Why you should update your Umbraco v7 asap
September 30th may seem quite far away, but you shouldn’t delay updating to a new Umbraco version. Why? Well, we’ve listed the most important reasons for you:
- Updating your Umbraco v7 platform is time-consuming
It’s quite the project, almost like a complete rebuild which takes up a lot of time and effort. So, time wise it is advised to start with the update as soon as possible. - You run a big security risk running your website(s) on Umbraco v7
Whenever you have a security issue from September 30th onwards it can’t be resolved for Umbraco 7. Especially with current GDPR privacy regulations, you can’t afford to jeopardise this for yourself and your clients. A no-brainer when it comes to wanting to be taken seriously. - Outdated features & lack of new features
The Umbraco v7 features will be outdated soon and will not be renewed with new features past the EOL stage. This means you will not be able to get access to all the new improvements, patches etc. Resulting in an unreliable, non-secure and unfriendly CMS. This means you will not be working with the latest major version of Umbraco. Umbraco releases a major twice a year and minor releases every six weeks. - Updating to Umbraco v10, v11 or v12 gives you a lot of new features
When you update to a new version of Umbraco you will get access to a lot of new features. Such as the latest version of .net which results in better performance, new back-office features.
Updating options
To which Umbraco version should you update then? The latest versions are v10 and v11. There are so-called LTS Umbraco versions who are supported longer than other (shortly supported) versions. Currently the Umbraco v10 is the long-supported version. Which has its perks as it is supported longer and only has small (and less frequent) maintenance updates for bug- and security fixes. However, you will not be getting the newest features, which are now only available in v11. The v12 will make its entry within four months. Besides that, when the v10 End-Of-Life comes, you will have to make quite the update to the latest version. When you decide on v11 you will have the newest features and will only have to do small updates from time to time.
We can imagine you would like support in your decision. As a proud Umbraco Gold Partner, we are more than happy to help you with your website rebuild. Our golden partnership demonstrates our expertise with the platform and guarantees a quality rebuild to the best suited version without any hassle. Want to read more on the benefits of our Umbraco Gold Partnership? Take a look here.
Review current website
While you’re at it, you might as well take a closer look at your website too. We have listed a few tips for you to upgrade your website to the next level resulting in a faster, more accessible, thus completely up to date website. Which might give you a head start on your competition as well.
- Upgrade from Universal Analytics to GA4
First and foremost: if you haven’t heard about the mandatory migration from UA to GA4 yet, now is the time. UA is coming to an end and will stop processing on July 1st, 2023. Read all about it in our latest blog article on why you must upgrade as soon as possible. - SEO requirements check
Every once a while check in on your Core Web Vitals to improve your search ranking and, just as important, your user experience. All users and Google are big fans of websites with a good page experience. Read all about page experience and Core Web Vitals on Google’s Search Central. - Increase your accessibility
In a few years it is also mandatory to comply with the set Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: WCAG 2.1. A set of guidelines to help you make your online product or service accessible and functional for a large target group. This is your reminder to take a critical look at your website and start looking at it from an accessibility point of view. - Update your design
If your website runs on Umbraco v7 it means that your design may be outdated as well. Of course, we are ready to hook you up with a beautiful, daring accessible and functional design to help you reach your target audience the best way possible.