Maintain Themes and Plugins

Plugins and Themes are part of what make WordPress sites so popular and powerful. Understanding how these extensions fit into WordPress and keeping them up-to-date is important for both performance and security.

Here are some tips, tricks and best practices for those looking to understand more.

What is a plugin and what does it do?

Plugins can extend functionality or add new features to your website. They are written in the PHP programming language. There are many plugins to extend your websites such as WooCommerce (Adds e-commerce to your website) and Elementor (a page builder).

What is a theme?

It is a collection of templates and CSS stylesheets used to define the appearance of a WordPress site. You could consider this the design foundation of your website.

Why is it important to keep plugins/themes updated?

Themes and plugins can occasionally have security vulnerabilities. As soon as the vulnerabilities are found, the plugin developers will release a patch to fix it. It’s important to update these regularly because malicious bots specifically search for out-of-date plugins and themes with known vulnerabilities.

Flywheel takes care of the WordPress core updates for you, but if you’re not also updating your themes and plugins habitually, you risk leaving your site exposed. Plus, updates often patch other bugs and enhance usability, so it’s a win all around!

How do I update Premium plugins/themes?

Most premium plugins and themes allow you to update them inside the WP Admin dashboard just like any free plugin or themes, as long as your license key is valid. There are a handful of plugins or themes that require you to download the updates from their website. One of the ways you can update the plugin or themes with a download is via SFTP. Here is how to access your site via SFTP.

Can I use a WordPress site manager to handle updates for me?

Tools like ManageWP are great for speeding up your process of updating your plugins, however, they still require manual intervention and management by you. You have to monitor the updates to ensure your sites do not break in the process and rollback as needed.

What are the benefits of Managed Plugin Updates by Flywheel?

With Managed Plugin Updates by Flywheel, we handle all of the management at a price that’s well worth the peace of mind! We have real humans making these updates to ensure nothing breaks. Learn more about that here.

Need help?

If you have any questions our Happiness Engineers are here to help!