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“To err is human; to automate backup, divine.” This twist on a famous line from poet Alexander Pope gets at the heart of the problem with manual backups. You mistakenly delete a file; you flub the backup process and corrupt the files; you forget to back up on a regular basis. Human error inevitably creeps into the manual backup process.
Luckily, your business can easily set up automated backups for your WordPress website to effectively meet disaster recovery needs and ensure business continuity. This article offers guidance on features to look for and best practices to help you automate your backup process.
Business leaders are often laser-focused on expanding and growing the business. Securing the website from disaster scenarios may seem like a secondary concern about a threat with a small likelihood, but losing all of the data from your website has serious consequences on your business’s ability to function, period. In fact, there are several data loss scenarios to be concerned about.
Cyberattack or malware infection: Your website could be the victim of a cyberattack or malware infection that either destroys your website data or prevents you from being able to access it.
Accidental deletion: In the process of your manual backup or website update, your staff may mistakenly delete files or database entries.
Plugin or theme conflicts: Implementing a new plugin or theme can create conflicts on your site and cause data errors.
Hosting provider issues or server failures: Problems stemming from your host provider, including server failures, can lead to serious data loss.
Should one of the data loss scenarios occur with your website, the consequences can be severe. To start with, there is the loss of content and data itself, which can include extremely valuable customer data. Website failure can lead to damage to your SEO scores and your online reputation. Sales will be impacted as down websites are not able to generate ecommerce revenue. Rebuilding your website requires staff time and resources, diverting focus from revenue-generating projects and initiatives.
With so much at risk from website data loss, businesses need to prioritize a solid disaster recovery and business continuity plan that includes automated backups. In comparison to questionable manual backup practices, automated backups, including UpdraftPlus Backup and Migration, BackupBuddy, or Jetpack VaultPress Backup offer wide-ranging benefits.
Time-saving and efficiency: Automated backups eliminate the dedicated time needed to execute a manual backup. This frees up staff time to focus on other mission-critical tasks and initiatives.
Reliability and consistency: While manual backups can sometimes be put off or even forgotten about, automated backups occur on a regular basis, no matter how busy you are. And they occur in the exact same manner each time. There is no opportunity for human error to affect the quality of the backup.
Disaster recovery: If the worst-case scenario occurs and your website goes down, having an automated backup to immediately turn to for restoration is going to greatly improve the timeframe for you to get your website back up and running. Automated backups can greatly minimize website downtime and all of its associated costs.
Peace of mind: Business owners can feel much more confident that website data is safe and recoverable with automated backup in place. They can make more proactive business decisions and even take risks knowing that their valuable data is secure.
If you are ready to make the jump from haphazard manual backups to timely and consistent automated backups, you’ll want to assess the available options and keep some key features in mind.
Scheduling options: Different websites have different backup frequency needs, whether it’s hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. In addition to being able to meet your frequency needs, you will want a solution that allows you to set up specific backup times.
Storage options: Where do you plan to store your data? Cloud integration, being able to safely store website data through Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 is a valuable option. Being able to easily store your data offsite provides an additional level of security.
Types of Backups: Having options for executing different types of backups is worth considering as you may have different backup requirements at different times. Being able to do a full site backup that includes all files and databases is an important need. At times, you may want the ability to do database-only backups, or even incremental backups to help save on storage space.
Ease of Restoration: When a disaster scenario occurs, you want the WordPress website restoration process to be quick and simple. Being able to dial back your website’s data to a specific point in time is a great feature to get your website back to exactly where it was before it went down.
When you roll out your new WordPress website automated backup solution, you should plan to store your backups offsite. This provides an extra layer of protection for your data. With automated backups, it’s important to regularly test your restoration process to help ensure that you have the files you require when they are needed.
Remember to keep your backup plugin updated so that it’s delivering as much value to you as possible. Also, be sure that your automated backups are one part of a wider security strategy for your website that should also include encrypting all of your data, conducting ongoing malware scans, implementing firewalls, and enabling two-factor authentication to access your website account.
The downsides of data loss are too profound for you to not take a proactive approach in securing your valuable WordPress website data. Moving from a manual backup process to an automated backup process will bring you pieces of mind and stronger protection for your website and your business.
When disaster strikes, Pressable is there to help you roll back and restore with confidence. We offer automatic daily site updates, hourly database backups, and on-demand backups on all of our plans.
These backups are in addition to the real-time backups available through the Jetpack Security plan that is free of charge with every Pressable plan. All your data can be quickly downloaded from our easy-to-use dashboard whenever you need it.
Pressable—part of the Automattic family that also includes WordPress.com, WordPress VIP, and WooCommerce—offers experts with the skills and knowledge to effectively manage your WordPress site.
If you’re thinking about switching to managed enterprise WordPress hosting, schedule a demo to see how Pressable can support your continued growth.
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