It is very important to backup your WordPress site. Websites have been known to lose data, become corrupted, and crash entirely. Having a backup is a great way to safeguard yourself against these potential pitfalls. Running a website without any kind of backup is asking for data loss or complete website failure.
Backing Up Your WordPress Site
There are many ways to back up your website. Some options are offered through your hosting provider and others can be used through various plugins. Lets begin with plugins as they are the most common and easily implemented solution to backup your website.
Backup Plugins
There are many plugins that can be used in WordPress. Here is a list of the most popular options available:
All three of these plugins do a great job to secure your website. If you ever need to restore your website these can be lifesavers to turn to. Having these options in your back pocket will alleviate any concerns of losing website data. Don’t make the mistake of not thinking about backups until your website has already crashed.
All of these options listed above are great ways to protect your hard work. when you are choosing your backup plugin make sure that it stores the data in a remote location. Some plugins might make you pay for something like this but at the end of the day it is worth it. Some website crashes cause you to lose access to your website entirely. When your website completely crashes and you can no longer access your website from the WordPress dashboard it is important to be able to activate your backup anyways. This is where external backups come in handy.
Hosting Backup and Alternative Options
Depending on your hosting provider, some offer backup protection plans. These are often the most convenient and the easiest to implement. In the event of a complete website crash it is very helpful to be able to restore it from outside your website. Many hosting dashboards allow you to exactly this with ease.
A great tool that I have used it Godaddy’s Managed WordPress plan. I have had my entire site crash before, but by going into their admin panel I was able to restore it with one click. Of course there are many other options out there, but keep an eye on potential hosting plans that can backup your site as they are often worth it. Depending on your level of comfortability with website repairs.
Conclusion
Backing up your website can really be a lifesaver. It is really nice not having to worry about fully resetting your website or losing potential progress that you have made over time. Having a backup plan in mind is a great way to solve an important problem before it ever begins.
Website crashes happen to even the best of us, costing countless hours, and dollars lost as a result. A couple of minutes used now can eliminate this risk and improve your site as a whole. If you ever need any help backing up your website creating a backup plan contact us and we would be happy to help.