How Internet Marketers Should Backup Their Websites
I want you to close your eyes for a moment and imagine that you are running a successful online business that affords you all the luxuries life has to offer.
You are living the dream, doing what you want, when you want; living where you please, taking vacations on a whim, waking up when you feel like it, enjoying the “good life” in your lavish beach home. (Can you feel the warm ocean breeze against your face?)
Now open your eyes and let the vision fade from your mind…
It is difficult to let go of this dream, is it not?
Now imagine a nightmare scenario where you in fact had the successful online business, the beach house, the dream life, and you had no choice but to let it all go because you forgot to follow the number one rule of online marketing:
“Thou shall always backup your files”
Unfortunately, this did actually happen to a friend of mine, and very likely could happen to you.
What was his fatal mistake? He foolishly trusted his host to keep a backup of his Website files and important databases. He wrongly assumed the host was making daily back-ups of his information on their servers.
Don’t Rely On Your Website Host To Save Your Files
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Never, ever, trust your host to backup your files. I can’t stress this enough to you. Don’t put the livelihood of your online business in their hands. It is a costly mistake you will pay dearly for if you don’t heed this warning.
Last month, my Website host had one of their servers crash. This affected four of my most popular sites. Fortunately, I was diligent about backing up my files and had my sites back online within 24 hours.
However, as I later found out, other marketers who had their Websites on that same server where never able to recover their files. They also made the same fatal mistake of trusting the hosting company.
This company, who shall remain nameless, made no bones about it; if you didn’t have your own backup files, your data was permanently lost.
These marketers had to rebuild their sites from scratch and lost valuable time
and money in the process. In a few cases, some of these marketers never recovered (they lost entire mailing lists and important files that simply couldn’t be recreated).
The kicker was that we where all still charged for hosting that month. Comical, but true.
Your Site Is Your Responsibility
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It never ceases to amaze me how many online marketers I know who are so nonchalant about backing up their Websites and other important files.
What is even more shocking is that in many cases these are seasoned marketers making 6 figures a year.
It doesn’t matter if you are an inexperienced marketer, or you have been in this game for over a decade, you must follow the basic rules of running an online business.
Therefore, the single most important task you can perform for your online business is to back-up your files. You must take this responsibility upon yourself and perform it religiously.
The Importance Of Backing-Up Your MySQL Databases
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If you are running software such as WordPress, or any other software/scripts that are MySQL database driven, it is important for you to know that these databases are kept on another part of the server.
These databases save important information, like all of your blog posts, customer information (if you are using list software that is MySQL driven), etc.
Therefore, your WordPress blog would not be backed-up properly if you where to simply copy the Wordpress files from your Website, onto your hard drive. If your host’s server crashed, you would lose all of your blog posts and customer information forever. Which is why you must backup all of your databases as well as the Website files.
Many Website hosts do things differently, so it is important that you contact your host and explain that you wish to backup your MySQL databases. Let the host know that you wish to save the database to a text file that can be easily re-imported if the original database becomes corrupted. If they can’t tell you how to backup your databases, I would suggest finding a new host immediately.
How Often Should You Schedule Your Back-up Routines?
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How often you will backup your files can vary depending upon how much you update your Website. Only you can determine if backing up your files on a daily basis is feasible, but I recommend you at least make weekly backups of your most important Websites.
I would also suggest that you store your most vital files on a USB flash drive. While you can back-up important files on your hard-drive and external hard-drive, keep in mind that they are at risk of contracting viruses and can become corrupted.
There is also the possibility that your computer could be destroyed in a fire, wiping out all of your data. That is why you should always keep your flash drive inside a fireproof safety deposit box. Remember, this information is your most valuable assets and should be treated as such.
You Have been Warned - Take Action
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You have now been warned of the dire consequences you will face if you fail to back-up your Websites. If this article doesn’t scare you enough to take action now, keep in mind that it is only a matter of time before you will face a server crash.
It isn’t a matter of if, but WHEN.
Will you be ready? Or caught with your pants down?