How to Backup a WordPress Site Easily (Beginner Guide)

Backing up your WordPress site is like having an insurance policy for your website. You hope you never need it, but you’ll be glad you have it when disaster strikes.

Whether it’s a plugin conflict, a hacking attempt, or a simple human error, losing your website data can be devastating.

The good news? Regularly backing up your WordPress site can prevent you from unexpected problems.

So, in this guide, we will show you how to back up your WordPress site using five different methods tailored to suit your preferences. Other than that, we’ll also look at some WordPress backup best practices to secure your website.

Let’s get started!

Why Back Up Your WordPress Website?

As a WordPress website owner, you must protect your data from unforeseen incidents. One approach is to create a backup of your website.

Security threats like hackers, malware, and phishing attacks can compromise your site. Additionally, human errors, plugin conflicts, and server failures can also put your site at risk. Without a backup, it can be difficult to recover your website.

A WordPress backup saves a copy of your site’s most important files, directories, and databases. This includes your content, plugins, themes, images, and other data. If you are locked out of your website due to a mistake or cyberattack, you may easily restore it using the backup.

Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t offer any automatic backups. You can manually backup using your hosting provider or an FTP client. Personally, we recommend using a plugin because it’s easier and allows you more control, making it a good option for beginners.

How Often Should You Backup Your WordPress Website

The frequency of backing up your WordPress site depends on how often your content or data is updated. There is no single answer that works for all websites.

If you have a static website that does not change often (for example, a portfolio site), backing up your site’s data every week may be sufficient. In general, most WordPress websites should have at least weekly backups.

However, if you have a WordPress blog that is updated many times each week and has many user comments, weekly backups may not be sufficient. If you lose a few days’ worth of data, your website may be missing many blog posts and comments. Not good!

Instead, you should probably back up your website every day. That way, the worst-case situation is losing only a few hours of data, which may not even result in any missing content.

Even daily backups may be insufficient for some websites. For example, if you have a WooCommerce store, you can get many orders each day or even hour. Since order data is so important for your online store, missing even one order could have a negative impact.

For such cases, you should consider implementing real-time backups. With real-time backups, every change to your website is immediately backed up, ensuring that you never lose any data.

Of course, the drawback is that you’ll likely have to pay more to get access to this real-time functionality. As a result, make that investment only if your site truly needs it.

Overall, to find the right backup schedule for your website, consider these key questions:

• How often do you publish new content?
• How often do users interact with your site by submitting information, such as blog comments, WooCommerce orders, or lead form entries?
• Additionally, how regularly do you update your site’s settings?

If you find yourself making changes a few times per week, opting for daily backups at a minimum is a smart choice. However, if updates and user interactions occur multiple times per day, real-time backups may be the best way to ensure your data is always protected.

WordPress Backup Best Practices for a Secure Website

Before you start creating website backups, you should first learn about WordPress backup best practices. Here are a few tips for backing up your WordPress website.

• Consider Using a Backup Plugin: A backup plugin is the most convenient way to manage and create backups in WordPress. You can use reliable backup plugins like Duplicator or UpdraftPlus. These plugins can automate backups and offer manual and scheduled backup options.
• Do Regular Backups: It’s important to schedule regular backups (daily, weekly, or monthly) based on how often you update your site. For high-traffic or frequently updated sites, we recommend daily backups.
• Store Backups in Multiple Locations: You should never rely on one backup location. Backups should be stored in numerous locations, including cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon S3) as well as a local hard drive. This ensures that you can recover your site even if a single WordPress backup fails.
• Backup Both Your WordPress Files and Database: You’ll want to ensure that your backup includes your WordPress files (themes, plugins, uploads) and your database (content, settings, user information). Doing this will help you restore your site fully if something goes wrong.
• Test Your Backup: It is important to regularly test your backups by restoring them to a staging environment. This approach ensures that your backups are working and can be relied on in an emergency.
• Use Automatic Backups When Possible: Automatic backups free headspace for you to maintain your website. Choose a backup plugin with this, or ensure this feature is included in your hosting plan.
• Keep Your Backups Secure: Whether you store your backups online or locally, be sure they are secure and safe from hackers. You can keep them in password-protected folders and media devices like USBs, encrypt them, and so on.
• Schedule Backups During Low Traffic Hours: Another essential WordPress backup best practice is to schedule backups during low-traffic hours to reduce the impact on your site’s performance.

How to Backup Your WordPress Website (5 Easy Methods)

Now that you know the importance of backing up your WordPress websites, let’s look at the different methods for performing quick backups. You can choose any method, depending on your needs.

Method 1: How to Backup a WordPress Site Using a Plugin

While WordPress offers many functionality, there is no magic button you can use to create a backup of your current website. That’s where WordPress plugins can help. These plugins add helpful functionality to your website without having to code.

When it comes to WordPress backup plugins, there are many options available. Among the many, two of the most popular options are Duplicator and Updraftplus. Both the plugins help you create a full website backup and offer a solid set of other features, including site migration, support cloud storage, one-click restore, etc. Plus, both the plugins also offer a free version to get started.

However, for this guide, we’ll use the UpdraftPlus WordPress backup plugin, which has over three million active installations.

Follow these step-by-step easy guide to create a WordPress backup using UpdraftPlus:

Install and Setup Plugin

First, log into your WordPress dashboard, then navigate to the Plugins » Add New Plugin.

From here, search for the UpdraftPlus. Once it appears in the search result, click Install Now, then Activate.

Now, navigate to the UpdraftPlus menu on the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. This will show you the plugin’s dashboard, notifications regarding your backups, and your existing and scheduled backups.

Create a New Backup

Click on the Backup Now button to create your first backup.

Once you click, a pop-up will appear, asking you to select which data you want to back up. Check both the files and database options to back up your entire WordPress site, and click Backup Now.

Once your backup is completed successfully, it will be added to the Existing backups table. You can download specific aspects of your Backup, restore that download, delete it, or view the log that was generated when backing up your website.

Schedule Automatic Backups

Now, if you want to schedule automatic backups, you can do so under the Settings tab.

The first two options on your screen let you set up automatic backup schedules. You can set up a schedule for your website’s files and database to run every few hours or monthly. You may also choose how many backups you want to retain on your server.

Next, choose a remote storage provider to save your backups. UpdraftPlus offers several cloud backup storage options. Some of the options available include Dropbox, Google Drive, Email, SFTP, etc. However, with the free version of the UpdraftPlus, you can back up to only one remote storage. The UpdraftPlus premium version can back up to multiple places.

Click on your chosen option and follow the instructions to authenticate and connect UpdraftPlus to the storage.

Once all is done, Scroll down and click on the Save Changes button. UpdraftPlus will now back up your site automatically according to your schedule.

Method 2: Manually Backup a WordPress Site Using cPanel

If you want to manually back up your WordPress site using your WordPress hosting service’s cPanel, this is the method for you.

We’ll be using Bluehost for this guide since it’s our preferred provider, and we’ve had enough experience with it. Additionally, WordPress also officially recommends it.

Note: If you are using a different hostinger provider instead of Bluehost, you will find a different setting.

To start, log into your hosting provider’s cPanel. You can find it under Advanced settings. Once there, click on the Manage button.

When the cPanel window opens, navigate to the Files tab.

Then, choose the File Manager option.

Now, a new file manager window will open.

Next, select the public_html folder from the left menu and expand it by clicking the + button.

From here, select the folder containing your website’s name and click the Compress option at the top.

A new window will now appear. Select the Zip Archive option, then click the Compress Files button.

Your website’s files will immediately start to compress into a zip file.

The hosting service will also show the compression results. After that, simply select the Close option.

Next, select the zip file you just created. It will be stored in the public_html folder.

Next, simply select the Download option at the top.

You can then save the compressed file in a safe location.

Now, if your site goes down due to an error or security concern, you can use the compressed file as a backup to easily restore your information.

Method 3: Manually Backup WordPress Databases

Using your WordPress hosting provider, cPanel, you can also back up different WordPress databases. However, this process is time-consuming since you must manually import several tables.

We’ll use Bluehost for this guide, but remember that the processes will differ based on your web host provider.

To start, access your hosting service’s cPanel. Next, navigate to the cPanel in your site’s settings and click the phpMyAdmin option.

When phpMyAdmin opens, select a database from the menu on the left.

Then select the tables you want to back up and click the Export button at the top.

On the following screen, you can keep the Export method set to Quick and choose SQL for the Format section.

Once that’s done, click the Go button.

You can now store the SQL file in a secure location on your computer as a backup.

To restore a database, simply open the phpMyAdmin panel and import the SQL file.

Method 4: How to Backup a WordPress site Manually Using FTP

If you do not want to use a backup plugin or access cPanel, you can backup a WordPress site using an FTP client.

There are many FTP clients available for both Mac and Windows. For this guide, we will be using FileZilla.

To start, first connect to your site via FTP software.

Once connected, navigate to your website’s root directory using the panel on the right. This folder contains important files such as wp-content, wp-admin, wp-config, .htaccess, and others.

Next, right-click on any folder or file you want to backup.

After that, click on the Download option.

You can save files and folders from a live website to your local computer or server.

If needed, you can easily restore your website by reuploading the saved files through an FTP client.

Method 5: Use Maintenance Services for Site Backups

If you are a beginner and all the methods above seem too complex, you can opt for one of the best WordPress maintenance services instead.

Generally, a WordPress maintenance services provider ensures your website stays secure, up-to-date, and runs smoothly without technical issues. They handle regular updates for WordPress core, themes, and plugins to prevent security vulnerabilities and compatibility problems.

These experts also perform website backups to protect your data, allowing easy recovery if anything goes wrong. They monitor website security, scanning for malware and fixing vulnerabilities before they cause damage.

Beyond that, some providers also handle SEO maintenance, making sure your site structure, content, and technical aspects are optimized for search engines.

By hiring a WordPress maintenance provider, you save time and avoid the hassle of managing website updates, backups, security, and performance, ensuring your site stays professional and reliable.

Conclusion

Learning how to create a backup of your WordPress site is an important part of the website-building process.

A backup will save your website if it is hacked, and it is a good idea to be able to restore your site if something goes wrong. Overall, it’s good insurance.

Additionally, backups are an important website maintenance task that should be performed on a regular basis.

There are several ways to back up a WordPress website. If you’d prefer to use a plugin for your backups, then UpdraftPlus is a good option. Or, you can check out our list of the best WordPress backup plugins to find more options.

Furthermore, if you want to do it manually, then you can do it by using your hostinger provider and by using cPanel or FTP/phpMyAdmin.

Other than that, there is also an option to choose a WordPress maintenance provider if you find it helpful.

We hope this guide helped you learn how to back a WordPress site using different methods.

For more, check out these other helpful resources:

• 12 Best WordPress Security Plugins to Protect Your Site
• WordPress Security Checklist: 21 Best Ways to Secure WordPress Site
• How to Move WordPress Site to New Host in 7 Easy Steps

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