You want to make changes to WordPress, but you don’t know where to start. Beginners often worry that an update will make their website stop working. You can ask help from WordPress Support Company. This worry is understandable, but if you want your website to be safe and run well, you should use the most recent version of WordPress.
In this guide for beginners, we’ll show you how to update WordPress like a pro and keep your site from breaking.
Updating your WordPress site is a regular part of keeping it in good shape. We’ve made an infographic that is easy to understand and use as a guide.
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Why you should update WordPress?
The best research on WordPress security shows that most websites that get hacked do so because their core, plugins, or themes are out of date.Developers from all over the world work hard to keep WordPress up to date. Every day, these developers find bugs and fix them, add new features, and look for security holes. The changes are then put out in a new version of WordPress.
If it’s not a big change, WordPress can update itself to the new version on its own. If you don’t have managed WordPress hosting, you’ll have to start the update yourself when a major release comes out.
You need to update your website to make sure it has the latest security patches, the newest features, and the best speed and performance.
See our guide on why you should always use the latest version of WordPress to learn more about this topic. Or you can hire a professional WordPress Support to manage
So, let’s look at how to update WordPress to the latest version in a safe way.
Get ready before you update WordPress
Before you upgrade WordPress, the most important thing you need to do is make a full backup of WordPress or you can take advice from a WordPress support Company.
Even if you have a WordPress plugin set up to back up your site automatically. You still need to make a new backup and store it in a safe place away from your computer.
- A full backup of WordPress includes everything.
- The database for WordPress
- All the pictures and videos you upload
- The plugins and themes you use for WordPress
- The core files of WordPress
This step is very important because if something goes wrong, you will be able to restore WordPress from a backup.
You can move on to the next step once you’ve made a full backup and put it somewhere else (your computer or a cloud storage service like Google Drive).
Bringing WordPress up to date with the newest version
There are two easy ways to get the latest version of WordPress for your site. One is automatic and the other one has to be turned by hand. We’ll show them both or you can help from WordPress support.
Using WordPress’s built-in system to make changes
This method is easier and should be used by everyone.
- First, go to the Dashboard » Updates page in the admin area of your WordPress site.
- You will see a message that says there is a new version of WordPress. Now, all you have to do to start the update is click the “Update Now” button.
- WordPress will now find and install the latest version of the software for you.
- Your screen will show you how far along the update is. WordPress will put your site into maintenance mode during the update.
- While the update is happening, users will still be able to see your site, but you won’t be able to add plugins or themes.
- After the update is done, you will be taken to the WordPress welcome screen. Depending on the release, you may see a page that tells you what’s new and what features you should try in WordPress.
- That’s it, you’ve updated WordPress to the most recent version. If you are unable to process this method then you can hire a WordPress Support company.
What to do after the update
- After you update WordPress on your website, you need to make sure everything works as it should. Just open a new browser window, go to your site, and look at Settings in the WordPress admin area.
- Check out our list of common WordPress errors and how to fix them if you run into any problems. If the problem you’re having isn’t there, you can use our WordPress troubleshooting guide to find out what’s wrong and fix it.
Summing Up:
We hope this article made it easy for you to get the latest version of WordPress. You might also want to look at our step-by-step guide for WordPress SEO beginners. If you are unable to do the update then you can hire a professional WordPress Support and ask them to do so.