A backup is a copy of the database and files that make up your entire website. Backups is a process of storing your files and database safely and making it easily accessible whenever you need them. It can be stored either on your computer, local hard drive or on a web hosting server.

Backing up your website is a very crucial and important topic of discussion. Depending on the functions of our websites, backups might be needed daily, weekly, monthly etc. Backups are life savers. Whatever the website does, backing it up is important in order to have something to fall back on in case of data loss, malware or maybe you just messed up with something mistakenly in your Cpanel.

And most people backup their sites when they are about to make updates or upgrades on their websites. Backups could also come in handy on rainy days such as when your site gets hacked and information was stolen, your web host is unable to retrieve the older version of your site, there is an issue during an update and your site’s content disappears, you accidentally delete some important pages or posts.

There are three major ways of backing up a website that’ll be discussed in this article:

First is through your web host. Some web host companies automatically backup your website files and database.  It could be weekly or monthly depending on your hosting package. In this case, you don’t need to do a thing as the site is automatically backed up on the hosting server. These generally gives you a peace of mind, knowing that your website files and database are safe and secure. If your site is compromised in any way, it can easily be restored.

The second is backing up to the cloud. Backing up to the cloud is the perfect and ideal place to keep your files and database safe. And their different cloud services that allow you backup your files in the cloud such as the SiteLock Amazon S3, Dropbox, or the manual upload. When you backup your files the traditional way, on a hardware and their likes, the device could crash in future and your files are irrecoverable. But when you backup on the cloud, the chances that you’ll lose your files are almost non-existent.

Third is the use of backup plugins. You can use backup plugin services to backup your files. The plugins will be added to the website and the important files would be backup through the plugins. There are various plugins on the web.

Any of the three methods could be used to backup your website. The important thing is that your sites are backup and are safely secured in case of emergencies.