by Esther Adeniyion January 14, 2019March 5, 20197 Comments on How to back up your blog in 5 minutes! Step by Step Tutorial
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I have come to know that of all the routines Bloggers perform on the blogs, backing up is not the common one. It’s okay if you don’t do this because you do not know how to back up your blog. That changes right away!
I hope that this article will be a good source of reference to Bloggers who ask me how to back up their blogs. Usually, I have to answer over and over again which is a little bit draining.
By the time I am done here, I just want to be able to share the URL with anyone who asks and they are all set.
Contents
Let me tell you a story.
Kidding!
I know stories bore the hell outta some folks, Y’all just want the information right off the bat so that you will be on your way.
I think I will tell the story, I am itching to talk about it. Permit me or just scroll down to what you want.
A certain Blogger friend told me that his friend’s blog has been deleted. Of course, the aaaaahs and whaaaaaaat that followed were so not unavoidable.
The so-called dude, the one whose blog was deleted had a lot of posts on that blog. I was so afraid to ask if he has a backup.
Thankfully, I was saved the stress of having to ask that question the right way so as not to come off as insensitive. Dude backed up his blog.
Oh Perfect! Perfect!
But the horror though. Realizing that your blog is gone is as shocking as it sounds.
All the years of hard work all gone. What’s left is proof of it, the backup but guess what, if this guy buys a new domain and imports his backup, he can climb up quickly. You don’t want to compare this to if he had nothing at all.
Apparently, he had stepped on the foot of some online company, he had been warned once but I guess, he thought that it was all a joke.
Those guys went straight to his blog host. His hosting company gave him no warning, they just deleted his blog.
So,
You should back up your blog because:
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Your blog can be deleted
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Hackers can hack in to seize your blog from you. Chances are slim with a good hosting company. Don’t be the number in the minority it happens to.
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Some jealous person you have given blog rights and access to in the past may decide to strip you of ownership. I know it is very dumb to forget that you added a user who is also an administrator.
Just a word of caution here: unless you want anyone to have the same rights as you have on your blog, never make them an administrator. And really, why would you make anyone have the same rights as you if you are not blog co-owners?
Do not be tempted to run your blog with emotions. We live in a world of desperate people. In fact, as soon as your Blog Designer is done with your blog, strip them of administrative rights to it.
I recently removed all of the blogs I had administrative rights to some days ago. I know that I am also supposed to let them know what I did and ask them to never leave that up to anyone to do by themselves, not even their Blog Builder.
They should have done that a long time ago, by themselves.
Whenever you add anyone to your blog, make them a contributor, author, or editor, never an administrator. If you are using Blogspot, you have two options: Admin or Author. Make them Authors and not Admin except they have to work on other aspects of the blog Authors don’t have a right to.
As soon as they are done, delete or reverse them to Authors so you would not have to always send the fresh new invitations to your blog. Limit your blog entry gateways.
- An update or software upgrade might just turn out wrong.
What this tutorial covers is backing up your content.
You can also backup your theme/template. You do this so that when you make a CSS change or any other design alteration and there is a misconfiguration somewhere, you can quickly restore your backup to where it was originally and start redesign all over again to achieve your desired design.
Let’s get right into backing up your blogger blog. Depending on your network, this will take 5 minutes or less. You see why this simple check is not had to achieve? You can even do this on your phone. Your file is the same anywhere, on your phone and on your computer system.
1. Log in to your blogger dashboard
Choose the blog you want to back up. If you have more than two blogs on one account, be sure to click on the drop-down menu just right on top of “view blog” to choose the exact blog you want to back up.
2. Click on “settings”
Check the left-hand side of your blogger dashboard for the menu. You will see “settings“. Click on that.
3. Click on “other”.
I have already indicated with a purple arrow.
4. Click on “Backup content”
5. Click on “save to your computer”
6. Voila! Your blog is downloaded
Your downloaded blog is in the XML format. The file title is usually “blog-Month-Date-Year.xml”. You might decide to change this to something you can easily remember if you have more than one blogs to download periodically or you just leave it like this if you have just one blog.
Very easy! You have no excuse to not download your blog anymore. What this downloaded file contains is all of your posts as at the date of download, pictures, embedded videos and videos, comments, and labels.
As I have already mentioned, this WordPress backup is not the full backup of your site, with its plugins and other extra stuff. This backup is the necessary, most important back up for your WordPress site.
The backup file contains all of your posts as at the time of backup, the comments, tags, categories, and even pictures.
1. Open your dashboard
Log in to your WordPress site with your username and password (as usual).
2. Go to “tools”
On the left-hand side of your WordPress dashboard, you will find “tools”. That is just after “users” and before “settings”
3. Click on “tools”
Click on “tools” to reveal the menu it holds.
4. Click on “export”
Then click on “export”. I have indicated this with a purple arrow.
5. Click on “download export file”
By default, “all content” is ticked. Leave it that way as it makes sure all of your blog content including some of your e-commerce information, if you have an e-commerce blog, is downloaded.
6. Voila! Your WordPress blog is downloaded
Your downloaded file for your WordPress site is also an XML format. Only that the site is properly named, so you don’t miss it.
Your downloaded WordPress site is labeled in this format – site name (minus .com).wordpress.Year-Month-Date
I say that there is no one answer that fits all. This depends on how frequently you blog.
If you blog every day, a weekly blog back up is great. If you blog just twice in a week, a monthly blog backup is in order.
You might want to set a reminder too so that you don’t forget when its time to back up. This is a compulsory blog maintenance practice.
If you want to do a full back up of your WordPress blog, there are plugins that you can install to help you out with that automatically and at set intervals. If I can make a good compilation and tutorial, I will do so.
In the meantime, you can check this post on WordPress Backup Plugins compared on wpbeginner
If you are using Siteground and would like a full WordPress backup of your site, you can check here. Usually, many of the good hosting companies have this option. Some of them even backup your WordPress site automatically at periodic times too.
This is why when you lose your blog and it is not from the hosting company, the good ones will have your backup and give you back your file for reinstallation.
If you have any questions or got confused at any point of the tutorial, please write them in the comments section. I will answer them.
Are there other tutorials you would like me to share? Indicate them also in the comments section.
I would also appreciate that you share this tutorial with as many Bloggers that you know. The sharing icons are just below this post. Alternatively, you can just directly copy the URL and share with them. Thank you very much.
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Tags:back up your blogbackup your blogger sitebackup your wordpress siteblogger backupblogging tutorialsblogspot backup tutorialwordpress backup