Here’s a scenario for you: You are getting ready for an important meeting with a prospective client and need to present new products on your website. You log into the admin area of your website and notice that there are some crucial updates to be made. You click the update button and let it run. Once the update is finished you turn to the product’s page in order to update what’s needed and the dreaded 500 Internal Server Error shows up. The website is down! What do you do?!

 

We all know that websites need to be updated, especially when it comes to open source CMS’s like #Wordpress, #Joomla, #Magento and so on.

 

Here are the top 5 reasons to update your website:

 

#1  Security – this would be the main reason. Hackers love finding security holes in systems that are outdated so they can hack websites, insert malicious code, steal data, distribute their agenda and so on. Outdated websites are a playground for wanna be hackers as well.

 

#2 New Features – Every CMS (Content Management System) has new and cool features to present, improvements to the overall experience as well as software changes. Even when not using a popular CMS, websites need new features to attract visitors and improve the overall customer experience.

 

#3 Speed – Everyone wants a lightning fast website, a fast core system, a fast admin console and new updates that include performance improvements. Since speed is a major factor in SEO, updating your website will help keep your website on top of the search engines.

 

#4 Bug Fixes – Each update includes some bug fixes. Some are more crucial than others but having your website bug free goes a long way in keeping intruders out.

 

#5 Compatibility – If you are using 3rd party providers, like plugins, bare in mind that they coordinate their updates with the system’s provider updates. When not updating your website you may find yourself looking at a broken website (good scenario) or a website that does not load at all (bad scenario).

 

So how do you safely update your website while having a backup plan in case something goes wrong? How do you update your website without losing data?

 

Here is a helpful checklist BEFORE you update your website:

 

  • Always make sure that your website is backed up … always!
  • Have your website’s administrator check what can go wrong when updating (php version, plugin conflicts, etc.)
  • Do a test run by updated on a non-production environment.
  • Create a snapshot just before you backup. Luckily, JetBackup has your back on this one!

 

JetBackup’s backup jobs are easy to create, maintain and monitor, and you can easily backup your data to multiple destinations. With JetBackup you can create snapshots! What are these? Simply put, it’s a backup done on demand in real time and stored in a safe environment. If the update goes bad you simply roll back immediately to its previous version without restoring your website from a day old backup and lose valuable data.

 

So just before updating your website, simply create a JetBackup snapshot and you’re good to go.