How To Update Your Site

With the latest updates and improving software, you would always want to keep your site up to date to run smoothly, have better features, and make it more secure. However, upgrading your WordPress and updating your plugins can cause issues like plugin incompatibility and inaccurate website functionality.

So before making any changes, we strongly advise that you backup your website with your current host or create a clone site to test as this will affect your current site users. If the recent updates cause any problems, you can restore your website.

Here are some approaches on how to update your site:

1. Backup - the most important thing to keep in mind before updating anything on your live site, as mentioned above. Make sure to backup both your site files and database. Most WordPress hosts provide backup tools for your site.
2. Another way is to install localhost. This means you can test codes and the latest updates on your computer to where you set up WordPress. This becomes the server host of your local sites. WampServer (for Windows) and MAMP or Desktop Server (Mac users) are the most popular and used software for this approach.
3. You can also test your work on a server setup which is a direct copy of your live site. In this approach, you’ll need to install another WordPress somewhere in your server, creating a copy/backup of your site. Premium and free plugins like BackupBuddy, BackWPup, and Duplicator help you back up and copy your site(s). Some WordPress hosts may offer to create a testing site for you. You can also share your work with anyone and test with different load times and devices.
4. Once you’ve tested the updates and it’s now safe for your live site, you can now click on the update button on your theme and plugins.

These are just some of the easy, inexpensive approaches and will save you from potential headaches if ever your live site runs into issues with the updates.