How To Update WordPress Plugins

As aforementioned, if there’s a new version of plugins available, WordPress will notify you by making an update button available. If you click on it, it will start working on your files; downloading and updating new plugins while overwriting the current ones. Before updating new plugins, be sure to backup your site. It will come in handy just in case something goes wrong during the update. In that case, you can easily go back to your old version. After the backup,  deactivate any plugin that you downloaded.

If you want to check for new updates, go to your dashboard and click on updates.  You can also click the update icon located at the admin bar. This will redirect you to the WordPress update page where you’ll see every necessary information and button that you need for the update. The new updates could either be WordPress core updates, Themes updates, or Plugins updates. For the sake of this article, we’d be focusing on plugins updated.

Updating The Plugins

This is one section of WordPress updates and it contains updates of all the available plugins. Remember that the plugins you’re using for your site might not be what the next person is using. You may have just a few plugins in use while another WordPress site owner will one a longer list. To update your plugins in use, click on the plugins update section and you will find the list of plugins with updated versions. You can begin your update by choosing your preferred plugins and clicking the “update plugins” button at the bottom of the list.

Best Time To Update Your WordPress Plugins

There is no specific time to update your WordPress plugins. However, it is advised that you carry out the update when fewer visitors will be on your site. Of course, you know your audience and from your site analytics,  you know when they are mostly visiting. Pick a time when they least visit. It could be a particular time of the day or even during the weekends. Well, you should do your updates in the night when your site may not have a lot of visitors.

What Happens To Your Site While Updating Your Plugins?

Have you ever tried to access a website and you see a message on it such as “undergoing maintenance “. Yes. That’s exactly what happens when you are updating your plugins. WordPress will show every intending visitor a maintenance page. Luckily, updates only take a few minutes, and then everything will be back to normal. After every update, you should check your site to ensure that everything is working as supposed to.

It is important to update your WordPress plugins once in a while. This is to make sure that your site keeps working smoothly with the latest technologies and software. It is also to ensure that you are one step ahead of hackers who may try to access your site. More so, you get new features and take your site’s functionality to 100.