To update themes and plugins is like the annual technical check you do on your car. Or the change of the tires when they are old. Shortening your hair, reorganizing your home, cleaning your laptop, or any other necessary activity that people do is just mandatory.
There are not a lot but enough reasons to believe that it is crucial for your website to be updated with up-to-date plugins, themes, and structure.
83% of hacked WordPress sites hadn’t been updated.
I will just leave this fact here and hopefully, you can understand the first and most important reason why you should always update themes and plugins.
Keep Hackers Away
Security is a global problem on the internet that has appeared in its early beginning. At first, people were afraid of their privacy, their personal information, and others who can take advantage of it. no, with the latest GDPR changes, this is handled, but users are more and more worried about the possibility of their websites being hacked.
If you take a moment to read what most experts say, you will find that one of the first things that can be done to prevent breaches, is to update themes and plugins. Outdated versions of PHP, WordPress, themes, or plugins frequently lead to hacked websites.
How to Make WordPress Secure from Hackers
It doesn’t matter what kind of website you have created – small e-commerce, online portfolio, blog, or a business one. Each needs to be protected with the same precautions. The information held for the users that have visited your pages is equally important. Though, I have to acknowledge the fact that holding information like invoices, purchases, and other personal details, is really important to be protected.
To reduce the potential security threats, make sure you are constantly taking care of the update themes and plugins process.
Bug Fixing
Another very important reason why you need to always update themes and plugins is the removed bugs from previous versions. Often, they are renewed and bettered. Sometimes you can even not be familiar with the fact that you had a problem, but before you get to it and wonder what to do to handle it, just update. Really. That’s the answer.
The smooth running of WordPress advances is a necessity for having a well-performing website that provides safe and greatly managed space. As with anything really in life, to make sure it’s working well and it’s stable, you have to take care of its safety, its potential or existing problems. As I said in the beginning, your car cannot perform at its best if you haven’t changed the oil, can it?
Neglecting something so essential as your website performance can lead to consequences that are certainly not preferred. Taking a risk to the safety and the good work of your WordPress child is to be avoided.
Even More Reasons
Protecting a website from potential security breaches and fixing bugs and problems in its performance matters more than everything else. However, it’s not only that. The advantages of constantly taking care of the updates – themes and plugins, continue.
Updating WordPress comes with new features that are developed in a way that all works in your best interest. New options, appearance opportunities, various customizations, expanding possibilities, and a lot more than you can enjoy once they are available.
New releases and updates also provide a higher speed for your website. You should by now know how much it matters for search engines to have fast-loading pages. When you update themes and plugins it automatically improves the acceleration.
Furthermore, updates include data actualization. It’s important that they are installed chronologically because if you allow a one-time update after not visiting your website for a while let’s say, you will most certainly face troubles with the latest version even if it is the best released.
Make sure to constantly check for updates and take care of them. Your website needs to be reliable for your users and that can be achieved by not having issues with themes or plugins, outdated data, speed, or hacks.
How to Update Themes and Plugins
To make everything easy and at your convenience, WordPress provides updates that are easy and everything is obvious. You get a notification when you need to install a new version of themes and plugins and you only have to click on it. Simple as that.
To be completely sure everything works well, first make sure to read the notes and check what changes will be applied. If possible, test and see first how it would work on another site.
Most importantly, back up your website!
There aren’t other actions to be taken. This is all you need to make sure your website is secure, free of bugs, up to date, running at its best, and with all the latest features.