If you are in business you probably already back up your computer files onto an external drive or somewhere in the Cloud regularly. However, do you do the same for your website?
Why is this important? If your computer is damaged, or hacked, you may need to reinstall your operating system and start from scratch.
Even if you already take web security seriously, and take as many precautions as possible to protect against hackers, you should always plan for the worst.
A hacker who is able to infiltrate your security can also, potentially destroy your whole website or use it as a cover for something far more unsavoury.
Should this happen, if you have backed up your site, you will be able to retrieve the most recent version. It may be missing some of your newer content, but at least it will be up and running.
However, it isn’t always being hacked that can cause problems, sometimes you can do something, completely by mistake that affects the functionality of your site. Pure human error. You can identify the problem, and try to solve it, or restore your site the most recent back up and move on – if you are backing up your website!
How would this type of loss affect your business?
How much damage would it do to the everyday running of your business?
Would it stop you from contacting customers or clients?
You may have data on your website that is important to your business, which could be lost – how worried would you be about that?
You may have spent money on creating a website that personifies your brand perfectly, and if it’s lost you’d have to recreate it from scratch – and that would be costly. Does that bother you?
You may lose clients you didn’t even know were there because they couldn’t find you and/or they lose confidence in you and your brand. They may never come back. Does that concern you?
Six reasons why you should back up your website:
- Prevent loss of data: if your site has been running for years, and it may include blogs or product pages. If you haven’t backed up this information since starting the site, you’ll have to recreate it all.
- Resolve malware infections: troubleshooting malware isn’t always reliable, therefore, have a backup helps get your website clean faster.
- Handle compatibility of updates for plugins. Being able to revert to a previous backup if compatibility issues arise, always helps. Plugins can really slow things down and that make a website very unattractive to search engines.
- Provide protection against hackers: sometimes attacks breach an accounts administrative privileges, and you can be locked out. However, with the correct security in place, this shouldn’t happen. But if it does, being able to restore a backup can help you regain control of the site quickly.
- Changing web hosts: If you are happy with your web service provider, you wouldn’t have to worry about this. But sometimes, people go with the cheapest option, and then at a later stage, realising that cheapest wasn’t the best, they want to move to another host. Occasionally, providers are awkward and take their time to give you access to your site or it will take weeks to get a reply to any request to move on. With a recent backup, you will have no problem!
- Would you be able to sell products? If your site generates revenue, via content, products or services, you could run the risk of it all being lost. If your site is offline, that revenue will be lost until you can completely restore the website. An hour, or even an entire day of lost income can be a significant blow to your business, especially if your business is product based.
I recently shared a story on LinkedIn about six schools on the Isle of Wight being hit by ransomware, which encrypted their data, so staff were unable to access any of their work. They were locked out of everything. Don’t let this happen to you.
We offer website back up as part of our services. Don’t leave the security of your website to chance. Access to your website is important for the continued smooth running of your business. Get in touch here to see how we can help.
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