WordPress Theme and Plugin Updates
Your WordPress Theme governs how a website made on this content management system (CMS) looks. It also determines how the content is displayed and how the elements work together to make the site look professional and on-brand.
It’s necessary to keep up with updates and make sure the theme always works as it should. However, if you aren’t careful, updates can mean the risk of losing your work, but not taking advantage of an update could put your site at risk!
WordPress is an open-source CMS, meaning the code is freely available to developers and can be modified. There’s an active community of developers monitoring, flagging, and tweaking problems; as such, new theme versions come out all the time, and for many good reasons.
Most of the updates have to do with security, with minor releases designed to overcome security vulnerabilities. You must have your theme or the WordPress core updated as soon as a new version is released to avoid becoming a target.
It’s also necessary for compatibility with WordPress itself. Updates are made to WordPress constantly, and most theme developers will test the current version against new versions of WordPress. As they perform these tests, they make the changes required for compatibility with the CMS. When updating a theme, be sure to run the latest version of WordPress first!
Finally, themes are updated with new features to answer user requests or take advantage of new tech in WordPress. If your theme has features that could enhance your site, you should take advantage of them!
WordPress plugins are like apps for your WordPress site. We use them to add new features and make our sites as functional as possible. Plugins make it easy to add functions such as contact forms and photo galleries, and like all parts of WordPress, third-party developers make them.
Most developers continuously improve their work by adding new features, improving code quality, and keeping the plugins secure. They release these changes as updates, and much like your theme, keeping your plugins up-to-date makes sure that the security and performance of your website improves.
One of the reasons we use WordPress is because it’s safe, affordable for our clients, and easy to update. However, if done incorrectly, an update can cost your valuable assets and time.
Every time an update is available for a theme, plugin, or the WordPress core itself, the SlyFox team makes a backup of your site and tests the updated software. It’s a safety measure that allows our team to check if everything clicks. Should something be wrong with the update and your site isn’t working, we have content to restore your site and prevent any loss of functionality.
We also perform updates at the optimal time. Updates should run when it minimizes downtime or disruption to site visitors, and it makes sense to choose a time of day or week when visitations are the lowest. Our team goes by the numbers from Google Analytics to select an optimal time for updating.
WordPress theme and plugin updates are standard for SlyFox clients. If you have a site made on the WordPress CMS that’s becoming out-of-date, get in touch for a consultation today!