One of the most common questions that new WordPress website owners ask is how to backup their WordPress website in 10 minutes or less. With the right plugin, this is actually a pretty easy task. But it is also an essential task to undertake regularly.
If your site crashes or is hacked, your backup will be your last save point from which you can quickly restore your site. If you don’t have one, then you are going to have to restart from scratch without any of the data that you may have compiled over months or even years. To prevent this, it’s a good idea to complete a backup every time that add new content or something significant to your site. Here’s how to do it:
- Get a backup plugin—There are hundreds of backup plugins but not all of them can solve the question of how to backup your WordPress website in 10 minutes. When you choose one, you want a plugin that has thousands of downloads and a high rating. If the plugin is so new that it only has a few dozen downloads, you don’t want your precious data being entrusted to a program that hasn’t been fully tested in the field.
With that in mind, the top plugin for backups on WordPress has over half a million downloads and an almost perfect rating. If you haven’t already installed the UpdraftPlus plugin, then stop what you are doing and get it now. To do this, go to your control panel and select the Plugins portion of your sidebar menu and then click on “Add New.” Next, search for the plugin by name (UpdraftPlus, in this case). Then, simply click on the “Install Now” plugin and then activate the plugin. (You should see a message that it has been activated.)
- Configure the plugin—Once you have installed and activated the plugin, click on the settings button so that you can configure it.
- The default for all backup settings is “Manual” so if you want to switch this to automatic scheduled backups, just click this toggle button and change it. Once you change, you can schedule it to update every four hours all the way up to once a month. The number of updates you do is dependent on how often you update your content. If you add new content each day, then daily may be your best bet. (You can also change this for both the files backup and the database backup.)
- You can also change the number of backups that you would like to keep saved without overwriting or deleting old backups. The default for this is two backups, but you can change it. We’d recommend no more than five saved backups as anymore becomes redundant and starts to take up a lot of space on your hard-drive.
- Next, decide if there is a specific time that you want to schedule the backup. It may be a good idea to do this in the middle of the night or during “off-business hours.” Whichever time works best for you is ultimately when you should schedule it. You can also select to receive an email when the backup has been completed.
- Finally, you need to assign a location for the backup to be saved. With this plugin, the default will save the information to the network server. However, this can fill up quickly and slow down your server’s performance. We’d recommend using a cloud storage, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive.
- Back it up—This is the easiest part of the whole process. When you are ready to perform a backup, all you have to do is select “Backup Now” on the plugin’s page. Just follow the prompts and that’s it! You have now successfully backed up your website. Restoration is just as easy by simply clicking a button and following the few prompts.
With the right plugin, you will know how to backup your WordPress website in 10 minutes. Once you have the proper plugin configured to your specs, then all you have to do is click a button and save your website. Even better, you can schedule a backup and wait for the email confirming that it’s been done!
Correction: InMotion Hosting no longer offers free backups. However, the backup manager service is available at a rate of $2/month. It is highly reliable and easy to use.