Back Up and Restore a WordPress Site

Backups are boring until the day you need one. This guide covers the setup I recommend for small business WordPress sites.

What a complete backup includes

A WordPress site has two parts, and you need both:

1. The database: pages, posts, products, orders, settings, and users.
2. The files: themes, plugins, uploaded images and documents, and wp-config.php.

A backup with only one of these won't restore your site on its own.

Step 1: Check what your host already does

Many hosts take automatic daily backups. Find out:

• How often they run
• How long they're kept
• Whether you can restore them yourself
• Whether they're stored on a separate server

Host backups are a great safety net, but don't rely on them alone. If you lose access to the hosting account, you lose the backups too.

Step 2: Add your own automatic backups

Use a reputable backup plugin or service and set it to:

• Back up the database daily (more often for busy online stores)
• Back up files weekly, or daily if you add content often
• Keep at least two to four weeks of backups

Step 3: Store backups off-site

Send backups somewhere other than your web server, such as cloud storage you control. The rule of thumb is three copies, on two different types of storage, with one stored off-site.

Step 4: Back up before risky changes

Always take a fresh manual backup before:

• Updating plugins, themes, or WordPress core
• Changing themes
• Editing code
• Migrating to a new host

Step 5: Test a restore

This is the step most people skip. A backup is only useful if it restores cleanly.

1. Create a staging site (many hosts offer one-click staging) or a local test site.
2. Restore your latest backup there.
3. Check the homepage, a few inner pages, a form, and the admin area.
4. If you run a store, check products and a test order flow.

Do this every few months, and after changing backup tools.

When something goes wrong

1. Don't panic, and don't make more changes yet.
2. Note what happened and when.
3. Restore the most recent backup from before the problem started.
4. Check the site, then re-apply any changes made since that backup carefully.

For online stores, remember that restoring an older database can remove recent orders. Export recent orders first, or ask for help.