If you have a website, you know how important it is to keep it updated and secure. You also know how challenging it can be to manage and maintain your website, especially if you have a lot of content and functionality. That is why you need a reliable and robust content management system (CMS) that can help you create and manage your website with ease and efficiency.

One of the best CMS options available today is Joomla 4, the latest version of the Joomla CMS. Joomla 4 was released in August 2021 and it brings a lot of new features and improvements that make it faster, more secure, more user-friendly, more accessible, and more SEO-optimised than ever before. It also has a new modern design for both the front-end and the back-end of your website.

If you are still using an older version of Joomla for your website, such as Joomla 3 or Joomla 2.5, you might be wondering why you should update to Joomla 4 now. After all, updating your website can be a daunting and time-consuming task, especially if you have a lot of customisations and extensions. You might also be worried about compatibility issues or losing some functionality that you rely on.

However, there are many compelling reasons why you should update your website to Joomla 4 as soon as possible. Here are some of them:

• Joomla 3 has reached its end of life (EOL) on August 17, 2023. This means that it will no longer receive any updates or security patches from the Joomla project. This will leave your website vulnerable to hackers, malware, and other threats. Updating to Joomla 4 will ensure that your website stays secure and protected from cyberattacks.

• Joomla 4 is much faster than Joomla 3. It uses the latest PHP version (8.1 or higher) and has improved caching and performance optimisation features. This will make your website load faster and smoother for your visitors, which will improve their user experience and satisfaction. A faster website will also boost your SEO ranking, as Google considers speed as one of the factors for ranking websites.

• Joomla 4 is more SEO-friendly than Joomla 3. It has built-in SEO features that help you optimise your website for search engines. For example, it has a new routing system that creates cleaner and more semantic URLs for your pages. It also has a new media manager that allows you to add alt text and captions to your images. It also supports structured data and schema.org markup, which help search engines understand your content better and display rich snippets in the search results.

• Joomla 4 is more accessible than Joomla 3. It follows the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 standards, which ensure that your website is accessible to people with disabilities. For example, it has improved contrast, keyboard navigation, skip links, headings, labels, and landmarks. It also has a new accessibility plugin that allows you to adjust the font size, colour scheme, and contrast of your website according to your preferences.

• Joomla 4 is more user-friendly than Joomla 3. It has a new admin interface that is sleeker, simpler, and more intuitive. It also has guided tours that help you learn how to use the admin section of your website. It also has a new front-end template that is responsive, elegant, and customisable. It also has a new workflow feature that allows you to create custom workflows for managing your content.

As you can see, updating your website to Joomla 4 will bring many benefits to you and your visitors. However, updating your website can also be a challenging and complex process, especially if you are not familiar with the technical aspects of web development.

That is why you should hire a professional web design company like Identity Web Design to help you with the update process. Identity Web Design is a leading web design company in Ipswich that specialises in Joomla websites. They have the expertise, experience, and tools to update your website to Joomla 4 smoothly and efficiently.

Identity will take care of everything for you, from backing up your website, testing the compatibility of your extensions and templates, migrating your data and content, fixing any errors or bugs, optimising your website for speed and SEO, and launching your updated website.

With Identity's help, you can enjoy all the benefits of Joomla 4 without any hassle or stress. You can focus on creating great content for your website while Identity takes care of the technical details.

If you want to update your website to Joomla 4 now, contact Identity Web Design today for a free consultation and quote. They will be happy to assist you with your web design needs and help you take your website to the next level with Joomla 4.