Website maintenance is important to keep you site secure and working as intended. With the WordPress 5.0 update now planned for December 6, 2018, it is more important than ever to have your website up-to-date and ready. This update brings a new WordPress editor called Gutenberg. The classic editor will no longer exist!
Here is a copy of a website care email I recently sent to my clients:
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WEBSITE CARE
Time for Website Maintenance!
Hi there,
Happy Autumn! It is time for website maintenance.
There is a big update to the WordPress editor coming soon and I want your website to be ready. In addition, regular website maintenance keeps your site secure and working well. Outdated themes and plugins not only allow hackers a back door into your site, they also stop your site from working smoothly.
New WordPress Editor Coming In November
Gutenberg will become the default WordPress editor with the release of WordPress 5.0 which is expected on November 19, 2018. Gutenberg will operate a little more like a drag-and-drop website builder with movable building blocks.
Before 5.0 is released, it is important to have a current backup and the classic editor plugin installed on your site. This will allow you to wait until Gutenberg has been more thoroughly tested, bugs resolved, and themes and plugins are compatible.
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As you can see, I recommend installing the Classic Editor Plugin, which enables you to continue using the existing editor and then update to Gutenberg when you are ready and when your themes and plugins are compatible.
A great way to power up website maintenance is with ManageWP. They offer a free account and add-ons for nominal cost. Through the ManageWP dashboard, you can monitor security and performance, backup your site, make all updates, and generate an overview report. The free plan allows one monthly backup so it is a good idea to make a complete backup of the website and database as you usually do before making updates.
Another benefit of ManageWP is the ability to remove post revisions and thereby improving website performance. I am excited to be able to offer another performance benefit to my existing website optimization work.
Photo credit: ManageWP Website Care Report cover.