Updating WordPress: An Expert Beginner‘s Guide

As a webmaster with over 15 years of experience running WordPress sites, keeping your website updated is one of the most important things you can do.

WordPress powers over 40% of all websites, which means hackers are constantly probing for vulnerabilities. Outdated plugins and themes cause over 75% of hacked WordPress sites. Failing to update leaves you vulnerable.

That‘s why I recommend all beginners get in the habit of regularly updating their WordPress site. I know the idea can be daunting for new users – you don‘t want to break your site!

This comprehensive guide will walk you through how to safely update WordPress using best practices I‘ve learned over my career.

Let‘s dig in!

Why You Absolutely Must Update WordPress

New versions of WordPress are released frequently. These updates include:

• Security patches – Fixes for vulnerabilities found by researchers.
• Bug fixes – Squashing errors and issues reported by users.
• Performance improvements – Faster loading times and reduced resource usage.
• New features – Helpful functionality to improve the CMS.

Failing to update WordPress regularly can leave your site outdated and dangerous:

Security threats

Hackers use automated tools to search for sites running outdated software with known security holes. Once you‘re exploited, they can steal data, send spam, install malware like crypto-miners that use your servers to generate money, and cause other havoc.

According to the official WordPress security handbook:

WordPress powers over 43% of all websites, meaning hackers target it for attacks. Using the latest version of WordPress closes security vulnerabilities.

Don‘t gamble with your site‘s security – update quickly when new releases come out.

Plugin and theme conflicts

Many plugins and themes only actively support recent versions of WordPress. Some may even explicitly say they require a certain minimum version.

Running old versions of WordPress can lead to compatibility issues where plugins and themes break completely. Updates modify core WordPress APIs that plugins rely on, so staying updated ensures maximum stability.

Decreased performance

Code optimizations, caching improvements, image handling, and loading enhancements in new WordPress versions keep your site running smoothly and quickly.

Letting your site fall behind results in a slower loading, less optimized user experience for your visitors.

Missing out on new features

Updating gives you access to all the latest capabilities added to WordPress. For example, WordPress 5.5 brought automatic background updates for plugins and themes.

Don‘t miss out on new functionality that could help your site by failing to update.

When Should You Update WordPress?

WordPress updates come in a few varieties:

• Major releases – Big updates like 5.8 → 5.9 that require manual updating.
• Minor releases – Smaller updates like 5.9 → 5.9.1 that often install automatically.
• Security releases – Unplanned patches for specific threats that are urgent to install.

Here is my recommended WordPress update schedule as a professional webmaster:

• Install major updates within 2-4 weeks of release, after testing on a staging site first.
• Install minor updates within 2-7 days of release.
• Install security updates immediately unless urgent testing is required.

Don‘t go months without updating. I‘ve seen sites get hacked solely due to the site owner ignoring many months of updates, leaving gaping security holes.

Be extra vigilant about security releases – apply patches ASAP to protect your site against active zero-day attacks before hackers can take advantage.

How to Update WordPress

WordPress offers a few different methods for applying updates:

1. Automatic Background Updates

The easiest way is enabling automatic background updates:

1. Go to Dashboard → Updates in your WordPress admin.
2. Under "WordPress Updates", check the box for "Automatic Updates".
3. Click Save Changes.

This allows WordPress to automatically install security releases and minor updates in the background without any disruption.

However, major updates will still need to be applied manually.

2. Manual Updates

When a new major version arrives, you‘ll have to manually trigger the update:

1. Back up your site (more on this next).
2. Go to Dashboard → Updates.
3. When a new version appears, click Update Now.
4. WordPress will download and install the update. The site may show a brief "Maintenance Mode" message.
5. When finished, test that everything works correctly.

Manual updates give you more control over major changes.

3. Updating via FTP

Alternatively, you can manually update WordPress files via FTP:

1. Download the latest WordPress ZIP file from WordPress.org.
2. Extract the ZIP contents to your computer.
3. Connect via FTP and navigate to your WordPress directory.
4. Upload the new wp-admin and wp-includes folders, overwriting existing files.
5. Similarly, replace the other core files like wp-config.php.
6. Login to the WordPress dashboard to trigger any required database updates.

FTP updates provide more flexibility if you run into limitations with the built-in updaters. You may need them if your host blocks command line access.

Backup WordPress Before Any Update

As a professional webmaster, my #1 rule is always making a complete WordPress backup before any update. This gives you a safety net if issues arise.

Your backup should include:

• The WordPress database
• All WordPress files
• Installed plugins and themes
• Uploaded media like images
• Custom configuration files like wp-config.php

Use a plugin like UpdraftPlus which can do scheduled and one-click backups to services like Google Drive or Dropbox.

I recommend:

• Scheduling daily database backups as a precaution.
• Doing a manual full site backup before any update.

Test the backup restoration process to ensure you can successfully roll back in an emergency.

After Updating: Post-Update Checklist

Once the new version of WordPress is live, follow these steps:

• 👓 Test everything – Click around your site testing all functionality.

• 🔃 Re-enable plugins – Reactivate any plugins you disabled pre-update.

• ⬆️ Upgrade plugins and themes – Check for updates to them as well.

• 🚀 Performance check – Test site speed to catch any regressions.

• 💾 Clear caches – Purge plugin and server caches for new changes.

• 📚 Read release notes – Understand what was added or fixed.

Closely monitoring the first few days gives you time to revert from backups if anything breaks.

Troubleshooting Update Problems

While most updates go smoothly, potential issues include:

• 🛑 Update stuck – Insufficient resources like memory often cause failures. Try a manual update instead.

• ⚫️ Site down after update – Clear caches and revert to a default theme to check for conflicts.

• 🐞 New bugs introduced – Downgrade to previous version as a temporary workaround. Report bugs to the forums.

• 🔒 Can‘t update – Some hosts block updates. You‘ll need to switch to managed WordPress hosting.

That‘s why backups are key – they let you instantly restore your site if an update causes problems.

Tips for a Flawless Update Experience

As an expert, I want to share tips to make WordPress updates easy and worry-free:

✅ Use managed WordPress hosting like WP Engine to handle updates automatically.

☁️ Maintain offsite cloud backups via Backblaze for easy restores.

🗓️ Plan ahead for major updates on your calendar.

💯 Test updates on a staging site first before going live.

📝 Communicate maintenance windows to clients in advance.

🗑️ Clean up unused plugins, themes, and media to streamline updating.

⚙️ Check server requirements and upgrade resources like RAM if needed.

🧘‍♂️ Temporarily disable caching plugins during major updates.

Take a proactive approach to maintenance and updating WordPress doesn‘t have to be painful.

Wrapping Up

I hope this guide gave beginners a good overview of how to safely update WordPress to stay secure and benefit from the latest features. Here are some key tips:

✔️ Enable automatic background updates for most releases.

✔️ Manually update for new major versions.

✔️ Always backup your site before updating.

✔️ Monitor for issues and be ready to restore from a backup.

✔️ Follow a regular maintenance schedule.

Take your time and stick to best practices like testing updates on staging sites first. Updating WordPress can be straightforward if you have a system.

Let me know if you have any other questions!