EmailOur blogging series began with 4 Steps to Get Blogging. From there we discussed content with Strategies for Publishing Content On Your Blog. To finish off our blogging series, let’s talk about maintaining your WordPress blog.
Updating WordPress
From time to time, WordPress will release a new version because of new functionality or because of a new security fix. WordPress versions of 2.7 and higher feature an automatic update, so you will see the notification of the update at the top of your dashboard.
Before you update your WordPress, you want to make sure to back up. WordPress gives you instructions to manually back up your data, but I recommend installing a back up plugin like WP-DB Backup.
For instructions on backing up WordPress with this plugin, click here.
Once your WordPress is backed up, it’s time to prepare your file by disabling your plugins. Now this is not required, but I highly recommend it. Plugins are developed by the WordPress community (other developers) and sometimes the plugins have not been updated to work with the latest WordPress version causing problems after upgrading. There have been quite a few times an entire website has gone down after upgrading and it has always been due to a plugin.
To disable your plugins, go to the Manage Plugins page in the Dashboard, select all the plugins, change the “Bulk Actions” pull down menu to “Deactivate” and click “Apply”.
From there you are ready to update! Once the update is complete, re-activate your plugins (you may need to clear your cookies) and you are good to go!
Managing and Updating Plugins
Management of Plugins includes activating, deactivating, updating, editing, and deleting Plugins that are installed.
Like WordPress, from time to time, plugins have to be updated for security, bugs and new features. When Plugins need to be updated, the left navigation menu Plugin option will display a balloon, with a number inside the balloon (1). That number represents the number of Plugins that need to be Updated.
If only one or two plugins need to be updated, you can select, Update Automatically right underneath the plugin name and description (2).
To update multiple plugins, the same steps as disabling plugins apply. Go to the Manage Plugins page in the Dashboard, select all the plugins, change the “Bulk Actions” pull down menu to “Update” and click “Apply”.
To keep your website performance at it’s best, make sure to log-in on a regular basis to perform these updates. If you need to revisit these steps, make sure to bookmark this post to come back for the next update :)
Did you miss the previous posts in the WordPress Blog series?
Strategies for Publishing Content On Your Blog
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About Denisse Marie
