Expert Tips For Why Updating Your WordPress Website Plugins and Versions Is Important?

Updates for a WordPress website are crucial to keeping your website safe and secure. WordPress has regular updates released by its team of developers, who ensure that their software is doing everything possible to prevent Viruses and Malware from infecting your site. Additionally, as WordPress changes over time, your website may begin to slow down or may not look how you want it to. Updates will help to make sure that you’re running a smooth and fast site. 

Updates to WordPress help improve the user experience and make the platform more secure. Just like the updates for your apps and computers, these can help you discover new features, reduce problems, and maintain a positive user experience. Along with the website updates, plugins that run on your WordPress website are also being tested and updated as often as WordPress itself – possibly even more. 

Keeping your WordPress website up to date isn’t hard, and it’s one of the easiest ways to increase your site’s security. If you don’t update regularly, you leave yourself and your users vulnerable to phishing scams, hacked websites, and more. 

Why Are WordPress Updates So Important? 

Updating your software once a month will give you the latest and greatest to help protect your device from bugs and security risks. When you don’t keep your software up to date, you may run into issues like slow performance, security concerns, and buggy behavior. If the software you’re using is outdated, your website and its features will not be able to support your business in the best way it can. You won’t be able to discover all the benefits you should be getting, so you’ll start to struggle with marketing your site, keeping track of leads, etc. 

WordPress updates are released on a regular basis to provide security, solve problems, or introduce new features. Although these updates help our WordPress websites perform at the highest level possible for that period, developers from all over the world explore and experiment to find new ways to provide even greater security, solve bigger problems and introduce exciting new features. 

With every new update, you will find that WordPress will give you new ways to customize your website, fix bugs a previous version may have caused, or provide protection against hackers. 

Security & Bug Fixes 

Many plugins contain security vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit, allowing access to your site or database. If hackers have compromised a plugin, they can use it as a gateway into your site and install malware or steal data. You may not even notice this until it’s too late! Developers can quickly fix bugs in their plugins if they are aware of them and have access to the codebase (or at least a copy). Therefore, updating regularly ensures that any issues identified can be fixed quickly without affecting too many sites at once. 

Performance

You might not realize this but over time, technology ‘evolves,’ and plugin authors update their plugins to take advantage of these changes. One of the benefits of these changes are the performance improvements. Plugins are often rewritten to make use of these changes and in general, they tend to be faster. 

Enhanced Functionality

As more websites install a plugin, the WordPress community begins to make suggestions for additional functionality for the plugin. The author then updates the plugin and releases a brand-new version with the additional changes included. When you update your plugins, you will gain access to the new functionality. 

What Are the Most Important Things to Keep Updated?

The WordPress platform, including the core software and plugins, will need to be updated regularly. Plugins are add-ons that provide more functionality for your website. Themes are a website’s design, which is updated via plugins. Some minor updates may make a big difference over time. 

Do You Have a Good Backup?

WordPress updates, in conjunction with a theme update or plugin update, will have conflicts. This is not uncommon, so it’s important that you back up all your files and databases so you can easily restore them once the update is complete.

The Best Way to Keep Your WordPress Site Updated

As a full-service web design and development agency, Agency Partner Interactive can keep your site up to date and so you won’t have to. Our dedicated team can monitor your sites 24/7, ensuring that they operate at peak performance, are updated, and stay bug-free. We offer comprehensive maintenance and support services so you can invest your time in developing other aspects of your business. 

Keeping your WordPress website up to date with the latest software is critical for its performance and security. With the importance of keeping your WordPress site updated and performing to its best ability, you don’t want to miss a software update that could put you at risk for a security breach or interfere with your user’s experience. To learn more about what our hosting packages can do for your website and business, schedule your free consultation today!