Are you unsure about whether or not you should backup your site now or wait until later?
Are you on the fence about whether or not you should install a backup plugin that allows you to schedule automatic backups?
Should you purchase a premium version of a backup plugin or settle for the basic version?
Keep reading to find out why you should be backing up your site as often as possible.
The number one reason for taking a backup of your WordPress installation is to have the backup ready in the event you need to restore the backup because your site crashes. The best time to backup your site is now. Even if don’t plan to install an update; however, before you do update your site, you should always take a complete backup just in case the install doesn’t go as planned. And I mean of everything including the database, posts, themes, plugins, and even the most minute coding changes that you have made. (Such as basic css and html changes.) The last thing you want to happen is for you to make an update to your site only for your site to crash immediately afterwards and you lose everything because you never took a backup that you could have used later on to restore your site.
There are three main options for you to choose when deciding how to make the backup. And they are…
- A plugin (from the WordPress repository).
- The WordPress Export tool (located in your WordPress Dashboard).
- phpMyAdmin (a server side utility usually included with an ftp client such as cPanel).
One of the easiest ways to perform a backup is to simply use a plugin. A plugin is a good route to take for the novice WordPress user as a high quality backup plugin can take the guess work out of how to make a backup and what options to include/exclude when making the backup. If you do decide to use a plugin, it can sometimes be a taunting task when trying to figure out exactly which backup plugin to use. After all, you should only have one type of plugin per situation. So one backup plugin, one page builder plugin, one widget plugin, etc… If you don’t know which backup plugin to use, here are three of the most popular backup plugins to help you decide;
All of these fantastic plugins have the capability to backup your entire WordPress installation. Remember that no two plugins are exactly the same. Some plugins are similar; however, they each have their own unique perks that the others don’t have. For instance, some plugins will email you the backup to your chosen email address while other plugins allow you to save your plugin to cloud storage. Which ever backup plugin you decide to use, you may want to consider purchasing the premium version of your chosen plugin if one is available. Though the basic version of the plugin will usually get the job done, the premium version of the plugin is usually loaded with extra features that the hardcore blog enthusiast just cannot live without.
A good habit to get into is to back up your site in regular intervals. Some WordPress backup plugins allow you to schedule automatic backups to be ran on specific days of the week. For instance…you may prefer for your backups to be ran during slow traffic days so as to minimize interruptions in your users’ browsing experience. Let’s say you’ve analyzed your site’s analytics and determined that a typical slow traffic day for your site is every Tuesday at around noon…then you may want to schedule your backups to be ran every Tuesday at 12:00pm. Having a set schedule for your automatic backups frees you up to focus on other areas of your site.
In future blog posts, I will briefly highlight the three methods I listed earlier and you can choose the method that best works for you.
