How to Update WordPress Site to Your Website

You may have started out with a simple blog on WordPress.com, or perhaps even on WordPress.org, but over the years, the platform has evolved to become incredibly powerful and flexible. Now, as you’re probably aware, WordPress 5.0 was released in June 2019, which brings a host of new features and improvements to the table.

If you’re using WordPress to power a business site, you may be wondering how to update your site to take advantage of these new features and improvements. Fortunately, this article will tell you exactly how to do that.

Step One: Take A Look At What’s New In WordPress 5.0

As we mentioned, WordPress 5.0 was just recently released, and with each new version, the platform introduces a ton of new features and improvements. If you’d like to know more, you can dive into the release notes for the latest version of WordPress.

Among the new features and improvements introduced in WordPress 5.0 are as follows:

• Dark Mode: This is a dark or semi-dark (depending on your theme) version of the WordPress editor that makes it much easier to write.
• Custom CSS: This allows you to set any style property you desire via CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). You can use this to style your content in any way you see fit.
• Shiny New Features: Whether or not you use them, the new features in WordPress 5.0 are extremely valuable and add a lot of flexibility to the platform. Things like Postcards, Zoomable Images, and Table of Contents enhance the user experience while the new Shortcodes make building out your site much easier.
• Advanced Security : With the advancement of technology, malicious actors continue to find ways to compromise websites and mobile applications. This is why it’s important to ensure that your WordPress installation is up-to-date with the most recent security patches, has strong security settings, and is properly configured to utilize them. This includes taking the time to change your passwords frequently, ensuring SSH access is closed off (if you use it), and more.
• SEO Optimization: With the growing importance of SEO (search engine optimization) and the power of the Google Search Engine, it’s important to consider how your site performs in organic search results.
• Mobile SEO: If your site is mobile-friendly, it will perform better in mobile search results. Not only that, but Google will also reward you with higher rankings if your site is optimized for mobile search.
• Longer Time On Page: Google’s latest updates aim to improve the user experience when someone is on your site. Having longer times on page means that the user is continuing to have an engaging experience as they scroll down your blog post.
• Fewer Click-Throughs: Having fewer click-throughs indicates that your content is valuable and that users want to support your content by exploring more.
• Revisiting Previous Content: One of the unique features of WordPress is that it allows you to revisit previous content. Now, this isn’t always valuable to a user since they may already be reading your content in its entirety, but it can be useful when combined with the Shortcodes and Template Tags introduced in WordPress 5.0.
• Richer Markdown: The rich text area in WordPress now supports a number of stylistic features, including images, links, and custom HTML.
• Better Together: These features improve the interplay between posts, pages, and widgets. For example, if you have a blog post with multiple pages, these features make it easier to navigate to the relevant content.

Step Two: Create A Plan

In order to update your site to take advantage of the new features and improvements in WordPress, you’ll need to have a plan. If you’re simply switching your theme or adding a new one, you’ll need to consider:

• Themes: Changing the theme of your site is a piece of cake when compared to actually updating the code behind it. However, this won’t give you the benefits that come with the new features and improvements introduced in WordPress 5.0. If you’d like to add custom features or adjust the layout in any way, you’ll need to switch themes entirely.
• Coding: If you have a site that’s already been built and are just wanting to switch out the theme, you won’t need to worry about any of the coding. You’ll simply need to switch themes and add some widgets to the site.
• Content: In addition to changing the look of your site, you’ll also need to consider what posts you want to migrate over to the new site. This will depend on the state your site is in at the moment and whether or not you feel the content is valuable enough to carry over. Even if you decide that some of the content isn’t valuable enough to migrate over, it’s still important to take the time to wipe out the old content and replace it with content that’s more fitting for the new site.
• Images: Images are an important part of any blog post or website, and while they don’t necessarily need to be replaced, they do need to be considered as a potential piece of content you may want to migrate over.
• Plugins: There are plugins available that will help you migrate all of the content on your site over to the new one, handle the images, or even provide a way for you to author and post on your site from your phone. Take the time to read the documentation and know what each one does. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Step Three: Use The Import/Export Functions

One of the best things about WordPress is how easily you can create and manage content. If you’d like to quickly and easily import content from one site to another, you can use the functions that are already built into WordPress. For example, if you want to move all of the contents of your blog over to a new site, you can use the Import function to grab all of the content and then use the Advanced Options button to assign a new site to the content. From there, you can use the Publish function to have all of the content live on the new site.

You can use the same functions to easily export or delete content that you don’t want to keep. For example, if you’ve gotten to the point where you want to start creating more elaborate pages and posts for your site, but don’t want to commit to the effort just yet, you can use this feature to temporarily disable specific pages or posts. Once you’re ready to commit, simply click on the button to have all of the content reactivated.

Step Four: Back Up

Now that you have a plan and the technical side of the update taken care of, it’s time to focus on the more subjective part: the content. Even though you may have followed a step-by-step guide and used the tools available to make the transition as easy as possible, you’ll still need to decide which content you want to keep and which you want to delete. If you have any valuable content that you don’t want to lose, it’s important to make sure that you back it up first.

The best way to ensure that you have everything you need to make this type of transition is to use the back up function that WordPress provides. This will create a complete copy of your site, including all of the content and the settings, and store it in a safe place. This is also a great way to recover from a catastrophic event, such as a hack or virus attack. If it’s available, you can also use tools like Duplicator or Drush to make a full duplicate of your site and store it remotely for safekeeping.

If you found this article valuable, you may also want to check out these similar articles:

Why You Shouldn’t Run A Blog On A Virtual Private Server (VPS)

If you’re running a blog on a virtual private server (VPS), you may be wondering why you shouldn’t do that. After all, you’re essentially renting out more hardware than you need for the blog, so why not take advantage of that and run a very powerful and fast server? You’d think that running a blog on a VPS would be a great idea, but in reality, it doesn’t work out too well. The reason behind this is simple: you have no control over the server whatsoever.

In the event that the server gets compromised by a malicious actor, or if it randomly crashes, you’ll have no way of knowing. With a VPS, you’re not in control of the server’s uptime and security. Furthermore, you don’t even have the ability to update the software on it easily. If anything goes wrong, it’s usually up to the server’s manufacturer to provide updated software for you to use.