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Most site owners know that updating their software is suitable for many reasons. However, this also extends to their site, specifically their themes. While it doesn’t make much difference, regularly updating your WordPress theme hardens your site.
The good news is that the process is simple, and in some cases, you could even automate scheduled updates. This happens within your WordPress dashboard, and the steps follow a familiar pattern.
This post will show you how to update your WordPress theme. First, discuss why you’d want to update your WordPress theme.
Why You’d Want to Update Your WordPress Theme
As an experienced site owner, you’ll know that regular updates are available for WordPress’ core, themes, and plugins. This is a necessary step for modern web design because there are often bug fixes based on user feedback.
Unfortunately, new security vulnerabilities also arise, although this is not the fault of any developer (especially WordPress’ development team). The platform is safe and secure because security issues and exploits are stopped before they harm.
Keeping your site and users secure is crucial to updating your WordPress theme. You can also use new features added to a theme. Of course, this isn’t related to site safety, but it’s still a valid reason to update your WordPress theme.
How to Update Your WordPress Theme (In 3 Steps)
Next, we’ll show you how to update your WordPress theme. If you have Administrator access to your site, this will be easy, and you’ll need no extra tools.
1. Head to the Updates Page Within WordPress
Your first task is to find available updates. The good news is that WordPress has a central location for this—the Updates page. Once you log into WordPress, look at the left-hand column. If you see a red counter, updates are available for your site.
You can also see this in the WordPress toolbar along the top of the screen – look out for the ‘circular arrow’ symbol, along with a counter:
You won’t know what needs updating, so you’ll need to click through to the page by selecting one of the update links or notices.
2. Find Out Whether Your Themes Need Updating
Once you’re in the Updates page, you’ll see a bunch of details relating to all aspects of WordPress’ updating schedule:
Depending on the updates available, you’ll see more or fewer details here. A sparse screen is often a good sign, as it means there will be no updates to carry out.
While taking care of these other updates is a good idea (especially your core WordPress updates, if any), we’re interested in theme updates. To check this, scroll to the bottom of the page. You’ll see a Themes section:
This will list all the themes with available updates. However, before you take the final step, you should take some basic precautions.
3. Carry Out Your WordPress Theme Update
It’s often a good idea to update your themes (along with all of your WordPress files). However, what isn’t so hot is losing data in the process.
Since many requests are being made between servers during the update process, it’s advisable to carry out a full and clean backup of your site before any update. What’s more, if you’re not running a child theme that carries any customizations you’ve made, updating your theme will wipe them.
If you want to update a theme and aren’t using a child theme yet have made customizations, everything is not lost. A plugin such as Child Theme Generator can do the job without fuss.
Once you have a backup and child theme, head back to the Updates screen, scroll to the Themes section, and check the boxes for the themes you wish to update. Then, click the Update Themes button:
WordPress will run through the process and show you a success screen once it’s complete:
At this point, we’d advise making another backup in case something goes wrong. Then, you’ll have a fresh backup complete with updates.
Wrapping Up
Making updates is a crucial part of running a website. One unpatched vulnerability can take your site down, which could spell disaster. WordPress has a quick and straightforward method of finding available updates and walking you through applying them. All it takes is a few seconds, and your WordPress themes will be up to date.
In this post, we’ve shown you how to update your themes. Head to the Updates page and click a button to begin the process. However, ensure you’re running a child theme, as your customizations won’t be preserved without one.
Do you update your WordPress themes regularly, and if not, why? Let us know in the comments section below!
