If you’re running a WordPress site and have a self-hosted setup (so you pay for hosting that isn’t with wordpress.com) you may have noticed a warning about your PHP version being out of date. If you’re seeing this, what should you do?
Updating it is relatively simple to do if you follow the steps below.
- First, back up your site! You can use a plugin for this but the safest way is to download the SQL database and make a copy of the files from the server.
- Next, you can install a plugin like PHP Compatibility Checker to check the compatibility of your plugins. Most will be fine but the odd one may not be happy with the current version of PHP (v7.4 at the time of writing.)
- Fix any errors, either by updating the plugins with issues or replacing them (obviously there may be some work involved if issues come up.)
- Next login to your site’s cPanel and find the section for the PHP version. You can do this yourself or, if you’re not sure about DIYing it, open a support ticket and ask tech support to help. If you’re with a reputable hosting company they’ll do it for you. Find the dropdown that shows the PHP version you are currently running and change it to the latest version. Save your changes.
- When all this is done, login again to your WP Dashboard and check things are working. In 99/100 cases you’ll have no issues.
That’s it!
If you’re not confident doing this for yourself you can always get in touch and we’ll do it for you.
