How to make changes to your website without messing it up is something that is taken for granted by a lot of people. Trust me on this because even I've been guilty of creating problems when I've updated or changed something...and I'm a designer! Human behavior I guess is the cause of jumping into something spontaneously so we can get what needs to be done, done and try to save time and hassles. It's common and everyone does it at some point in time - even the most experienced.

Planning Your Website Update or Upgrade

I will be honest in saying it can be tricky for some people who are updating a live website because the last thing you want to do is disrupt your visitors experience while you are making changes on-the-fly but at the same time you need to make updates. So the best way to handle this conundrum?

1. Organize your content, media, scripts, theme, and anything else that you are updating
2. Layout a step-by-step list of what needs to be done and in what sequence
3. If your update or upgrade involves substantial changes, BACK-UP your site files and database. I cannot emphasize this enough because if anything went wrong, back-ups gives you the opportunity to go back to the original setup.
4. Begin your update by following your step-by-step list you just made.
5. Check your site once you are done and see if it was a success. However, even if it's 100%, keep your backed up version for a few days to ensure it really did go well. Sometimes you won't notice any bugs until visitors to your site experiences something you didn't see at first.

Very Important - Do not rush into this process because you do not want to make a mistake, especially if there is a lot to do and for anything that is complicated.

When Should You Back-up Your Website Files and Database?

Not all updates to your site requires you to back-up your files and/or database. Things like adding in a plugin or extension or editing content, doesn't really require this but even still, if there is a new untested plugin or extension, I would recommend you back-up first. You really don't know how it will affect your live site, so rather than take chances, it's still best to keep a backed up version of your site - on a regular basis is ideal!

However, for anything major, such as upgrading your WordPress or Joomla cms (content management system), I would STRONGLY RECOMMEND you do a full back-up. There have been times in the past when I've done this without having that fail safe option and ended up having to pay my host provider a large fee to restore my site from their own back-ups.  This is also the case for any "untested" scripts, components, extensions, and plugins.

Changing Your Website Theme or Template

In most cases, you probably don't have to back-up your site when changing to a new theme or template, so this will be up to your own choices on this matter. However, if you are using a theme or template for your WordPress or Joomla website, and you recently downloaded an upgrade of that product, make sure you carefully read the CHANGELOG.

CHANGELOG: A changelog is a file that is usually present within the downloaded package and outlines any changes made to that product and each time such changes were made, it gets added to this file in a dated format.

Sometimes a designer makes significant changes to the core template or code and therefore would affect your existing version in a way that would make you very upset if you were not aware of these changes. For example, lets say the designer changed the layout of widgets or modules that is different from the one you have. You go to upgrade the theme, only to see it has now messed up the front-end of your site's layout. You would not be happy...

In situations like this, you should always establish a "development site" to apply the new upgrade and to check everything to ensure it's ok to go live with it. If there are things messed up, then you can make your adjustments before doing so. A good example is when I completely rebuilt my Pixel Media Blogger theme and the Blue Fractal theme for WordPress. I let everyone know if you are using the previous version, that I had made extensive changes and rebuilt each one from the ground up.

Summary

If you follow the steps and guide that I presented here, you should be fine...just make sure you do regular back-ups of your site and database at all times or at minimum, just before you perform such updates and upgrades.