You probably already have regular computer backups in place for your laptop or desktop. You may manually back up all your important files to an external hard or USB drive, then again you may have begun using an automated process to an external drive or online storage service.
Here is a question for you, do you do the same thing for your website? Just as your computer is susceptible to online threats, so is your website. Beyond taking the necessary security precautions to protect your website from spammers and hackers, you’ll also want to regularly backup your website. That way, if something unfortunate does occur, you won’t have to completely start over. Instead, you can simply restore your site from a previous backup.
We all have to admit things will happen, such as:
- Accidents and mistakes
- Computers crashes and system failures
- You miss a payment on your hosting
- Your website gets hacked
- Updates go sideways
Without backups the costs can be high:
- You lose all the work you’ve done, maybe many years worth
- Loss of site revenue during recovery
- Cost of the rebuilt of the site
- Loss of time during site rebuild
How often should I backup my website?
It is also a common question asked by people. Whether you go with weekly or daily based on how frequently you update the website. If you just publish one blog post in a week, the weekly backups will be enough for you, but if you run a shopping cart system and receive orders daily, a daily database and weekly or daily file backup is probably more in line.
How Website Backups Work
Backups can be done a variety of ways. If you only want to occasionally backup, like when you update your static site, you can log into your server perform a backup and even download the files for storage locally or online. Many servers will also allow you to set automatic saves to your server, but be careful as you may quickly use up your allocated space and also, please be aware it is only saved at the server unless you download them.
Another option include using a plugin that can be installed to many types of website systems such as WordPress. Once installed, the settings can be adjusted to the number of backups and where to save them. Many include the option to save to offsite locations such as dropbox, but may come at a fee.
The best option is also to talk to your hosting company or website developer. Many provide fully automated website backups that will save all your files and data daily at very reasonable prices. Many make the process simple and effective, with one click restores. The backups are, in most cases, rolling and redundant that allows you to automatically save 30 days of files and data so you can quickly and easily choose a date and roll back to it as if the problem never happened.
At FusionFly, we began including backups many, many years ago because we know how important your website is to you, so sleep well! If you are not with us or you have not worked with us recently, feel free to contact us to check. We would be happy to review your site for backups.
