Website Updates – Important Notice
WordPress updates are a requirement to keep your site secure and functioning correctly. These must be performed on a regular basis. If your site gets compromised it may get removed from our servers.
If you would like to perform the updates yourself, make sure you have a backup of your site files and database before performing any updates. Please view our guide on: how to take a site files and database backup of your WordPress site.
To run a backup yourself, use a plugin such as ‘Duplicator’ (when using these plugins please delete them after so they do not run automatically, or set them to only run manually).
How to update your website
Once logged into your WordPress Admin area, look at ‘Updates’ on the left-hand side. You will notice if there are updates that need performing as a number will be shown in a Red circle. The number indicates how many updates are available.
Next: Update any plugins, themes and WordPress updates that are available by checking the boxes and clicking update, it is recommended you update in this order, 1st: Plugins 2nd: Themes 3rd: The WordPress Core
Please check the pages and functionality of your website once you have updated to make sure everything is working as it should.
The latest WordPress has an additional feature called ‘Site Health Status’. This may need addressing too if not showing as Green.
How to take a backup of your WordPress site
You can use a program such as File Zilla to access your site files via FTP. Use your FTP details to connect to the server in File Zilla, and navigate to the public_html folder on the remote site.
Then select everything inside this directory and drag it over to the local site (your computer/device).
This may take some time and once complete you will have a copy of your site files.
Next you will need to download your database. Go to your plugins and look for a plugin called ‘Duplicator’ by Snap Creek and activate this.
Next go to ‘Duplicator’ on the left hand side menu and check ‘Archive Only the Database
Next begin the build. Once complete you can download your database to your computer/device.
If you would like us to do this for you on a monthly basis we do offer a monthly maintenance package that covers all WordPress, Themes and Plugin updates, priced at an additional £10 per month if you site is hosted on our servers, if your site is hosted elsewhere the cost will be £20 per month. This will help keep the site updated. Should an update break the actual site, we can revert back and advise on any additional steps that may be required to keep your site and files secure. Please let us know if you would like to subscribe to our monthly service and add your site to our monitoring list? Contact us to add your site to the monthly maintenance package.
We also offer more advanced maintenance packages which are ideal if there are ongoing changes to your website, please read through our packages here: Other website maintenance packages
