If you’ve made it as far as setting up a wordpress website, you are probably faced with a few questions about backing up your new installation? If you don’t have questions and just believe everything is hunkydory and your web hosting company has your back, think again. Below are some of the most common questions new wordpress users have about backing up their website.

How often should you back up?

That question depends on how often you blog or add content to your pages. For most sites that update content monthly I suggest backing up the database and wp files monthly. If you only blog ocassionally, you can probably get by with backing up quarterly. You just have to ask yourself, “Self, how much time do I have invested in this content? and what if I lost it all and had to begin again?” If neither of those questions bother you, just pick a different post to read. Backing up your site should be a priority.

What should I back up

You should back up 2 major things. Your database and your content files. That’s pretty much everything that runs your site. If you don’t attach images, and files to your post you can get away with just backing up your database, your plugins and your wordpress theme. If you have a database, plugins and wordpress theme folder, you can most likely get your site back up and running easily, then you would need your upload files, that are located in the WP-Content folder to get everything functional. You can always download the newest version of WP, connect your database, update your database, and more than likely smoothly be back up and running.

How many wordpress backups should I keep?

This question is an easy one, keep at least 2, if not more of all your wordpress files, and a copy of your wordpress database. Why 2 or more? Say you only have one backup and your database is corrupt? Your pretty much screwed! So why not up your chances of recovery by having at least 2 complete backups?

So how do I back up my wordpress website??

Learn how to completely backup a wordpress installation and database in less than 15 min