Got a WordPress website but you're NOT a developer? Well, if you're an admin, you might have woken up to an email about WordPress 7.0 dropping. This is quite an update - and before you do anything, here's a crash course in what that actually means.
What the version number tells you
As a very simple way of describing updates, the number used tells you how big the change is:
- Round number upgrade: if the number before the decimal point changes (6.0 to 7.0, like this one) - that's a major update
- Decimal updates: 6.8 to 6.9 - a branch update, still significant but not major
- Second decimal point updates: 6.9.3 to 6.9.4 - minor patches to that branch
Before you touch anything
If you're running a WordPress website (or multiple sites), I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH that simply pressing update on your admin panel can cause you a load of stress. And please, for everyone's sake, don't do it on a Friday.
That said, you SHOULD take the update seriously - there are a tonne of benefits to this latest release. But change can be scary, particularly the admin interface updates that will mean logging in might look a bit different to what you're used to.
The right way to do it
If you want to do it properly, you should ask a fabulous and risk-averse web developer to do it for you (hi). But if you want to ask them whilst having a better understanding of the basic processes involved, listen up:
Check your PHP version first. This update requires your host to be running PHP 7.4 as a minimum, but ideally version 8.3. PHP updates can be quite hefty in themselves, so you'll need to factor this in if you're running on an older version.
Back up. Then back up again. Please back up your live site before anything else happens - or make absolutely sure whoever is doing the update is doing it. Non-negotiable.
Use a staging site. Even better, have a staging website to test the updates on first. A staging site is basically a carbon copy of your live site that you can muck about with before committing anything to the live version. Ask your developer if you have one, or whether it's worth setting one up.
Test everything. And we mean everything. With an update like this, you need to go through the whole site - every feature, every function. Navigation, videos, forms, event bookings, ecommerce. All of it. You can do this in two ways (and typically a bit of both):
- Manual testing: one human, one website, every browser, every device. Lots of time, but nothing slips past a trained eye
- Automated testing: using a bot trained on predefined tasks that you want users to complete on your site, then letting it rip
Don't let a major update become a major problem
WordPress 7.0 is genuinely exciting - but only if you approach it the right way. The sites that run into trouble are almost always the ones where someone hit update without thinking it through.
If you'd rather hand this off to someone who's done it a hundred times, that's exactly what we're here for. Get in touch and we'll take it from there - no stress, no Friday deployments, no drama.
