photo credit: ColKorn1982

 
 Sing along with me now…

Backing Up is Hard to Do (Not!)

Let’s talk about how to backup WordPress. You’ve put a lot of hard work into your website. Blood, sweat and tears, even. Protect all that effort by getting into a regular backup routine now, before you’re sorry you didn’t.

There are several different types of backups that you need to have in order to really cover your behind. I’ll tell you about the different types, and I’ll tell you how you can back them up. You’ll go out and set up a schedule to make sure it gets done regular-like. Deal?

This turned out to be a really loooong post, so I’ve broken it into several parts. See links to the related posts at the top and bottom of each post. For this first segment, let’s talk about the whole kit & caboodle, the whole shebang, the works, the full deal, the whole enchilada…The Full Site Backup.

Full Site Backup

This is a major backup that will save your bacon if (heaven forbid) some sort of major catastrophe happens – your web host’s entire server center burns to the ground or the server gets fried AND the host’s backups get fried. Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No. Ask me about the time my web host just closed up shop and left town without telling any of his clients. Yeah, it happens.

A Full Site Backup won’t enable you, personally, to restore your site, unless you are running your own server. And if you are, you don’t need me to tell you how to do this. Rather, this kind of backup is what you give your new host (after your old one was nabbed by aliens or whatever) so that they can recreate your site. It includes everything you’ve got on your server – your website files, email addresses, redirects – everything.

You can create a Full Site Backup from your web hosting control panel. The one I’m familiar with is the cPanel (very popular among web hosts), so that’s the one I’ll be describing. If your host has a different control panel, search their knowledgebase for instructions on how to do a site backup. Every host offers this service (and if yours doesn’t, stop reading this and go find a new host right now).

This is the most comprehensive type of backup, and it’s important to have on hand. However, it’s not the one you will use to restore parts of your own site if problems occur. Watch for the upcoming Parts 2 and 3 of this series for instructions on how to take care of that much more common problem.

Please continue to the next post in this series for information on the other types of backups you need to be doing!

Depending on the theme you use, some of the things in the table below might behave a little differently than what I show here (for instance, not all themes list the pages in the nav bar). But as a rule, this is how it works.

Still confused?

Ask your question in the comments below. I’ll update the table with appropriate info as it comes up!

(Note: In this post, Pages and Posts are capitalized to distinguish between them. If “pages” is not capitalized, I’m talking about pages in the general “web page” sense. )

This may seem obvious to those of us who use it everyday. But for someone just starting out, just getting their feet wet with web applications, it can be very confusing. So, here is an explanation of exactly what WordPress is and how it can be used.

In a nutshell, WordPress is a software that helps you publish a dynamic website. Instead of coding HTML to create a static web page, WordPress uses PHP (another web programming language), along with MYSQL (a database) to dynamically create and serve web pages each time a viewer requests them.

What this means to you, as the blogger or web site owner, is that it is much, much easier to create and maintain your site. Let’s explore the advantages WordPress can offer you as a site owner, especially if you are not experienced with HTML.

Web Based Admin Screen Means No Coding

Once installed, WordPress is managed with an easy to use web-based admin screen. This means that when you want to make a change to your site, most of the time you can just go into your admin screen, change a setting, add or remove a plugin or change your template and you’re done. No messing around with code.

This makes WordPress an ideal web site solution not only for those who do not know how to code their own site, but for anyone who doesn’t have time or inclination to mess with those details. Small business owners, for example, have so many other things to take care of – why waste time tinkering with code when you don’t have to?

Always Up To Date with Dynamic Pages

With a traditional, static web site, each time you add a new page to your site, you have to create the HTML page, then create a new link on an existing HTML page to link to it. Over time, you will probably find that your site begins to get confusing. The more you add, the more you have to go back and fix and add links on existing pages, more opportunities are created for broken or missed links and your content may get lost. The navigation structure that worked fine when you only had 10 pages can’t quite cut it when you have 100 (and what if you have 1,000?).

WordPress is dynamic, which means that the data itself – the words that make up an article, and all the other bits and pieces of your site – are stored in a database. When someone goes to a page on the web, WordPress calls up the most recent information and builds the page right then.

Because it works this way, your site always remains up to date. The standard setup for WordPress is that the latest article is at the top of the page. Instead of your newest article being buried back on some other page, it’s right there on your home page for your visitors to see.

Easy Layout Changes with Templates

Also, because all your data is stored in a database, you can easily change the way a WordPress site looks. With a static HTML site, if you want to change the look, you have to rebuild it completely. With WordPress, you just select a different theme. Voila! Your site instantly looks completely different.

Here is an example site shown with two different themes. Same exact data, different themes – screen shots taken within moments of each other.

A theme is a collection of template files. When WordPress creates a page on the fly, it takes the template files you have identified and plugs the data into the correct spots. So, if you want to change the look, you just change the template files. There are literally thousands of WordPress themes available for free, and many “premium” themes for sale, so it is easy to customize your site to look exactly the way you want it to.

Quickly Add Functionality with Plugins

One of the biggest advantages to WordPress is its flexibility. WordPress is easy to extend and change by adding functionality with plugins. Instead of having to code changes directly into your web site, with WordPress you can just add (and just as easily remove) a plugin via your web based admin screen.

Plugins do many different things. Some of them provide back end functionality like security tweaks to your WordPress installation, or adjusting behind the scenes SEO settings (i.e., meta tags). Others allow you to add features to your site like polls, photo galleries or contact forms. As with themes, there are thousands of plugins available for just about any function you can think of.

Conclusion

Can you tell I love WordPress? I do. It’s because it’s powerful, it’s easy to use, it’s flexible and it’s free! It’s the perfect solution for bloggers, artists, small businesses and anyone else who wants a good looking, functional and easy to use web site.