Welcome to Day 4 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!
In the same spirit of preventing our attention from being spread across too many progect, to-do’s and tasks as yesterday’s “Cull the Herd” assignment, today we’ll be removing even more mental clutter by getting rid of annoying upgrade nag screens and popups we encounter all day.
I’m a sucker for putting of till tomorrow what I could have done today, and keeping my sites and my computer system up-to-date is no exception!
DAY 04 OBJECTIVE
Upgrade anything and everything related to our business so we’re running the latest versions.
DAY 04 ASSIGNMENT
Get current.
Those sites you’ve decided to keep because of their great performance or current potential deserve a little love – let’s get them slick, smooth, upgraded and compatible.
UPGRADE WORDPRESS
Assuming you’re using Wordpress, you’ll want to make sure you’re running the latest version. When you’re logged in to your Wordpress admin, if you see a little yellow bar along the top (pictured below) urging you to upgrade, click the “Please Update Now” link.
You’ll be brought to the screen below. 99% of the time, using the “Upgrade Automatically” option works just fine, click that. (If there’s an error go to Wordpress.org and follow the manual upgrade instructions).
Enter in your FTP info in the “Hostname” box and your FTP username and password in their fields. Wordpress will upgrade itself, you may have to click a few “Continue” links along the way, but that’s it!
(Those red boxes around the text fields are from a Firefox plugin I use called LastPass. It keeps all my passwords for me, fills out forms with them, updates itself across multiple computers, and it’s free. If you need a better way to manage all your logins, I highly recommend LastPass.)
Upgrade Wordpress to the latest version for ALL your sites.
There are security vulnerabilities in older versions of Wordpress, so it’s a must to do this not only to keep your site running quickly and compatible with the latest plugins, but also so you’re patching those security holes.
UPGRADE WORDPRESS PLUGINS
Next, upgrade plugins. Go to the “Plugins” page on your site and find any plugins with the littleyellow alert and “upgrade automatically” link (pictured below):
The upgrade process for plugins is similar to upgrading Wordpress as a whole, you’ll enter in your FTP credentials and it’ll do the rest for you.
Again, upgrade your plugins for all your websites.
UPGRADE YOUR COMPUTER
Run Windows Update or Apple Update and get your computer current with the latest bug fixes and enhancements for your operating system.
UPGRADE SOFTWARE
Open any software you use and ensure you’re running the latest version. Some of the ones I always end up putting off to do later:
- Java updater
- Adobe updater
- Seesmic
- Market Samurai
- Spyware / Antivirus software updates
- Camtasia
- Printer software
You know which programs you use that have been nagging you to download updates! Today’s the day to get that monkey off your back!
(If you cell phone is super special and gets firmware updates, you might as well tackle that too!)
Depending on how many Wordpress based sites you own, how many plugins you run and how much you put of OS and software upgrades, today’s assignment could take you from 10 minutes to 10 hours. Power through it. It’s another mental weight off your shoulders.
See you tomorrow for more of the Internet Marketing Makeover!
ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER
You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:
Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up
RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader
The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.
Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!
And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:
Related posts:
- Internet Marketing Makeover Week 1 RecapThis entry is part 4 of 23 in the series...
- Preparing For Utter Interwebs DisasterThis entry is part 4 of 23 in the series...
- Wordpress Social Sharing PluginThis entry is part 4 of 23 in the series...
- Know What Your Competition Doesn’tThis entry is part 4 of 23 in the series...
- Linking To Your Own ContentThis entry is part 4 of 23 in the series...
{ 1 trackback }
{ 9 comments }
Upgrades are the one thing that I am always up to date on. Too many sites to fall behind.
Oh my, Michelle! You completely skipped a step. Backup! The last thing anyone should do is just go in and click upgrade! Backup all files and particularly the database!
There’s a really good chance many people who follow your advice will completely break their site. Depending on the version of WordPress they’re running, certain plugins may not be compatible with the latest version, so that’s really important to check. If a plugin you’re using isn’t compatible with the latest version of WordPress, you either need to find one that is to replace it, figure out a way to do without it, or hire a programmer to fix it for you (if it’s really that important).
NICE pitch!! I swung and missed – ack! But willing to stand at the plate.
Thanks for keeping us on our toes and reminding me that sometimes, it might just be a slight change in your grip, stance and/or equipment before you hit it out of the park.
Hi there – Just a point about WordPress 2.8.6 the current version — At this moment in time Wordpress 2.9 is just about to be released. I would suggest that you wait until 2.9 is out and not upgrade to 2.8.6 – - – There are many bugs and issues with this version – I am still running WP 2.7 on all my sites until 2.9 arrives – They say it will be in the next couple of months. (This is Not my opinion) I get updates from an in house WordPpress programer and this is his advice. “Straight From the horses mouth” so to speak – You can get details direct at http://www.stepintointernetmarketing.com/wordpress-information – The guys there are wordpress experts
Hi Brian. That’s a great suggestion. I almost always wait a couple months AFTER the new release to upgrade WordPress. I never, ever recommend that clients immediately upgrade, just for that reason. There are almost always bugs in the new releases and it takes several months sometimes to work out kinks and for all the plugin authors to update their plugins to catch up to the latest version. Sometimes, if you upgrade right away, a plugin will break and it won’t get fixed for a while, leaving your site stranded.
I’m going to agree with Ralph, on the backing up point, and not just cuz he has a cool name. We should always have current backups of everything. Although I agree that some people will break their sites, I disagree that it’ll be “many people.”
In any case, backup your database before upgrading versions and you’ll be in good shape.
I wait till cpanel allows for the upgrade. Never had a problem doing it that way(instead of from wordpress directly)
Backups yes! I have a huge backup drive and have had 2 crashes. One Touch Restore has not worked but luckily the drive works as a huge external drive. I moving toward online backup 5$ or so a month is worth the big pain finding out your external backup drive doesn’t work as stated.
Final Note, we should actually do these things on some type of actual schedule. The reminder Michelle put out is great, but hell we can put that in a calendar, set a reminder.. and what about our workspace? Arghhh!
Great series and great tip for upgrading Michelle. I run a WordPress upgrade service and in my experience a lot of users are not comfortable with upgrading WordPress themselves for the fear of breaking something. My advice is backup the files and the database before starting on the automatic upgrade.
Hey Michelle,
So far so good, thanks for keeping me up to date with everything.
Comments on this entry are closed.