As a site owner, it is essential to have a website backup in case something goes wrong, and you want to restore it.

The best way to do this is via on-demand backup plugins for WordPress.

In this article, you will find out how to back up your WordPress site step by step. First, you will learn how to back up your website manually, but also, you will also find out the best plugins for this task.

Some malware attacks or hacking of websites are a constant threat to WordPress site functionality.

A more safe method to solve those issues is to back up your website constantly.

It is essential for any WordPress site owner to have a solid backup of his website, in case something goes wrong. So in order to avoid this it is important to have a recent website backup.

Why is so important to have a backup of your WordPress site

1. Your website might be broken for some reason

You must know that when you upgrade or install a plugin there is a chance that your website might get broken.

So it is recommended to have a backup of your website every time you upgrade the WordPress version and install a new plugin.

2. You can reverse your mistakes on the website

Sometimes you edit the code in the WordPress core files and you made some mistakes and now your website is broken or inaccessible. You can fix this mistake if you have a recent backup of the site.

3. You are sure you have a recent version of your site

Just for security reasons you should have a backup of your WordPress site just in case something will go wrong.

So what is a WordPress Backup

This is a copy or a duplicated version of any WordPress site. Any WordPress website is composed of 2 main elements: website files and a database.

Website files refer to the WordPress files stored in the public_html leading directory. These include WordPress core files, plugins, themes, images, code files, and static web pages.

Also, a database will store all the data that is not included in files, posts, or pages.

So you must backup the files & the database.

How to backup your WordPress site in 3 easy ways

1. Backup your WordPress website via Cpanel

Before proceeding forward with the backup, you must make sure that you will have access to the following:

cPanel or the hosting credentials to access files and database

You must know in what directory you installed the WordPress

Step 1: Log in to the hosting account / cPanel.

You can log in with the credentials for you to have access to the file manager.

For direct access, type the website address followed by the keyword Cpanel (i,e.,example.com/cpanel).

Step 2: Manually backup WordPress core & media files

After you log in to the cPanel account, you must go to the file manager. And you will see the following screen.

Step 3: Compress all your WordPress files and download them

Access the “public_html” folder in your hosting account. On the left side of the screen, you can see all the folders & subfolders.

You see the different operations performed on a directory or files on the top navigation menu. For example, you can use the compress option from the top to compress the entire “public_html” directory. But we don’t recommend this as it increases the server load and consumes more space.

After selecting the WordPress site folder, click compress and choose Gzip. The next step is to download the compressed file.

2. How to manually backup WordPress files via FTP

If, in some cases, you don’t have access to your cPanel login credentials, you can back up your WordPress website via FTP.

But you must have valid FTP credentials for this process.

Also, we recommend you install FileZilla software on your PC to access all your files on the server.

You can download the FileZilla FTP client from https://filezilla-project.org/.

After that, you can open the FileZilla Client to see all the local or remote sites.

Step 3. Connect to the Remote Site using FTP Credentials

You need the following FTP credentials to connect with the web server.

    FTP Server: ftp.example.com or IP Address

    FTP Username: [email protected]

    FTP Password: your password

    FTP &explicit FTPS port: 21 normally

Step 4. Download the manual backup of your WordPress Site via FTP

For this process, you must follow the next steps:

1. Select all the files and folders that are associated with your website

2. Right-click on the mouse to get a popup menu.

3. Click on the Download button.

How to manually download a WordPress Backup of your database

The final step of this process is to back up your database. You can do this by using the phpMyAdmin in your cPanel account.

First of all, you must access phpMyAdmin using cPanel.

You must log in to cPanel or your hosting account and navigate to the Database section.

After that, you can access the phpMyAdmin icon & select the database that you want to export or download.

As you open the phpMyAdmin panel, you will see all the available databases.

Select the database you want to download and click the quick export option.

After that, you can select the gzipped compression type.

3. Download a WordPress backup via a plugin

If you want a more accessible method to back up your WordPress site, you can choose a plugin. There are many options from which you can choose, but here are our top 3 picks.

1. BlogVault WordPress backup plugin

This is an awesome plugin for several reasons – first of all, it is very safe, easy to use, and has many features you can use when you want to back your website.

2. UpdraftPlus backup plugin

Did you know that over 78% of all WordPress sites have less than 1GB in size? So this plugin is a good fit if you have a small website that you want to back up very quickly & fast.

 A backup was created in minutes and saved to our server right away. You can also schedule automatic backups and set a frequency.

3. Jetpack Backup Plugin

This is a very nicely organized and built plugin for backing up your WordPress website. You can schedule automated backups of your website and have up to a 30-day backup archive.

If you have a WordPress website, you should have a regular backup strategy.

If you host WordPress with a premium host, they may already have a website backup strategy for you. However, most “regular” web hosts do not offer reliable backups, which means that you are responsible for backing up your WordPress website.

To safely back up a WordPress website, you need to store your backups in an off-site location such as remote cloud storage or your computer (ideally both).

How often you backup your website depends on how often the content changes. A good starting point for most WordPress websites is to back up the files once a week and the database every day.

To backup your website automatically, you can use one of the WordPress backup plugins that we presented above.

Feel free to check the rest of our articles on our blog or watch Kubio tutorials on Youtube.