Why Automatic Updates Are a No-Go on My WordPress Sites

I wanted to see how much quicker it would be for my webcare processes to run some of my client's simple WordPress website technical updates overnight. Larger agencies tend to do this and I wondered if it would work for my business. I decided to run a simple test to find out.

Current webcare process

My current web care process for my clients is that I run backups every single night. Every week I check that the backup is run in the mornings, usually early in the morning before they are at work. If it has not run then I run it manually before I perform manual technical updates. This includes updating plugins and themes as necessary.

As part of my process, I fill in a sheet every time I perform a check so I know what I've done. These checks include checking for malware, that the backups have worked, and the website is performing correctly after I do the updates.

WP automatic update

Why make a change?

I'm getting to the stage where I want to increase efficiency to take on more clients. To increase that efficiency, I thought, let's do the actual updates on some of the simple websites overnight. Only the simple websites, the ones that I know, don't give me any issues. I chose several websites for this trial: my old website, some demo websites and my husband's website. My husband has a straightforward website. It's got some before and after pictures. It doesn't have membership. It doesn't have e-commerce.

Honestly, he gets most of his referrals through word of mouth. It sounds awful, but if his website went down, he probably wouldn't care. His website is more about finding out if people are a good fit because they can see pictures of some of the work he's performed with before and after pictures. The website gives him some credibility to those who don't know him. He's a genuine business, and even though people can fake websites, we can fake most things nowadays; it still gives people a sense of credibility that he's a genuine business. They can see how long he's been running his business and whether he is a good fit for them.

Running the updates overnight

I decided to run this as a trial and create a process for these scheduled updated websites. The set up itself is very easy. My business process still needs to be 100 % in place, but I immediately found that it didn't save me much time. I thought it would, but the rest of the manual processes remain. I'm still going into websites to check that there's no malware on them. If there are issues, I know that  emails are sent out to my technical email address, and I want to ensure that nothing is missed.

Why I didn't like it

I like to know that website backups have been performed correctly. There are at least two backups on every website. One backup runs through a plugin and gets sent off-site somewhere to Dropbox, Google Drive, or wherever you save your files. If there was ever a problem with the hosting, the client still has a website backup. I perform a daily website backup, and some of my clients also get hosting backups done. At least two different backups are done, and I like to check that the backups have worked.

I've discovered that even on simple, easy-peasy websites like my husband's, I still want to check some things manually. I need to go in and manually check, is this okay? Is this working? And I realised that some people won't go in and check this. They won't go in and check the dashboard afterwards to see if anything needs to be updated. And they're okay with that, but it doesn't feel okay to me.

I've been testing with simple, easy-peasy websites that do not give me any trouble. I'm just coming to the conclusion that I  don't like it when it's automated. I think it's too easy to miss things. I found that I hadn't done performance checks on the website last month. It may also be because the process was not in place yet. I like to have my assurance that I'm giving my clients what they pay for. I want to have an assurance that, you know what? Everything is working okay. This is partly my perfectionist control freak and partly the service my clients pay for. I want to know what's going on. I'd want to know if it was my own small business. Maybe that's part of the issue: I'm treating my clients' websites as I would like my own to be treated.

For that reason, it may take me longer than it could do. In theory, I could run everything on automatic, and it would all be fine, but I'm missing out when doing that. I feel like my clients are missing out, that I could miss something important. I don't want to do that. I know other businesses perform scheduled updates, and they're fine with it, but after testing this for a few weeks, it doesn't suit me. I am returning to doing it myself, or I may find a VA type of person to assist me.

That's why I don't schedule overnight technical updates on my clients WordPress websites.

If you do, I'd love to know why; drop me an email to . Let's have a conversation about this. I'll also ask in my Facebook group to see what people are doing and how they are comfortable with it.
What am I missing that others are doing that they're comfortable doing automatic updates overnight, and I'm not? It could be a process that I'm missing. It could also be because I'm a control freak.
What are the things that you do update automatically and don't worry about?

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