues, or a malfunctioning site.
Before updating, you should read the developers notes to see what’s changing. If there’s a security update, it can pay to wait a week or so before updating to ensure that any errors have been caught, reported and fixed.
We also recommend updating each plugin one at a time instead of doing them all at once. If you do a bunch together and experience a problem with your site, you’ll have a hard time determining which one has caused the issue.
Protecting Your Website
The most foolproof way to safely update your WordPress plugins is to test the update on a development site. That way, you have a chance to fix any potential issues before you update your main website.
You also need to make sure your site is backed up so that you can restore it if things turn to custard.
Obviously, this is all pretty time-consuming – and troubleshooting errors is challenging if you don’t know what you’re doing.
The safest, fastest, and most efficient way to update your WordPress plugins is to get an expert to do it for you.
The Website Guardians offer Ongoing Monthly Support plans to help you keep your site secure, functional and up to date. Our expert, NZ-based team will actively monitor and update your site to prevent hacks, malware, and other nasties. And should the worst happen, we are available to get your site back up and running safely.
Contact us today to find out more.