Marketing with WordPress and More

When I log into my WordPress blogs and see a notice at the top of the screen that there is a new version of WordPress, I feel excited and nervous at the same time.

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Updating your WordPress plugins regularly is VERY important. Updates usually include bug fixes and other improvements. It’s wise to check your plugins to see if they need to be updated at least once a week.

Note: you’ll probably see a lot of update notices after a new version of WordPress is released because the plugin developer had to change their plugin to work well with the new version.

How Do You Update WordPress Plugins?

It’s very easy!

1. Log into your WordPress blog. After logging in you’ll be on what is called the Dashboard. At the left hand side of your screen you’ll see something like this:

2. Hover over or click on Plugins and choose Installed

3. As you look at the list of plugins that are installed on your blog, you’ll see a notification if any of them need to be updated.

An update message will look something like the image below.

This is snapshot from one of my client’s blogs. I underlined the update message in red.

Click on the image for an expanded view.

4. Choose upgrade automatically and the upgrade will be just as it says, automatic!

5.  As the update takes place you’ll see the lines below appear one by one until the update is complete:

If there is any issue with the update, you’ll be notified and you can decide if you need to try updating again or if you want to get rid of the plugin and find something that works better

Another Note: Please read Leanne King’s comment on this post about the exceptions to this upgrading method

6. Remember to check your plugins every week and update as soon as you see the notifications.

Also, don’t forget to back up your WordPress blogs regularly. To learn how to do that, read my post:

Easy Wordpress Backup

~ Lillea Woodlyns

Special Notice:  I highly recommend: WordPress for Internet Marketers by the ‘WP Queen’ Leanne King.  My full review is here: Wordpress-for-Internet-Marketers-Review

You probably know it’s important to regularly back up the files in your computer in case something goes screwy and you lose your data.

For the same reason, it’s equally important to backup your WordPress files!

Technical wackiness can happen online too. Wouldn’t it be awful if you lost all of your posts and settings? But don’t worry, if something dreadful happens and your files go belly-up, a recent backup – say, a week old at most – will definitely help a lot.

If you post a lot on your blog, it’s wise to backup your WordPress blog database frequently - perhaps daily.

I use the WordPress Database Back Up PlugIn for exactly that.

After the PlugIn is installed and configured (not hard to do!)  it can be set to automatically back up your blog’s database whenever you like. Mine is set to backup daily. Every day the backup file is sent to an e-mail address of my choice.

Very easy!

It’s also best to do a FULL backup of ALL of your WordPress files – perhaps weekly.

I save the full backup files in a folder in my computer.

I have used the FREE FTP program Filezilla to upload files to this blog. It turns out that you can also use it to for the full backup of your WordPress blog. Filezilla works on both PCs and Macs.

After connecting to your site with Filezilla, it’s very easy to download your WordPress blog files to your computer for safekeeping.

7 Easy Steps to Follow to Create a FULL WordPress Backup

1. Download and install Filezilla on your computer.

2. Create a new folder on your computer desktop to store your blog’s backup files. Name it something appropriate and exact like ‘Full Blog Backup Jan 1 2010′.

3. Using Filezilla, connect to the site that your WordPress blog is installed on. For information on how to configure Filezilla, read the directions at http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_FileZilla

4. In the Right Pane of Filezilla double click on WWW.  Click on the ‘blog’ folder. Or, if you have more than one site, find the site for the blog you’re backing up and look for it’s blog folder. In the Right Bottom Pane of Filezilla you’ll see these folders:

wp-admin

wp-content

wp-includes

Those are the folders for your WordPress blog. You’re going to copy them into the folder that you created on your computer desktop.

5. In the Left Pane of Filezilla click on the folder that you created on your desktop for your backup.

6. In the Right Bottom Pane of Filezilla highlight the wp-admin folder. Right click on it and select download. This will download the folder to the folder on your desktop. When the download is finished do the same thing with the folders wp-content and wp-includes.

This process may take a while if there are lots of files to download inside the folders. Be patient.

7. Do you see the files right under the wp-includes folder? Select all of them, right click, and then select download to download them to the folder on your desktop.

You’re done!

Remember, if you upgrade to a new version of WordPress, you should do a full backup beforehand!

~ Lillea Woodlyns