Website backups are critical to your ongoing success in 2023, and now is the perfect time to evaluate your backup strategy.
We’ve all been there. You saved your important document, that slam dunk power point presentation, that final video edit… and tragedy strikes when you lease expect it. Coffee spills across the keyboard, and you lose everything. Similar things can happen to your website. Your account gets hacked and ransomware locks everything up or your files are corrupted.
Where do you turn? Your Backups!
Just like turning to your backup drive for your personal files, you need to have a backup strategy for your website files too! Where do you keep them? How often do you make them? Do they even work to restore your website? How often do you test them?
Here are a few suggestions on developing an ongoing website backup program.
1) Create a schedule to remind yourself to make a backup of your website. Use tools like iCal or Google Calendar to schedule reminders once a week if possible to backup your website files. There are also backup programs such as the WordPress plugin UpdraftPlus that can automate this function.
2) Keep you backups stored on both your computer and one other external device such as backup drive or flash drive.
3) In the event that your website goes down, use the most current backup of the site to restore your website. Depending on the extensive nature of the attack, i.e. virus, you may need to use an older backup to avert reloading an infected version.
4) Once restored, visit each page of your site to make sure all site functions are restored. Check your contact forms to make sure they are working. If you are not sure your site has been cleared of a virus, there are services like sucuri.net that will scan and remove found malware for you.
If you have never thought about what to do for your website backups, or it has been a long time, this is your reminder to check your backup strategy! If you don’t know where to begin to check and make sure you have working backups of your online digital life, Thunderstruck Design can help!
Getting into the website backup habit will provide some peace of mind when disaster strikes.
Make it a point to get started today!