I’m sure that most of you have a website, and know that it will often be the first impression that someone gets of your company.

How often do you update it? When you do updates is it just the content you update or the look and feel too?

I’m in the process of completing a WordPress course, and one thing that I have picked up on during the course is the importance of not only keeping your content fresh but also keeping your website secure.

How to keep your site secure?

For those of you who are WordPress users the easiest way to have your website hacked is to fail to keep all aspects of it updated. This includes ensuring the latest version of WordPress is installed,as well as updating Plugins and Themes.

You will probably see this icon regularly when you log into your WordPress site:

Wordpress update icon

But do you know that the number displayed indicates how many updates are needed to your site? I have seen sites that require 10 or more updates and this puts the site at risk, so please make sure that you regularly make updates to your site.

Caution!!

Before you go off and make all your updates, it is really important that you backup your website before you do this, just incase there are any conflicts in the updates that can cause problems for your website.

There are lots of plugins that you can use to do this and my personal favourite is Simple Backup, it is also worth checking with your hosting provider if automatic backups are part of your package – if they are then you don’t need to worry, although personally I like to have my own backup to hand as well.

Don’t just take my word for it…

RemedyOne talk about more about the importance of updates in this blog post: 

WordPress Maintenance: The Importance of Updates

Over to you

How often do you update your website? Is it one of those tasks you just don’t have time for? Please let me know below!