June, 2009

Effective Websites Newsletter

Hi [FirstName],

In this issue I discuss the importance of keeping your website backed up and procedures for doing website backups.

Dave Salahi

Back to top

Protect Your Website with Regular Backups

Have you backed up your website lately? If your web server crashed and lost your website would you be able to reconstruct your site? If your business depends on your website you need to make sure you can answer "yes" to these questions. The way to do that is with regular backups. In this article, I'll tell you how.

The first place to start is with your original website as delivered to you by your web designer. When you get a new website or have your site redesigned ask your designer for a disc containing your entire website and all of its assets. Make sure you also ask for any source files that may be needed to reconstruct your site. These include code files that get compiled as part of the deployment process and include files such as ASP.NET source code files and Flash source files.

When considering a backup schedule the first thing you want to determine is how often to do backups. The more often your site changes the more often you need to do backups. The way to think about backups is to consider the business value of your website and the cost to replace the information if it was lost. The more your business depends on your site the more important it is to have a current backup. Good web hosting companies do make regular backups of your site but it's always best to have your own copy of your site.

How to Make Backups of Your Web Pages

After you have a copy of your initial website you need to think about making periodic backups. The way to do this is to download a copy of your website to your PC using ftp. You can use a free ftp utility such as FileZilla to download the files comprising your website. You'll need to know the ftp username and password for your site in order to log in through ftp. If you don't have this info, you can get it from your web designer or from your web host's control panel.

You want to make sure you download all the files and folders that make up your site. In this way you ensure that you have a copy of your entire site as it exists on the internet. Because of a lack of standardization in naming website folders you may need your web designer's help in identifying these folders. But you'll typically find your website's files either in the root directory or in the public_html directory.

Backing Up Your Database

In addition to your web pages and other assets (images, videos, etc.) you also need to back up your database if your website has one. Simple websites that just display static web pages don't have a database but if you have an ecommerce site, a website built on a content management system such as Joomla, or any custom programming you probably do have a database. However, your database won't be in a folder that's visible to you with ftp. You need to use a different process to back up your database. You can typically find software such as phpMyAdmin in your web server control panel that will let you back up your database. The procedure varies so if you're not sure, ask your web designer or your web hosting company.

If all this sounds too technical you may want to have your web designer/webmaster do the backups for you. If you do, make sure they provide you with a disc or a way that you can download the backup to your PC. That way, if something should happen to your site and your web designer is unavailable you can get back up and running quickly.

Back to top

What Are Your Questions?

What are your burning questions about internet marketing? Call me at 949-362-0842 or email me at dave@artistic-webdesign.com with your questions. Or fill out a one-minute survey on our website. Then watch for the answers in an upcoming issue of this newsletter.