When you have a WordPress website for your business, it’s easy to fall into complacency. After all, a WordPress website can do everything for your business. WordPress has the best Content Management System (CMS) to help build your brand. You might have chatbots or an outsourced remote team to manage customer service. Your e-commerce portal assures you that the cash registers can ring 24/7 and a database that collects valuable customer information.
With all of these benefits – and more – you’d think people would be more strict when it comes to backing up their WordPress website. One slip is all it will take to set your business back and cost you several years of hard work.
Why Do You Need To Backup Your WordPress Website?
It’s human nature for us not to think of the worst-case scenarios. Let’s take, for example, medical insurance. Not many people think they would ever acquire a form of life-threatening disease or debilitating health condition.
So they set aside the need for any type of medical insurance; viewing it as an expense not an investment to their future health and well-being.
Only when they get afflicted with a condition that requires hospitalization and a slew of medications do they realize they should have gotten medical insurance. The lack of foresight has led to a situation where they have to deal with serious threats to their physical and financial health.
Think of backing up your WordPress website as a form of insurance that functions to protect your business from future attacks and other potential risks.
If you don’t have protection now, it will be too late to retrieve your data and other assets if your WordPress website gets hacked.
How serious should you take the threat of hacking?
Here are 3 statistics that should raise your level of concern about hacking:
- 30,000 – The number of websites hacked every day
- 75 – The number of records stolen by hackers every second.
- 39 – The number of seconds it takes to launch a hack every day
Some cyber-security experts warn that it’s not a question of “if” but “when” your website will get hacked. Unless you take the threat of hacking seriously, your website could be a statistic waiting to happen.
How Often Should You Backup Your WordPress Website?
Keeping your security protocols updated is a good idea. But backing up your website data is a process that is often overlooked by entrepreneurs.
So how often should you backup your WordPress website?
Generally, the rule of thumb is that whenever you update or introduce changes to your website, you should immediately run a WordPress backup.
Updates and changes to a WordPress website may include the following:
- Update to the version of WordPress
- Theme updates
- Plug-in updates
- Changes in the site’s programming
- Publishing a new blog
- Adding an infographic
- Adding videos
- Adding audio files
Chances are, updating the version of WordPress, the theme variation, and plug-ins don’t happen daily. The same can be said for changes in your site’s programming.
These updates – or upgrades – only happen upon notice or after a site audit has been done by your website manager. In these situations, the backup is done after the changes have been implemented.
However, if your website is active, performing WordPress website backups should be more frequent.
For example, to increase search rankings, you decide to implement a blogging strategy that requires you to post new content 16 times a month. This type of blogging schedule translates into a posting frequency of 4 times a week.
Given such activity, we recommend performing a WordPress website backup every time you post a new blog – 4 times a week.
The same can be said if your WordPress website experiences a high level of engagement from its visitors.
For example, if you have an e-commerce site that encourages customers to post product reviews, testimonials, and comments. Or if your WordPress website that regularly has forms filled out – these are interactions that are automatically stored in your site’s database.
At this activity level, backups have to be performed on a daily basis – or more!
If you just let out a groan – think of the alternative.
If your website gets hacked and you did not perform a backup prior to the hack, then you will have to repost the content that was lost. Worse, you might have to rewrite and then, repost all of your previous content.
The problem would be much greater for e-commerce sites and other types of websites that collect confidential information from customers. Not only will your website be branded as “untrustworthy” but you face the risk of customers going after you.
A single hack might be the end of your business.
Don’t worry about the tediousness of performing a WordPress website backup. It is not hard or time-consuming at all!
How To Perform A WordPress Website Backup
Since you made it this far in the article, we are assuming that you have committed to running WordPress website backups as often as needed.
You could be asking yourself, “What if I forget?”
The cool thing about running a WordPress website backup is that you don’t have to think about it. There are WordPress website plug-ins that will run the backup automatically whenever it is needed.
Here are some of the best backup plug-ins you can consider:
1. UpDraft Plus
More than 2 million WordPress websites are protected by UpDraft Plus. It is easily the most popular backup plug-in. The basic version is for free while the premium subscription will cost you $70.
With UpDraft Plus, you have the option to run scheduled or on-demand backups of your website. The data can be stored in the cloud or in your computer.
2. BackUp Buddy
BackUp Buddy is installed on more than 500,000 websites and makes it easy for you to schedule frequent backups.
Similar to UpDraft Plus, you can store your data in the cloud but BackUp Buddy has the unique Stash feature that lets you do backups in real-time.
In terms of cost, BackUp Buddy does not follow a monthly subscription model. You can avail of a specific option such as the Blogger Plan which costs $80 per license.
3. VaultPress
What makes Vault a wonderful backup plug-in is not only its ability to allow you to perform automatic backups but that it’s one of the easiest plug-ins to set up and use. You only need to make a few clicks to have your assets backed up or fully restored.
To avail of VaultPress, you have to get JetPack. This is because Automattic, the company that developed VaultPress also designed JetPack and packaged it as such.
Not a problem as JetPack is one of the best all-in-one plug-ins you can find in the market. In our opinion, JetPack is a must-have plug-in for your WordPress website.
VaultPress can be yours for $3.50 per month or $39 for a one-year subscription.
4. BoldGrip Backup
BoldGrip Backup is an amazing and proven effective backup plug-in with the following features:
- Customize your website backup schedule
- Immediately restore your website after it shuts down
- One-click process to run an automated or manual backup
- Thinking of switching web hosts? BoldGrip Backup will migrate your site for you
The best feature of BoldGrip is that it has a “Plan B” in case the automatic update does not run – it will initiate the most recent backup.
Call it the “Backup Plan” for your backup!
5. BackWPup
With BackWPup, you can come up with a complete backup for your WordPress website and have it stored in a cloud-based facility such as DropBox and RackSpace or to your email and computer.
BackWPup is very easy to use and you can have it installed on your website for free. Of course, like the other backup plug-ins featured here, you can get more features by availing of a paid Premium subscription.
How good is BackWPup? More than 600,000 websites have their assets backed up by BackWPup.
Conclusion
All of these backup plug-ins are great but which one is for you? Choose the backup plug-in that fits your business needs.
For small and medium-scale businesses that want to manage cash flow better, getting UpDraft Plus keeps you from paying monthly subscription fees.
For larger businesses, VaultPress could be the perfect plug-in for you intermittent backups can be scheduled. Thus, instead of backing up every hour, VaultPress will only run a backup of your website when you have performed an update or have posted new content.
However, if you want to make things easier for yourself, give us a call!
At Mountaintop Web Design, we offer clients our Extreme WordPress Care Plans. There are 3 plans to choose from – each one has been designed to fit your business needs and budget. We’ve included a daily cloud backup of your website in all plans!
No worries, no more sleepless nights. We’ll take care of your website for you.
If you need to learn more about backups, give us a call or drop us an email. We can run a quick audit on your site and give you our professional recommendation.
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