So, you have your shiny new custom blog design, and you have chosen WordPress as your blogging platform (great choice!).  Wordpress can be really intimidating, and there is definitely a learning curve on your new blog design template, but I have faith in you!  The best way to learn is by doing, so get to posting, for sure!  There are a few blog design maintenance tips you want to consider however, and these can be confusing to the new blogger.  Probably the most important item in a self-hosted WordPress custom blog design is to keep your blog and plugins updated.  What does this mean, and how does this work?

WordPress.org is an open-source, free blogging platform (you only pay for your hosting and domain).  And the WordPress developers are amazing, they devote so much time and energy to making WordPress great, it seems like they never stop working!  And because of this, there are constant updates to WordPress, making it bigger, better, faster and stronger (okay maybe not bigger and stronger, but better and faster for sure).  So, to make sure that your blog design template stays in great shape, you want to pay attention when WordPress, your child theme or a plugin offers and update.  So here is a step by step guide on how to maintain your custom blog design installation.

Step 1:

Log into your WordPress blog.  Make sure you are in the Dashboard.  Directly below the Home link, you will see a link called Updates.  Click on the Updates link.

Step 2:

First, make sure that your version of WordPress is updated to the latest version.  You can always click the Check Again button, but the Dashboard will indicate if you need to update.  Second, click on the Select All button to select all plugins.  Then click the Update Plugins button to update all of your plugins to the latest version.  This will take a few minutes.

Step 3:

You will now see a page listing your sucessfully updated plugins.  It is most important to keep your WordPress version updated, but it is good practice to update the plugins on your blog design template as well.  This helps keep your blog secure and also ensures that all plugins are running the latest (and greatest) version!  All done!  Remember, you hired a blog designer, you invested in a custom blog design, so keep your new blog design template safe and up to date.  And enjoy!