Guest post today is courtesy of my rocking virtual assistant (and real life sister, complete with tacky and embarrassing photos from childhood to prove it), Melissa Barham of Barham Virtual Assistance.
What would you do if you woke up in the morning only to find out that your WordPress website had disappeared? Hackers, sever crashes, viruses… It’s a scary place out there and it’s only a matter of time before something gets ya…
You’ve put hours upon hours into your website — the customization, the pages, the posts and all those wonderful comments your readers had left… Are you backing them up? Is your website safe if something happens?
Mine is, enter WordPress Backup to Dropbox — My website actually backs itself up while I’m sleeping these days. Pretty nifty. With this awesome plugin you can schedule your backup and your website will automatically upload your files to your DropBox account.
I’ve been using this for about 2 months and it works like a gem. Not only does it drop a database backup but it does a FULL WordPress site backup. Perfection.
First things first, if you don’t already have a DropBox account you’ll need to go and sign up for one — Don’t worry, it’s free! 
You can click over there right now and grab your free account. Once you have your account set up then come back and watch the video.
If you’re not into video tutorials here are the steps:
- Log into WordPress and access your Plugins Menu.
- Search for “WordPress Backup to Dropbox”
- Install & Activate
- Click on the “WPB2D” menu in your left hand side WordPress menu bar, select “Backup Settings”
- Click the Authorize button and follow the steps to authorize the Plugin’s access to your DropBox account
- Schedule your desired backup day, time and frequency
- Save your settings
- Click over to the “Backup Now” selection under the “WPB2D” menu and initiate your first website backup
- Feel better knowing your website will now back itself up. Possibly even while you sleep
- Leave me a comment and let me know how much better you feel now that you know your website is that much safer.
I hope you guys love this plugin as much as I do — Should you ever need these files now you have them. Even if you don’t feel savvy enough to fix your website if it goes down you will have the files that are needed.
Melissa Barham: Work at Home Mom & Wife, Virtual Assistant specializing in WordPress Customizations and eProduct Graphics. Crazy about Coffee, Greek Food & The Big Bang Theory. Visit her blog for more great blogging tips, plugin reviews, and resources: http://barhamvirtualassistance.com/blogging/
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Bet you got both got teased as M&M as kids too. You both rock. I love you both for sharing such great information, tools and know how. Thanks.
Hey Julia, thank you. :)
Michelle-
This post was timely and much needed! I have been trying to figure out how to safely back up my blogging investment, and saw this today. Thank you once again for posting such relevant subject matter. Also- I absolutely love that you post both a video and written directions. While I can usually get by with the written, sometimes the video shows me exactly where on the screen I ought to be.
Thank you!
Glad this was good timing, Riki. :) And yes, backups are important!
I love video too, I had to ask to to share this when I saw Melissa post it because it’s so much easier to follow. :)
Good and very relevant post. Any suggestions for those of us who use blogspot. My blog has been hit for the second time in less that three months with some sort of bug. When I try to move around my blog another website pops up called AdFly??? Its bloody annoying and I don’t want it to put my readers off from visiting my blog.
I don’t use blogger so I’m not sure what their setup is like, but I found this link that may be helpful for you: http://www.howtorockyourblog.com/2012/03/04/how-to-back-up-your-blogger-blog/
I love Drop Box. You can also back-up your site online, or have it sent to your computer with this WordPress plugin that I use and it’s highly rated: Version 2.2.4 | By Jason Woods @ Backup Technology .
Back-up! Back-up! Before it’s too late.
I started using drop box too ad it is really it is doing me great during backing up. It is very important to back up to avoid the risk of loosing everything.
Thanks, will take a look at that one. Always good to have multiple options!
Thanks for the tip! This is something that has been on my to-do list that I hadn’t gotten around to yet. Registering… now!
Awesome, always smart to have that backup. :)
Michelle, this looks like a great tool. And would have saved a great deal of time porting over the WP sites to my new webhost. Have sent the link to Jeannette, too.
Yes, it’s very useful. Bookmark for next time? :)