WordPress Conversion Tracking Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide

Do you want to add conversion tracking features to your WordPress website?

Conversion tracking helps you measure the impact of your marketing efforts and makes it easier to understand how users interact with your website.

In this guide, we will show you how to add conversion tracking in WordPress and track your conversions like a total pro.

This is a comprehensive WordPress conversion tracking guide, so we have divided it up into different sections. Here is what we’ll cover in this guide:

• What is conversion tracking?
• Why is conversion tracking important?
• Tools you need to setup conversion tracking in WordPress
• Setting up conversion tracking in Google Analytics
• Turning on enhanced eCommerce conversion tracking
• Viewing eCommerce conversion tracking reports
• Turning on form conversion tracking in Google Analytics
• Setting up goals for conversion tracking in Google Analytics
• Google Ads conversion tracking in Google Analytics
• Usinng UTM parameters for conversion tracking in Google Analytics
• Setting up Facebook conversion tracking in WordPress
• Setting up Twitter conversion tracking in WordPress
• Optimizing conversion rates to boost sales

What is Conversion Tracking?

Conversion tracking is the ability to track and measure the success of your various marketing efforts.

Depending on your business, the conversion is the desired action you want users to perform on your website.

• For an online store / eCommerce website, a conversion could be a successful purchase.
• For a news/blog site, the conversion could be a successful subscription of the email newsletter.
• For a professional services website, a conversion could be a user filling up a contact form.

Simply put, conversion tracking shows you how many of your website visitors successfully perform the desired action.

Why is Conversion Tracking Important?

Conversion tracking is important because it helps you make data-driven decisions to grow your business.

For instance, it shows you that users coming from a specific traffic source are more likely to convert. You can then focus your attention on getting more traffic from that particular source.

Conversion tracking also helps you uncover the users who are not converting so well.

For instance, you may learn that users open the contact page but many abandon before submitting the form. You can then make your form easier by removing unnecessary fields, make it conversational, change colors, setup partial form submission, etc.

Basically, you need conversion tracking to measure your success and failures and then improve upon them to grow your online business.

That being said, let’s take a look at what tools we’ll need to set up conversion tracking in WordPress.

Tools You Need to Setup Conversion Tracking in WordPress

Most conversion optimization experts rely heavily on Google Analytics. It is a free tool provided by Google that helps you track your website traffic.

It shows where your users are coming from, and what they do while on your website.

If you are running Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, to promote your business, then you’ll need to set up those as well for conversion tracking.

This may sound complicated, but you’ll only have to set it up once, and we’ll walk you through every step of the way.

Ready? Let’s get started.

Setting up Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics

First, you need to install Google Analytics on your website.

The easiest way to do this is by using MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin on the market that comes with enhanced eCommerce tracking, form tracking, and other conversion tracking tools built-in.

You’ll need the PRO version of the plugin to access eCommerce and other conversion tracking features. For basic tracking, the free version works as well.

Simply install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Insights » Reports page in WordPress admin area. You’ll be prompted to setup MonsterInsights by launching the setup wizard.

Follow the on-screen instructions to connect your WordPress site to Google Analytics using MonsterInsights. For more details, see our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Now that you have installed Google Analytics, let’s set up conversion tracking on your website.

Turning on Enhanced Ecommerce Conversion Tracking

Ecommerce tracking helps you see which products are doing well on your site, which products are being looked at but not purchased, and what’s bringing you the most revenue.

Google Analytics comes with enhanced eCommerce tracking which works for most eCommerce websites including WooCommerce. However, you’ll need to manually enable it for your website.

Step 1. Turn on Enhanced Ecommerce in Google Analytics

First, you need to enable enhanced eCommerce tracking in your Google Analytics account. Go to your Google Analytics dashboard and select your website.

From here, you need to click on the Admin button located at the bottom left corner of the screen.

On the next screen, you’ll see different Google Analytics settings. Under the ‘View’ column, click the ‘Ecommerce Settings’ link:

After that, you need to turn on ‘Enable eCommerce’ and ‘Enable Enhanced Commerce’ options.

Google Analytics will now turn on the eCommerce reporting feature for your account.

Step 2. Turn on eCommerce Tracking in MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights come with an eCommerce addon that allows you to properly set up eCommerce conversion tracking in Google Analytics.

It works with all top eCommerce platforms for WordPress including WooCommerce, MemberPress, LifterLMS, and Easy Digital Downloads.

First, you need to visit the Insights » Addons page to install and activate the eCommerce addon.

After that, you need to visit the Insights » Settings page and switch to the eCommerce tab. From here, you need to turn on the ‘Use Enhanced Ecommerce’ option.

MonsterInsights will automatically detect your eCommerce software and enable advanced eCommerce tracking for your store.

Note: the manual process for adding eCommerce conversion tracking has a lot of room for errors, so we strongly recommend that you use a plugin like MonsterInsights.

Viewing Ecommerce Conversion Tracking Reports

Now that you have enabled eCommerce conversion tracking on your website. Let’s see how to view these reports and use them to make informed decisions about your business.

Ecommerce Conversion Reports in MonsterInsights

Simply go to the Insights » Reports page inside WordPress admin area and then switch to the eCommerce tab.

At the top, you’ll see your most important conversion metrics the conversion rate, transactions, revenue, and average order value.

Below that you will see a list of your top products with quantity, sale percentage, and total revenue. This shows you which products are doing well in your store.

Next, you’ll see your top conversion sources with the number of visits, conversion share, and revenue. You can see which sources are bringing you more revenue and which traffic sources are not very effective.

MonsterInsights will also show you shopper behavior reports with the number of times products were added to and removed from the cart.

That’s not all the data. You can drill down these reports even further inside Google Analytics.

Ecommerce Conversion Reports in Google Analytics

Simply visit your Google Analytics dashboard and click on the Conversions » Ecommerce from the left column.

The overview section offers the most important stats such as revenue, conversion rate, transactions, and average order value.

You can further drill down to view different reports. For example, you can switch to shopping and checkout behavior reports to see how users reach to the conversion page. You can also figure out what stopped them at the last minute from completing the transaction.

Turning on Form Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics

Not all websites use an eCommerce platform to conduct business. For instance, a restaurant website may use an order delivery form, or a salon may use a booking form.

Many businesses use contact forms to capture leads from their website. A lot of news and blogs use an email newsletter to convert website visitors into subscribers.

To track them, you need to enable form conversion tracking in Google Analytics.

MonsterInsights come with a Forms addon which allows you to easily track form conversions on your WordPress site. It works with all popular WordPress form plugins including WPForms, Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7, and more.

Simply go to the Insights » Addons page. Scroll down to the ‘Forms’ addon, and then click on the Install button.

Upon activation, you need to visit Insights » Settings page and switch to the ‘Connversions’ tab.

MonsterInsights will automatically detect your WordPress form plugin and will also start tracking miscellaneous WordPress forms on your site.

Viewing Your Form Conversion Reports

You can now view your form conversion reports inside your WordPress admin area.

Head over to Insights » Reports page and switch to the ‘Forms’ tab.

You’ll see a list of forms on your website with their impressions, conversion, and conversion rates.

You can also click on the ‘View full forms report’ button which will take you to the Google Analytics website. It will show all your form conversions as individual events.

Setting up Goals for Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics

So far we have covered how to track eCommerce and form conversions.

What if you wanted to manually set up conversion goals and track them in Google Analytics?

For instance, you may want to consider users visiting a specific page as a conversion. Since it is not a form submission or an eCommerce transaction it will not appear as a conversion in your reports.

Google Analytics allows you to create your own goals and track their conversion. Let’s see how to set them up and track them on your website.

Go to the Google Analytics dashboard and click the ‘Admin’ tab on the bottom left. Then, in the View column, click on Goals.

Now, you need to click on the + New Goal button to set up a new goal.

If you previously selected industry for your website, then you may see a template section here. You can skip this and click on the Custom radio button beneath. Then click Continue.

• Destination: this tracks whether a visitor went to a specific page. This could be a thank you page, or any conversion page on your site.
• Duration: this tracks how long a visitor spent on your website. More time spent on website means more engagement.
• Pages/Screens per session: this tracks how many pages an average visitor looks at on your site.
• Event: this can track all sorts of things, like button clicks, video plays, and downloads. It requires a bit more setup than the other options.

Destination and Event types are the most commonly used goal types for most businesses.

For this tutorial, we are going to create a ‘Destination’ goal to track visitors who view our thank you page after filling out a form.

First, provide a name for your Goal. It needs to be something meaningful so that you can easily identify it in your Google Analytics reports. Choose ‘Destination’ as your goal type and click on the continue button.

Now you can simply provide the last part of the URL that you want to track as the destination.

For instance, if your page is:
https://ift.tt/3gwAH5a

Then you should enter:
/thank-you-for-booking/

Below that, you can optionally add a value for the conversion. This makes sense if people are completing a payment form, or if you know how much each lead is worth to you on average.

If you want to track a funnel, such as a customer moving through a checkout process, then you can also do this as part of the destination goal. This can help you pinpoint areas you might want to improve.

Once you’re happy with your goal, click the Save button. You should then see your goal listed in a table. You can edit it, switch it off and on, or create more goals here.

Viewing Your Goal Conversions in Google Analytics

Now that you have created your goal allow Google Analytics to collect some data. After that, you can view your Goal Conversion report under the Google Analytics dashboard.

Simply, go to the Conversions » Goals and then click on the overview.

Like all Google Analytics reports you can drill down to view visitor journey and get deeper insights.

For more details, see our complete guide on setting up goals in Google Analytics

Google Ads Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics

If you run Google Ads (formerly, Google AdWords), to bring targetted traffic to your website, then you may want to track those conversions.

It is a bit complicated to set up but we will walk you through it step by step.

Step 1. Link Google Ads to Your Analytics Account

Login to your Google Analytics dashboard and click on the admin button at the bottom left corner of the screen. Next, click on the ‘Google Ads Linking’ under the ‘Property’ column.

Next, you’ll be asked to select your Google Ads account. The Google account you are using for your Analytics should also have access to your Google Ads account.

Under the ‘Link configuration’ section, provide a title for this link group and then turn on the All Website Data.

Finally, you can also check the box next to ‘Share my Analytics data with linked Google Ads accounts’ option. This will allow you to track your Google Analytics goals in Google Ads.

Click on the link account button to save your changes.

Once you have linked to your Google Ads account, analytics will automatically begin tracking your Google Ads.

Step 2. Enable Conversion Tracking in Google Ads

If you running an eCommerce store then you would also want to enable conversion tracking in your Google Ads account. This helps you compare your ads budget with the revenue generated by those ads.

Login to your Google Ads account and click on the ‘Tools & Settings’ button at the top bar. From here, you need to select the ‘Conversions’ link under the Measurement section.

Next, you need to select ‘Website’ when asked what do you want to track.

After that, you will be asked to configure your conversion tracking. There are a bunch of options available. For instance, you can track purchases, add to cart, leads, sign ups, and so on.

You can also provide a fixed value for each conversion or an average value.

Once you are happy with your settings, click on the ‘Create and Continue’ button.

Next, you will be asked to install the tracking code on your website. You need to select ‘Install the tag yourself’ option.

From here, you need to choose the option ‘The global site tag isn’t installed on all your HTML pages’ option.

After that, copy the code you see on the screen and paste it in a text editor like Notepad.

Next, you need to install and activate the Insert Headers and Footers plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page. From here, you need to paste the code you copied earlier in the header section.

You can now click on the Save button to store your settings. Your Google Ads account has now conversion tracking enabled.

Viewing Google Ads Conversion Reports in Google Analytics

Your Google Ads conversion tracking will now start appearing in your Google Analytics reports. You can view them under Acquisation » Campaigns » Paid Campaigns section.

Use UTM Parameters for Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics

UTM parameters are special tags that you can add to URLs to pass along important information to Google Analytics.

For instance, if you want to track users coming from a particular ad, then you can add UTM parameters to your ad URL like this:

https://yourwebsite.com/special-offer/?utm_source=ads&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=bfad

You can also use UTM parameters anywhere you want to share your URLs. For instance, your email newsletter, Tweets, SMS campaigns, and more.

https://yourwebsite.com/special-offer/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jan_sale

MonsterInsights makes it super easy to build URLs with UTM parameters. Simply head over to Insights » Tools page and add your URL under the URL builder.

Simply enter the UTM parameters you want to use and it will automatically generate the URL which you can then use in your campaigns.

Viewing UTM Parameter Reports in Google Analytics

You can now track conversions of your campaigns under your Google Analytics dashboard. Simply switch to the Acquisation » Campaigns » All Campaigns report.

Your campaigns will appear here and you can click on any of them to further drill down.

Setting up Facebook Conversion Tracking in WordPress

Facebook is the largest social media website on the planet with billions of active users. This is why Facebook ads are sometimes the easiest way to reach a very niche audience.

Now, if you are running Facebook ads then you may want to see how well your ads are doing by implementing conversion tracking for your Facebook ads.

Let’s set up Facebook conversion tracking on your WordPress website.

Installing the Facebook Pixel in WordPress

First, you need to visit the Facebook Ads Manager website and select the ‘Event Manager’ option from the top menu.

Next, you need to click on the ‘Add New Data Source’ button from the left column and then select ‘Facebook Pixel’.

Facebook Ads Manager will now create a unique Pixel for your ad account. You now need to click on the ‘Set up Pixel’ button to continue.

This will bring up a popup where you need to select ‘Manually add pixel code to website’ option.

Next, you’ll see a code snippet that you need to copy and paste in a plain text editor like Notepad.

Now you need to leave this browser tab open and access your WordPress site’s admin area in a new tab.

Next, you need to install and activate the Insert Headers and Footers plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page. From here, you need to paste the Facebook Pixel base code in the header section.

You can now click on the Save button to store your settings.

Once you have installed the Facebook pixel base code, switch back to the Facebook Pixel set up tab.

You can now click on the continue button to get the next code. The easiest way to do this by simply entering your website URL and then choose which events you want to track.

Facebook will now open your website in a new browser tab. You can follow the on-screen instructions to set up events you want to track.

Viewing Facebook Conversion Tracking Reports

Facebook offers in-depth analysis for your ads and the Facebook pixel. Simply visit the Facebook Analytics website and select your Facebook pixel to view conversion reports.

Setting up Twitter Conversion Tracking in WordPress

If you run Twitter Ads to promote your business, then you’ll need to setup Twitter conversion tracking to measure the success of your ads.

Simply log in to your Twitter Ads account and click on the Tools » Conversion tracking link.

This will bring you to the conversion tracking set up for your Twitter Ads. Click on the ‘Generate website tag for conversion tracking’ button.

On the next screen, you will see the website tag code. You need to copy this code and paste it in a text editor like Notepad.

Now, you need to switch back to your WordPress website’s admin area.

If you haven’t already done so, then go ahead and install and activate the Insert Headers and Footers plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page. Now you can paste the Twitter conversion tracking code into the body section.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.

Once you have successfully installed the conversion tracking code, you will be able to view reports under the conversion tracking page on your Twitter Ads account.

Optimizing Conversion Rates to Boost Sales

Once you start tracking conversions on your website, the next step is to make improve those conversion rates.

You’d be surprised how little things can make huge impact on your business.

The best way to improve your conversions is by using OptinMonster. It is the best conversion optimization software on the market and helps you convert more visitors into customers.

OptinMonster comes with tools like lightbox popups, fullscreen welcome mats, countdown timer, slide-in boxes, and more.

It integrates with any email marketing service and works with all popular eCommerce platforms.

OptinMonster’s display rules allow you to show targetted messages to your customers at the precise time and nudge them into making a buying decision.

For instance, if you notice that customers are leaving a product page without taking any action, then you can offer them a discount when they are about to exit.

Similarly, you can run time-sensitive campaigns to trigger FOMO effect and give customers a nudge in the right direction.

For more practical tips, see our guide on how ways to recover WooCommerce abandoned cart sales.

We hope this guide helped you set up conversion tracking in WordPress. You may also want to see our comparison of the best business phone services and best drag & drop page builders for WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post WordPress Conversion Tracking Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on WPBeginner.

May 28, 2020 at 06:17PM

How to Create a WordPress Form With a Date Picker

Do you need people to pick a date when they fill in a form on your website?

Perhaps you want to know a good time to call them, or maybe you want to gather information such as date of birth, etc. That’s where a date picker field can help.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create a WordPress form with a date picker.

Creating a WordPress Form With a Date Picker

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the WPForms. It’s one of the best contact form plugins out there, and you can use it for all sorts of different forms.

You’ll need to install and active the WPForms plugin on your site. If you’re not sure how to do that, take a look at our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once you’ve activated the plugin, go to WPForms » Add New in your WordPress dashboard.

The WPForms builder will appear. First, type in a name for your form. Then, hover your mouse cursor over a template and click the button to select it. We’re going to use the Simple Contact Form template.

WPForms will automatically create a form for you using that template. Here’s the default simple contact form.

You can now edit the form in any way you like.

Let’s add the date picker field.

In the form builder, you’ll see all the fields that you can add to your form in the right column. Scroll down to the Fancy Fields section, and you will see the Date / Time field.

Drag and drop the field to where you want it on your form. We’ve placed it just below the Email field on our form.

Next, click on the field to edit it. This will bring up the ‘Field Options’ tab on the left hand side of your screen.

You can change the label of the field, which defaults to ‘Date / Time’. We’re going to use ‘Preferred Time for Phone Call’ for our field.

You can also change the format of the field using the Format dropdown. For instance, you might want to use just a date and no time, such as for a date of birth field.

You can also check the Required box if you want to make this a mandatory field. This means the user will have to select a date and time before they can submit the form.

You can add any other new fields that you want to use, too. Just click the ‘Add Fields’ tab then drag and drop the field onto your field. To edit a field, simply click on it.

Setting Advanced Options for your Date Picker

By default, the date picker on your form will be a calendar with a time dropdown next to it. The user simply clicks on a day to select that date.

The time dropdown defaults to a 12 hour clock with 30 minute intervals, like this:

You might want to change how the date picker works. That’s easy to do in WPForms. In the Field Options tab, scroll down to Advanced Options.

Next, click the arrow to open up that section.

Here, you can make lots of changes. For instance, you might want to change the date format. The default is mm/dd/yyyy.

You can also switch from the date picker to a date dropdown, if you prefer. In this case, the user selects the month, day, and year from dropdown boxes, like this:

You can also change the time picker. It defaults to a 12 hour clock, but you can switch this to a 24 hour clock if you prefer. You can also change the intervals to 15 minutes or 1 hour instead of 30 minutes.

Once you’re happy with your form, you can save it by clicking the Save button on the top right.

You may also want to set up your form so that the person completing the form gets a copy of the details they submitted.

This could be helpful, for example, if they’re scheduling a call with you. They’ll have an email record of the call time they booked.

You can do that by following the instructions in our tutorial on creating a contact form with multiple recipients.

Adding Your Form to Your Website

You can either add your form to an existing page (or post) on your site, or you can create a new one. To create a new page, go to Pages » Add New in your WordPress dashboard.

You’ll then need to add a new block to your page. Click on the (+) to add the block then select the WPForms block. You can find it in the Widgets section or you can search for it using the search bar.

Next, you’ll need to select your form from the WPForms dropdown, like this:

That’s all you need to do. You can now publish your page and your form will be live on your website. It should look something like this:

Note: The styling of the form will depend on the WordPress theme you’re using.

All forms created with WPForms are mobile-friendly out of the box and will work on any mobile devices. WPForms date-picker tool is also mobile-friendly and works on all screen sizes.

It’s always a good idea to test out your form to make sure it’s working as you expected. If you aren’t getting emails but you’re sure your notification settings are correct, our article on how to fix the WordPress not sending email issue should help.

You can make changes to your form by going to WPForms » All Forms. Then, just click on the title of your form or the Edit link beneath the title to edit it.

Once you save your form, it’ll be updated on your website automatically.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a WordPress form with a datepicker. You might also want to take a look at our articles on how to block contact form spam in WordPress and how to track and reduce form abandonment in WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a WordPress Form With a Date Picker appeared first on WPBeginner.

May 27, 2020 at 05:00PM

How to Disable Automatic Updates in WordPress

Did you know that WordPress can automatically update your website? In some cases, that can include plugins and themes too.

Despite the security benefits, there is a slight chance that these background updates can break your website.

In this article, we will show you how to disable automatic updates in WordPress, so you can manually update on your own.

Why WordPress Updates Automatically

WordPress automatically updates the core WordPress software for security reasons.

Sometimes, it may also update a plugin or theme to fix a potential threat. For instance, a WordPress plugin or theme might be updated to remove a critical vulnerability. If that plugin or theme is used by a lot of websites, WordPress core team may push out an automatic update for that.

Apart from those situations, WordPress lets you decide when you want to install updates.

We don’t recommend turning off automatic WordPress updates. They’re an important security feature.

However, in some rare situations, updates can break your website or affect its functionality. This could lead to you losing business and customers.

If you’re confident that you can manage manual updates yourself, then you can safely disable automatic updates in WordPress.

Configuring and Disabling Automatic WordPress Updates

The easiest way to do this is by installing and activating the Easy Updates Manager plugin. If you’re not sure how to do that, take a look at our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once the plugin is activated, go to Dashboard » Updates Options to configure your settings.

You can choose to ‘Disable all updates’, but we don’t recommend this option. Primarily because it’ll prevent all update notifications from appearing.

Instead, you should pick the settings you want. You could disable plugin and theme auto-updates, but leave the standard core WordPress auto-updates enabled.

Note: If you choose ‘Disable plugin updates’ and ‘Disable theme updates’ instead of ‘Disable auto updates’, then you won’t even see the update notifications in your plugins and themes lists.

Easy Updates Manager keeps a log of what’s updated, so if anything does break on your site, you can rollback to a previous working version. To view this, go to Dashboard » Updates Options and then click the ‘Logs’ tab.

There’s also a premium version of Easy Updates Manager, which offers a lot of extra options. For instance, it integrates with UpdraftPlus so that you can automatically run a backup of your site before updates are applied.

Disabling Automatic WordPress Updates Without Using a Plugin

What if you don’t want to use a plugin? You can disable automatic updates in WordPress by adding this line of code in your wp-config.php file:

define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false );

This will disable all automatic WordPress updates.

Important: Make sure you read our article on how to safely edit the wp-config.php file in WordPress with step by step instructions.

If you want to receive minor core updates, but disable theme and plugin updates, you can do so by adding the following filters in your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin.

Disable automatic WordPress plugin updates:

add_filter( 'auto_update_plugin', '__return_false' );

Disable automatic WordPress theme updates:

add_filter( 'auto_update_theme', '__return_false' );

Pros and Cons of Automatic WordPress Updates

Now you know how to disable automatic updates, but should you disable them? There’s no right answer and this depends on you and your website.

On our sites, we’ve disabled automatic plugin and theme updates while keeping the minor core updates enabled.

Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of automatic updates. That way, you can decide whether to disable auto-updates on your site.

Advantages of Automatic Updates in WordPress

Automatic updates are great for WordPress security. Many users forget to update their plugins or their core WordPress installation.

With automatic WordPress updates enabled, you don’t have to worry about updating your site whenever a minor update to WordPress is released. These are pushed out for maintenance and security purposes.

In the past, automatic updates were something you only got by paying for managed WordPress hosting. Now, they’re available for everyone (at least for minor releases).

You also know that if there’s a crucial security issue with WordPress or a popular plugin, then WordPress will automatically update. Even if you’re busy or away from home, your site will stay secure.

If you have a lot of sites, then automatic updates can save you quite a bit of time. And even if you only have one site, you might prefer the peace of mind of knowing that WordPress is taking care of things.

Disadvantages of Automatic Updates in WordPress

The core WordPress team responsible for releasing updates, makes sure that it goes without a hiccup.

However, there is a slight chance that automatic updates can break your site. In our experience, the minor releases haven’t broken any of our sites yet.

That’s because we are following the best practices and not modifying any core files. If you modify WordPress core files, then these automatic updates can override them.

If WordPress ever felt it necessary to push out a security update for a theme you are using, there is a chance that it will break your website. This particularly applies if you have modified your theme files.

Automatic plugin updates can potentially break your site as well. There are just too many variables, such as different server environments and plugin combinations.

Now it’s important to know that these updates will not break the vast majority of websites. Even so, you may feel you don’t want to take the risk.

Another drawback is that you won’t always automatically get a notification when your site is updated.

Should I Disable Automatic WordPress Updates?

Basically, it is up to you to make this decision.

For most beginners and vast majority of WordPress websites, automatic updates are harmless, and you should not disable them.

However, if you run an online store or don’t want to lose business due to a broken site, then you can safely turn off automatic updates.

Still, make sure that you manually install those updates in a timely manner to ensure your website’s security.

We hope this article helped you learn how to disable automatic updates in WordPress.

Whether you’re using automatic or manual updates, it’s crucial to make sure you have regular backups of your site. Take a look at our comparison of the best WordPress backup plugins and our guide on how to restore your WordPress site from a backup.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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May 26, 2020 at 05:00PM