How to Backup a WordPress Site

Do you backup a wordpress site on a regular basis? If you don’t, you should. There are many reasons to do this but the most important one is that it gives you peace of mind. WordPress sites are hacked every day and their content destroyed. If that happened to you, what would you do? If you were managing a site for a client, how would you handle that? When you backup a wordpress site, you can easily (usually) restore it quickly and be back up and running.

There are a number of ways to backup a wordpress site

Most all of the various ways are very easy. There’s the free plugins that you can find on the wordpress site. They do a great job when you need to backup a wordpress site. The challenge comes after you have the backup. Have you ever needed to restore you site because the theme or plugin you uploaded broke your site? Have you ever needed to move your wordpress blog or website due to changing hosting companies? If so, you know what a hassle it generally is to move your wordpress website or blog if you have utilized most of the free plugins available to backup a wordpress site. There are a lot of steps to go through and it’s not generally “newbie” friendly. However, it can be done with a little patience and time. My favorite way is to use a process called “cloning” to backup a wordpress site.

How to Backup a WordPress Site by Cloning it

When you clone a wordpress site, you create an exact copy of it. There are a number of free plugins you can download that will clone your site. However, they have one drawback. They don’t clone your plugins and the settings for your plugins. That means you have to reinstall all of your plugins and then activate them and set them all up again if you use one of the free plugins.

My favorite way to backup a wordpress site is to clone it with WP Twin. This cloning software is excellent and I use it almost every day, and have been for more than 6 months. WP Twin has the advantage of being able to clone everything including your content, posts, database, plugins, and plugin settings. This is huge and saves a great deal of time when moving your site or restoring it if it gets hacked. This is probably the biggest advantage WP Twin has over its competitors.

I use premium themes like Thesis on some of mine and my clients’ sites and a number of specialized plugins. The amount of time it would take to replicate all of the settings and code would be prohibitive without being able to clone them.

To clone your site using WP Twin, just upload the wptwin.php file to your web server via FTP, cPanel, or any other way your host provides. You then enter the url http://www.yourdomain.com/wptwin.php (substituting “yourdomain.com” with your website address). You will then be asked to enter the email address that you used when you purchased. On the next screen click the “Clone” button and in just a few seconds your clone has been created. You should then download the clone to your computer and delete it from the server, which you can do right in the WP Twin screen. Simple and easy.

For more information or to purchase WP Twin click here. There are three options. The first will allow you to clone up to 10 sites. The second option allows up to 25 sites, and the third option, which is what I have and is your best value, allows an unlimited number of site clones. With any purchase, you get a free bonus. The Bonus file is a WP Twin clone file you can deploy and have instant access to different salesletter templates! These are great to have to set up salesletters on your website. You receive 7 salesletter fill-in-the-blank templates and a download page (also fill-in-the-blank) that can be used to quickly set up a sales site and a download link for the visitor to download their purchase.

Backup a wordpress site today using WP Twin and you’ll feel secure knowing that if something catastrophic happens, you’ll be protected.