Why do you need to “Whirly Wheel” update your WordPress Website?

And by updates I mean the WordPress version and the security updates (the whirly wheel icon at the top of your WordPress Dashboard). And why do I insist on charging you for it?

A website is the online representation of your business – It’s your online shop / premises and if you don’t have a physical location then it’s pretty important (If you ask me!). Your website is important, I can’t stress that enough – You should love your website and be interested in it and vow to market it everyday.

Because it’s important it needs looking after. WordPress and the bits around it (technical term!) works to keep you safe in the following ways.

The actual WordPress version changes – ‘They’ work on things to make your website better. WordPress version will provide an update.

Plugins – Little critters that they are and quite frankly open doors for hacking do actually care to not get your website hacked so they provide updates. I repeat that plugins are magnets for getting hacked.

Theme – The bit that sits on top of the WordPress to make your website look pretty and that I build the lovely website look on – Needs updating. Even old themes that you don’t use anymore, if left on the site can provide a security breach. Enough said!

All of these together, and when updated mean that your website is functional, stuff actually works, you are secure against hackers (at that time!), you appear in browsers properly (providing you are mobile compatible to begin with) and your site is super speedy and quick. The internet is changing all the time. Devices change all the time and you need to keep up.

I can’t stress how important is it to do / have these updates done. Time and time again I get clients coming to me because something has stopped working, something is broken, they’ve had a hack… Well guess what – It’s mostly because the updates weren’t done. Your website is stagnant because you’ve shown it no love.

I even manually update the copyright years on managed websites so that I can once again check that the updates are done at this time of the year.

I subscribe to a great premium website building tools service (Divi), which in turn gives me Theme updates to share with my clients. Without this your site will lag behind in functionality and security.

If you don’t do these updates, or let me do them for you then you are on your own : ( And if your site get’s hacked then I need to dial to the last back up and put it all back together again which takes my time up and therefore there is a charge (usual rates apply) to you. Honestly speaking, so show your website some love!

Yes you can do these updates yourself but occasionally the updates cause things to break, that I know how to fix in the blink of an eye. I can also test if things are working as they should.