Your WordPress website design is an important property of your business. Just like any other property, it’s important to maintain your business website. Without appropriate WordPress Web Hosting, maintenance, updates and security checks, all your hard work in the building of your WordPress website is at a huge risk.
Don’t leave your website security to chance. Take regular backups, carry out security checks and install the latest updates to keep your site functioning optimally at all times. Here are the top reasons to take the time to maintain and update your website:
Update Plugins – Keep hackers from getting in through vulnerable plugins
Keeping your WordPress website secure is integral to avoiding hacks and other vulnerabilities. The more hardened your website is, the less vulnerable it is to hackers and intruders.
Updating your plugins is an essential step in this direction. Also, be sure to remove any plugins aand WordPress themes that are not in use. Every plugin installed on your WordPress website is an additional source of potential security or incompatibility. So keep only those plugins you really need.
Other useful steps include using secure passwords, keeping your theme up to date, ensuring other user accounts on your website are managed well.
Improved functionality and addressing security issues
Security is a crucial reason why you must update your WordPress website. WordPress powers one in 4 websites on the web. Given its huge popularity, the platform is a popular target for malicious code distributors, hackers, data thieves and wannabe hackers.
But the good news is that WordPress and plugin developers regularly release updates to address security flaws. Also, many updates include new functionality and features that you can take advantage of.
Every major WordPress update boasts new changes and features. For instance, WordPress 4.0 introduced inline image editing and 4.2 boasted faster plugin updates.
Improved website performance and speed
WordPress developers are always looking to improve performance and speed. Every new release from WordPress features several performance updates that make the CMS run faster, effective and efficient.
For instance, WordPress 4.2 helped improve JavaScript performance for navigation menu while WordPress 4.1 helped improve complex queries, which boosted the performance of sites using such queries.
As speed is a critical factor in SEO, you must update your WordPress core and plugins on a monthly basis to ensure your website enjoys all the latest performance benefits.
Compatibility with the latest version of PHP
Plugin developers often coordinate their updates to coincide with major WordPress updates to ensure compatibility. This way, the plugins can take advantage of the latest enhancements and features.
Conclusion
When your site is backed up, secure and up to date, you can rest assured in the knowledge that the basics have been taken care of. You can either carry out updates manually on a regular basis or set up automatic updates to save time and hassle.
Better yet, with our WordPress website hosting, backups and site updates become a breeze. We take care of it all for you. Contact us today for more information.