You log in to your WordPress dashboard and see that exciting notification at the top of the screen: “WordPress [Version Number] is available! Please update now.” Your first instinct is to click that big, blue, tempting button. It’s just one click, after all. What could possibly go wrong?
The honest answer is: a lot, actually.
While the WordPress core software is rigorously tested by a team of world-class developers, it has to interact with thousands of different themes and plugins made by other people. A major update can sometimes introduce a change that conflicts with an older theme or a poorly coded plugin on your site.
A “blind update”—clicking the button and hoping for the best—can lead to the dreaded White Screen of Death, broken features, or embarrassing visual glitches. This can cause panic, downtime for your business, and a frantic search for how to fix it.
There is a safe, professional, and completely stress-free way to handle updates. It’s a simple pre-flight checklist that ensures a smooth process every single time. This guide will show you exactly how to prepare for a WordPress update the right way, so you can get all the new features and security enhancements without any of the risks.
Table of Contents
Why You MUST Update WordPress… But Carefully
First, let’s be clear: not updating your website is not an option. Running an outdated version of WordPress is one of the biggest security risks you can take.
The reasons to update are critical:
- Security: This is the number one reason. Older versions of WordPress can have known security vulnerabilities that hackers actively search for and exploit. Keeping your site updated is like locking your front door.
- New Features: Each major release brings new and exciting features, powerful new blocks, and improvements to the editor that can make building and managing your site easier.
- Performance: Updates often include “under the hood” enhancements that can make your website faster and more efficient.
However, the key is to update safely. Let’s walk through the professional’s workflow.
The 6-Step Pre-Flight Checklist for a Safe Update
Think of this as the pre-flight checklist a pilot runs through before takeoff. It’s a disciplined process that guarantees a safe journey.
Step 1: Create a Complete, Off-Site Backup
Before you touch a single thing, you need a complete and current backup of your website.
- What it is: A backup is a full copy of your website’s two main parts: your files (themes, plugins, images) and your database (posts, pages, settings).
- Why it’s critical: This is your ultimate undo button. If the absolute worst-case scenario happens and the update completely breaks your site, a backup allows you to restore it to the exact state it was in moments before. It’s your non-negotiable insurance policy.
- How to do it: Use a trusted backup plugin like UpdraftPlus or Solid Backups. The most important part is to configure it to save your backup to an off-site location, like Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon S3. A backup saved on the same server as your website is useless if the entire server goes down.
Step 2: Use a Staging Site (The Professional’s Method)
This step is what separates amateurs from professionals. A backup is for disaster recovery; a staging site is for disaster prevention.
- What it is: A staging site is a private, exact clone of your live website. It’s a sandbox where you can test major changes—like a WordPress core update—without any risk to your public-facing site. None of your visitors will see it.
- Why it’s the best practice: It allows you to run the update and thoroughly test every aspect of your site in a safe environment. If something breaks, you can troubleshoot it calmly without your main site being affected. It eliminates all the stress and risk from the update process.
- How to do it: Many high-quality hosting providers (like SiteGround, Kinsta, and WP Engine) offer a one-click staging feature in their dashboard. This is the easiest way. Alternatively, some backup plugins like WPvivid or BlogVault also include features to create a staging site.
From this point forward, all of the following testing steps should be performed on your STAGING SITE.
Step 3: Update Your Themes and Plugins First
This might seem counterintuitive, but it’s a crucial step.
- The Action: On your staging site, before you update WordPress itself, go to your Plugins and Themes pages and update all of them to their latest available versions.
- Why it’s important: Good developers know when a major WordPress release is coming. They proactively update their products to ensure they are compatible. By updating your themes and plugins first, you are ensuring that you have the most compatible versions ready for the new version of WordPress, which dramatically reduces the chances of a conflict.
Step 4: Run the WordPress Core Update (on Staging)
Now it’s time to perform the main event, safely on your staging site.
- The Action: Navigate to Dashboard > Updates. You will see the prompt to update to the latest version of WordPress. Click the “Update Now” button.
- What happens: WordPress will go through its automated process. It will download the new files, deactivate your plugins, install the update, and then reactivate your plugins. If the update requires changes to your database structure, you may also be prompted to perform a database update.
Step 5: The Post-Update Audit (Test Everything on Staging)
Once the update is complete on your staging site, it’s time to become a detective. Your job is to thoroughly test the site to make sure absolutely nothing broke.
Follow this simple testing checklist:
- Check the Front-End: Open your staging site in a new browser tab. Browse through your most important pages: the homepage, your about page, your contact page, a few blog posts. Do they look correct? Are there any visual glitches, broken layouts, or strange error messages?
- Check the Back-End: Go through your WordPress dashboard. Can you still create and edit posts and pages? Do all your theme and plugin settings pages load correctly?
- Check Key Functionality: This is the most important part. Test the core functions of your website. Can you successfully submit your contact form and receive the email notification? If you run an e-commerce store, can you add a product to the cart and navigate to the checkout page? If you have a membership site, can you log in as a test user?
Step 6: Deploy to Your Live Site
If you’ve completed the audit on your staging site and everything works perfectly, you have been cleared for takeoff. You can now update your live site with confidence.
- First, create one more fresh backup of your live site, just in case.
- Put your live site into maintenance mode.
- Repeat the update process on your live site: first update your themes and plugins, then update WordPress core.
Since you’ve already confirmed that everything is compatible on your staging site, this process should be smooth, fast, and completely stress-free. Once the update is done, take your site out of maintenance mode and you’re all set.
Troubleshooting Common Update Issues
Even with preparation, you might occasionally run into a problem. Here’s how to handle the most common ones.
- The White Screen of Death (WSOD): This is almost always caused by a plugin or theme conflict. The fastest way to fix it is to manually disable your plugins via FTP (or your host’s file manager) by temporarily renaming the
/wp-content/pluginsfolder. - “Stuck in Maintenance Mode” Error: If an update is interrupted, your site can get stuck. To fix this, you need to connect to your site via FTP and delete a file named
.maintenancefrom your site’s main directory.
And remember the golden rule: if all else fails, you have your complete, safe backup from Step 1.
Conclusion: Update with Confidence
The “Update Now” button is tempting for its simplicity, but a professional, disciplined approach is the key to maintaining a healthy and stable website. You no longer need to feel anxious when you see that update notification in your dashboard.
By following this simple pre-flight checklist—Backup, Stage, Test, and Deploy—you can update your WordPress site with the complete confidence of a pro, knowing that you’re prepared for any potential turbulence and that your valuable website is always safe.