Just like your car, your website needs regular maintenance to make sure it is performing optimally. This is especially important for sites running on the WordPress content management system. If a car is left without maintenance, it may be a safety issue, it may also run sub-optimally or it may just simply stop running. A site left without updates can be a security risk, a deterrent to potential clients or in the worst-case scenario completely broken and hurting your SEO.
SECURITY
It is important to keep your website up to date to ensure that it is as secure as possible. This is particularly true for sites running on the WordPress content management system (CMS). WordPress currently makes up a 43% market share of all websites on the internet and an even more impressive 65% of all websites using a CMS
Incredibly these numbers are still growing at a steady pace. WordPress is such a popular CMS platform it is an obvious target for hackers and malicious actors. There are estimated to be approximately 90,000 attacks on the WordPress system every minute.
To ensure that the system is safe the team at WordPress is constantly monitoring security issues and patching the software to fix potential vulnerabilities. With this in mind, it is important to make sure that all WordPress CMS updates are applied in a timely manner. In addition, WordPress utilizes a robust environment of third-party plugins to achieve the variety of functionality that WordPress users need. These plugins also must be updated regularly to ensure they are secure and continue functioning correctly. In particular, it is important that you keep all security plugins such as Wordfence (our favourite WordPress security plugin) or Sucuri . Additionally, you want to be sure that any plugins that feature form elements or the ability for end users to submit information to your website are regularly updated.
TLDR:
WordPress is an extremely popular CMS that attracts a lot of attention from hackers. Keeping WordPress and its plugins up to date prevents these malicious parties from gaining access or altering your site.
PERFORMANCE & USER EXPERIENCE
A well-functioning website is key to user retention. Nothing will cause a user to leave a site faster than slow load times, broken elements or just a straight-up bad user experience. Keeping WordPress and its plugins up to date will ensure that your site continues to function to the best of its ability. Several examples of this include e-commerce software that may not show correct results on archive pages, or even in automated feeds on shopping platforms, form plugins may not send submissions correctly or slider plugins may stop serving content in a carousel. All of these issues which we have seen on sites that were not updated regularly can cause major usability issues for site visitors and most importantly these issues can cause users to lose confidence in your website which may cause your business’ reputation to suffer.
TLDR:
If updates are not applied some site functionality may suffer causing poor user experiences and a loss in end-user confidence in your business.
SEO
A properly functioning website with as little downtime as possible is a key factor in maintaining a good SEO ranking.
When updates are not completed on your site you risk either functionality issues as mentioned above or even worse a site that has a dreaded “white screen”. A white-screened website is one that has suffered some type of catastrophic failure in its core files, plugins or database. These can obviously be hugely detrimental to your search ranking as any users who visit your site will bounce immediately causing your site’s authority to suffer.
TLDR:
Sites that have not been updated regularly can suffer from outages causing search rankings to suffer.
Conclusion
As you can see from above it is integral for your ongoing successful business operations that your website is kept up to date. An up-to-date site will help to protect against potential hackers or other malicious actors, give your site users and potential clients confidence in your business and finally ensure that your SEO ranking is maintained.
You wouldn’t drive your car around for months with the check engine light on. The same goes for websites, letting those pesky updates pile up could be a real risk to your sites security and functionality.
At ampliPhied growth we recognize that maintaining a website is probably not high on your list of business priorities or your area of expertise. That’s where we come in. ampliPhied growth as a suite of tailored solutions that can help you maintain a healthy website along with packages designed to grow your online presence using contemporary content and SEO strategies, API integrations for accessibility and chatbots amongst many other things,
