General Update: What you need to know before you Update your Site

Our staff at Neuron Themes is devoted to creating products with the latest updates and features to present to our customers. It is a responsibility of ours to come with the best outcome and it will be our responsibility to keep up with our pace. You will always be notified when new updates are occurring, you will always be on the loop and it is important to always stay on the latest version/update of our themes. While this process requires caution we will first lay down all the things you need to do before you run an update, so that you avoid misfortunate events.

Back up your Website 

The most important step you need to take before you update your website is to backup all your WordPress files and data and store them in another location, in case if anything goes wrong during the update process. You will be able to revert back to your website by inserting all the files you saved and avoid building from 0 again. WordPress repository stores some great plugins for backing your website and you can easily make them automatic, so you won't have to worry about the process any longer. For a full guide on how to backup your WordPress website with the help of a plugin check out our article and learn the best tips and tools. 

Run Updates when the number of visitors is low 

You would want to minimize any disruption or downtime while running an update that is why you should leave it for a more appropriate maybe at a time of day (or on a day of the week) when your visitor numbers are at their lowest. Analyze your audience and their time zones, to make sure you perform such activity at a convenient time. 

Use a Staging Site for Updates 

Before you perform a major update to your theme it is best practice to first test it out to see how it works, or if it crashes or creates unexpected issues. The best place to test an update would be a staging site, and this is because the staging site is on the same server. A staging site is like a carbon copy of your website, whatever works there will work on your website too and the best thing is that is invisible to your visitors.

Clear all Copies of your Current Theme and Reset your Website

Backing up your files and data is the first step when updating the theme, meaning you will have saved all your files remotely in case you need to retrieve them back. When running an update you should all the previous theme folders so they don't interfere with the new updated theme files thus creating WP path issues. You should also reset your browser, plugin, and server cache when you update, this is due to the fact that visual errors might occur, and by clearing your cache from your browsers like cookies history and other data, clear any server-side cache that your hosting provider has installed or ask them to do it for you.

Update the bundled plugins 

After you have updated your theme you will need to update the required and bundled plugins as well. Notifications will come along on your WordPress Admin Area and you need to follow along the instructions to do so. These have to be installed and activated for the theme to work correctly.
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