Better Way to Backup Your WordPress Blog [Tutorial]

Better Way to Backup Your WordPress Blog [Tutorial].

A good webmaster always keeps multiple backups of their websites. Backups not only protect your site from server crashes and security attacks, but are also essential when changing hosts.

Some of you may be asking, “Why would I do regular backups when my hosting provider already does it for me?” And the answer to that is if their server gets compromised or they suddenly lock your account.

In such a situation, there will be no access to your backup. Therefore, having backup copies of updates on your computer, as well as cloud storage, is a must.

What should i backup WordPress blog?

For any WordPress blog, there are two key things you need to back up.

1. WordPress installation directory

In most cases, you need to make a backup of 3 directories i.e. wp-content, wp-admin, wp-config. It contains everything you need to create a copy of your websites, like your posts, themes, plugins, etc.

2. Database

Next is your database. It includes things like category, tags, your wp-login credentials, and changes you’ve made to your themes, etc.

So, now that we know what to back up, let’s see how to back up.

There are two ways to do this:

Method 1. Obvious – Cpanel

This is the traditional way to back up your WordPress blog. Most people back up by manually downloading all files using the host’s file manager. To do this, log into your site panel and go to the root directory

Once you are inside the root or “www” directory, you will see files such as wp-content, wp-admin, etc. Select them all and then compress them into one zip file. Download the zip file. You can also use an FTP manager like FileZilla to connect and download the file from the server.

3. To back up the database, go to your database phpMyAdmin Export Database.

However, this method is tedious. Moreover, because of the big, no. small files, you may encounter a connection timeout error and start downloading from the beginning.

The webmaster does not have time for regular manual backups. So how do we automate this process? Let’s find out.

Method 2: Back Up WordPress with BackWPup

BackWPup is a WordPress plugin that schedules WordPress backups. I’ve been using it for a few months now and it works great. And this is why you should also use BackWPup:

• It’s free, reliable, and easy to use.
• You can schedule backups on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
• Option for storing backups in the cloud

So you can see that BackWPup is great, but it takes a little training. Let’s see how it works.

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard, download and install the BackWPup plugin.

2. After installation, you will see it listed on the right side of your WordPress dashboard. Hover over it and select vacancies.

3. Since you are using the plugin for the first time, you will have to set up a new job. Click Add.

4. Once you are in the New Job menu, you will need to make various changes, such as what you want to backup, where you want to save the backup, how often to schedule it, the format of your backup, etc. if you find it overwhelming, then stick with the default settings.

Additional note . While the parameters speak for themselves, I highly recommend you watch this video by Craig Smith.

5. When done, start your work. And the backup process will begin.

Additional Tips

I recommend sticking to the default setting, that is, backing up your database, files, and plugin list. And a full backup of your site. So there’s nothing to lose.

The old backup is overwritten with the newer one. So don’t worry, you won’t run out of storage.

If you are using shared hosting, schedule this backup when you have less traffic to avoid the load of access to your server.