Navigating Updates: Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Your website is running on software built up by code…this is how it works, at least this is a simple way to explain it.

As time goes on there are updates and without pushing those updates certain features or functions are not supported anymore as the software team has moved on supporting those functions and features. The fix for this is also very easy especially now of days with today’s CMS’. WordPress and others like it can be updated just by a push of a button. For Cpanel websites with an FTP backend, they also have updates that have to be managed so you have to be on top of it but this would also depend on who your hosting is with as many of the hosting platforms are indeed on top of this.

The tricky part about WordPress is they have a lot of things to manage but it is very easy, even for those who aren’t technical, but you just have to be up on it. Not only does WordPress need to be updated but all the plugins need to be updated and some of them are essential to be running in order for your site to display properly. So having a way to back up your website is super important so you are able to roll back to your last known good operation. I had to do this just the other day. I made an update on my website and when I saved it the font was all strange and the spacing was off, so using WordPress I just went to the revisions of the site and went back to yesterday’s instance and then I tried the edit again. Without that feature, I would have to dig deep into the code and find the issue that no one has time for. However, getting familiar with the back end of your Cpanel FTP site where you installed your WordPress package is important and not a horrible idea. There are times when you won’t be able to log into the admin section of your website when the website is down due to an issue with plugins or something else. Getting savvy to go into the backend of your site via FTP is important so you can disable plugins manually that might be causing your site to be down.

While we are talking about plug-ins you should use plugins from popular developers and not by fly-by-night developers so they are keeping up with the constant WordPress updates. If you go with say an unpopular contact sheet developer just because you like how it looks on your site and then WordPress makes an update and WordPress is not supporting that feature anymore then you have to work fast to get your contact sheet back up. So your poor decision led to you losing the only way customers know how to contact you so you’ll be missing out on sales or engagement with your audience.

Yes I know when you got a website no one explained to you that there was more to it. If you aren’t tech savvy this is even more daunting of a thought. If this is making your head spin and you feel anxiety coming on we got you. Our team at CGAConsult has people who can improve your existing website to ensure it is easy to maintain. We can also walk you through a step-by-step plan on how to best do it. We can also maintain it for you. If your website is super out of date we can even move it over to another platform for you without any downtime. Get in touch with us so we can make this part of your life easy – https://www.cybergrooveam.com/consult

Then talking about updates and I hope this isn’t too buried in this post but hey we can call this a bonus feature for those who stuck around this far.

Those who have all of the social media platforms out there and have 4 different about us/biographies written up please take the time right now and fix that. As a musician socials are your areas of discovery, if you’re on a platform you need to be active and the information needs to be updated. If you are no longer posting on Facebook, for example, and you are only using Instagram then your last Facebook post maybe should say “I won’t be using Facebook to post anymore please head over to my Instagram”…or Twitter or whatever that would be. But your About Us page better have your most updated biography if one of those is not there you don’t have someone like myself going on your Facebook and assuming you no longer making music so we’ll take a hard pass on your project, or if a promoter out there doesn’t believe you’ll pull numbers since you don’t take your project seriously.

Don’t have time? Yep, we can help with this as well, we can even do all your social media for you outside of the posts you can only do but we can put you on an active schedule so you can insert it in your day so you’re not feeling overwhelmed to have to get a post done. Remember this is a job so make it feel that way all or you will indeed be left behind and lost in the scramble of content and competition out there.

Links:

Check Out My Substack – a lot of the same, just there