If you run a WordPress blog or website, like I do, you know that having your data secure is critical to keeping your site up and running. I worry A LOT about hackers, but most often, I’ve broken my site all by myself! That’s why I am very careful to make SURE my site is always backed up.
I learned this lesson the hard way, so I’m hoping I can save you from that moment of panic when I realized my lifestyle blog of ten years might be going down the tubes. What a terrifying feeling! If your site has ever been hacked or just destroyed in a technical glitch, you’ll know that feeling!
Why is it Necessary to Backup Your Website?
Now I love WordPress, but I really had my reservations from moving away from nice, stable, SAFE Blogger. Not that you can’t break your site in Blogger, but it’s a lot more rare. In WordPress, you can just breathe wrong and crash your site. Trust me, I’ve done it – lots of times. Plus the hackers are a LOT more interested in WordPress sites, so there is a constant threat of malicious activity.
Check out my post on Website Security and learn how to protect your site from hackers.
When I started with WordPress, I paid my host a dollar a month extra to have my site backed up automatically. I thought I was being smart, but as it turns out a dollar was about what that plan was worth! What I discovered is that while my host backed up my site every day, but then they also overwrote that backup copy the NEXT DAY. I’m sure they do that to save money, but it’s a horrible plan.
That’s why I switched to Siteground. They are SO much better than my original host, which wasn’t even cheaper. But to me, the point of a host isn’t that they are cheap, it is that they are RESPONSIVE. I can usually get live help on Siteground in 5 minutes or less. That’s critical when something is broken.
It may take half a day for you to notice that your site is hacked, or crashed, or broken. You might not see it until the next morning, so there goes 8 hours. Then it may take you another few hours to figure out what to do, and to get through to your hosting company. Ooops! By then, the malicious or corrupted code may be incorporated into your backup copy.
Do you have a tech person on call when your site crashes? I didn’t. But I do now – several of them.
The Best Website Backup Service
Many bloggers are lucky enough to have a computer-smart spouse or kid, but it’s just me here. I’m pretty techy, so I can handle the simple stuff. I have a few tech folks I hire for the big stuff, but that gets expensive. So, most of the time, I’m dealing with problems on my own. So I needed a solution I could handle on my own. I checked around and asked all my smartest blogger friends and they told me to use Updraft Plus to keep my site backed up.
How do I Backup my Website?
Updraft Plus is great because it’s simple to set up. Took me like 15 minutes. Also, I can store like a week’s worth of backups, so I can go back before the hack or the broken code happened. It also backs up into separate zip files, like themes, posts, and plugins. So if a plugin gets corrupted, I can just restore the plugin files without having to mess with my posts or theme.
You can store the backed up data wherever you want – your computer, the cloud, or you can buy storage from Updraft. That’s what I do, and I even bought some extra storage so I can use Updraft Plus on the site I run for a charity. It saves them money because we can share the same account and it keeps both sites backed up automatically. Best of all, I get a message every day telling me that my backup has succeeded and I am using XX amount of my storage. It just gives me peace of mind.
If you want to check it out, I do have an affiliate code for Updraft Plus. They haven’t compensated me for writing a review or anything. I just thought it would be helpful for people. If you click through and sign up with them, I get a small commission. Get Updraft Plus HERE.
BONUS TIP: You know when you get that message that a bunch of different plugins need updating? Are you doing them all at once? DON’T DO THAT! Really, don’t do that! If one of them has some bad code or messes up your site, you don’t know which one of them caused it. I learned that one the hard way! I know it’s more time-consuming, but update them one by one. It’s much smarter.
Quick tip on passwords:
Other posts you may enjoy
10 Blogging Tools Worth Paying For
Why I Recommend SiteGround Hosting
5 Ways to Repurpose Your Blog Content for More Traffic
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