How do you backup your entire website, what it says and how it looks and responds?
Your website is comprised of two basic things. The content on each page and the database and code that make it actually function. So how do you backup your entire website, what it says and how it looks and responds?
The content itself would be the text on each page. You might have originally supplied this to your designer as a Word Document. That same Word Document can serve as the content backup for that page. The easiest way might be to have a similar document for each page of your website. You can create these types of backups even if you don’t have access to your hosting account. Simply visit each page you wish to backup and copy the text right from your browser into a Word Document or any other text editor.
Another way that will also backup your images would be to visit each page and depending on your browser, File, Save Page As. If you select Web Page Complete you can save each page and it will also save the basic layout and any images in a separate folder on your computer. Opening the backup file should display a page similar to the page on your actual website.
Either of these methods will allow you to backup your website content and most of your images. You will need to verify the images on the page were downloaded. Check the folder that was saved with the page.
Backing up the Design is more involved and requires access to your hosting account. If your website designer is hosting your website, they should be able to provide you with a complete website backup. This of course depends on what platform your site is using. If your developer used any kind of website builder that is part of the hosting account then your website probably can’t be moved and any backups would be done by the hosting company themselves. But if your site is an HTML website or any kind of CMS website such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. then the site can be backed up. If you’re not sure what kind of site you have ask your developer. If it can be backed up then ask them to provide you with a copy of the database file and a copy of all the website files. Ask for these backups every few months or after any major changes to the website have been performed. Even if you don’t know what that means your developer will and once you that your website content, design and all its functionality is safe and can even be used if you wish to move your website to another hosting provider.
If you have access to your hosting account yourself then your hosting provider will do some backups but it’s good to also perform them yourself. Store them on your local computer and perform them on a routine basis considering how often your site’s content changes. You can search for the procedure to backup your site once you know what platform it is using.