Is it necessary to backup your website?

Hell yes!        

In a digital age, it’s every business owner’s nightmare that their website is going to ‘disappear’. And it can happen! 

Imagine waking up one day, cruising through your morning, and then you get a message from a potential customer telling you that your website isn’t working. It’s been hacked, and instead of displaying your amazing services, it’s now advertising Viagra! 

That’s the last thing you want. 

Initially, you’re probably going to freak out. That’s normal. We all would. After all, your website is your digital business card and modern-day ‘brochure’ to showcase your services and for people to find out more about you. 

But it’s also so much more than that. 

Your website becomes a data-rich source of information about your business that may not be replaceable if you lose it. For example, every time you’ve made a change to your wording or uploaded an image or a file, if you haven’t kept a copy, it would be gone. 

So, what is a website backup?

A website backup is something that every website designer should be doing for your website to start! It’s your insurance policy against losing all of your data. 

It’s the same as backing up the files on your computer. You routinely do that, and the same principle applies to your website. 

Personally, we install backup software in our Website in a Box package so our clients can rest assured that if anything happens and their website vanishes, it can be restored. 

If you’re unsure if you’ve got website backup in place, please do ask a website designer. 

The top 5 reasons why you need a website backup

1. Updates can go wrong: When you’re installing new plugins and themes to your website, it can create a compatibility issue with other plugins. And often, you won’t know this is about to happen until, bam, your site is gone. If you’ve got your website backup done, it’s an easy restore with a simple button push to restore your website to its previous state. 

2. People make mistakes: All it can take is the click of a wrong button or deleting a necessary file, and your site is broken. It’s worth noting that most hosting providers don’t perform regular backups so don’t expect this to be your solution (unless you’re paying for it). They could perform disaster recovery backups (when they can schedule you in) but a warning – this can cost heaps! 

3. Computers crash: It’s no doubt you’re using a computer if you’re running any business these days. You’d know that they tend to crash – I’m sure you’ve read the panic posts! To cover yourself, you should make sure that your website backup isn’t just on your local computer. Some website designers (such as us) will offer this as part of a website design service. If you don’t have a website tech team or designer, you could store your backups in the Cloud.

4. Hackers are smart: If you think Hackers only target big businesses, think again. If you’re collecting data on your website, you can leave yourself open to hackers. If you miss a core update and you’re not maintaining a website backup, you could be at risk of getting hacked. Hackers update their malware injection bots with each update so if you’re not up to date, you may be vulnerable to being hacked.  

5. You forget to pay: I bet you’ve had times where you’ve forgotten to pay a bill, right? Especially for something like website hosting. Hey, you may not have seen the email – it could have even gone to junk! If you find yourself in this situation where you have to repurchase your hosting plan, you will likely need to pay additional fees to restore your site. Proper website backup could save you lots of money as you’ll have the file ready to go.

Disclosure: Some of the links provided in this blog are affiliate links. I only promote services that I personally use and love. I will be paid a small commission if you use this link to make a purchase.

Other blogs you may also like…