Security is very important for any WordPress site. Backing up your WordPress site is the first and foremost measure you should take.
Your daily, weekly or monthly set needs automatic backup. Or you should take regular manual backups.
In this article, I will show you how to backup your WordPress site, transfer it to SeekaHost and then restore the backup using the Updraft Plus plugin.
Why You Should Backup Your WordPress Site?
When a site goes down, it carries a huge loss. This website downtime hits the overall economy causing a loss of trillions every year.
We all know that websites are vulnerable to unwanted threats. As a website owner you need to take precautionary measures to keep your site up and running.
There are some cases where the website goes down and loses your data:
- Websites are being hacked and data is being lost.
- Websites hosted with your current hosting are not good. When the server goes down, your site goes down.
- Your staff has done something wrong and your site has faded due to a technical error.
There are many situations that can cause your website to go down and lose important data.
The best way to keep your site safe and secure is to take regular backups.
Since WordPress does not have a built-in backup solution, you need a WordPress backup plugin. UpdraftPlus is the best plugin among many plugins.
The plugin is free to use and allows you to automatically schedule your site for backup. You can take a backup and save it to your local machine, Google Drive, Dropbox or other options.
With more addo, let’s take a look at the steps to create and restore WordPress site backups using the UpdraftPlus plugin..
How to create a backup with UpdraftPlus?
To backup your WordPress site using UpdraftPlus, you must first log in to the backend of your site.
To log in to your WordPress site, enter the site URL with / wp-admin. Use the username and password to log in to your site’s dashboard.
Once logged in, you should now have the UpdraftPlus plugin installed. It is a free plugin and can be used for a lifetime.
To install UpdraftPlus, go to Plugins> Add New and search for UpdraftPlus. The results will show you the plugin.
Here, I have already installed the plugin. But when you first install it, it will show you the install button. So click on it and let the plugin install automatically. Then activate it.
Once the plugin is activated, go to Settings »UpdraftPlus Backup To configure the plugin for backup.
Now click on the Settings tab. In the Settings tab, you can set backups for automatic backups. You can set it as hourly, daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
You need to select the remote storage where you want to save the backup. You can backup to UpdraftPlus vault, FTP, Dropbox, Microsoft Azure, Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud Files, Google Cloud, etc.
Tip: Never back up your files wherever your hosting is You may lose all your backups when hosting is turned off.
The free version only allows you to backup to a remote location. Using the premium version, you can backup multiple storage.
Here, I chose to backup to Google Drive. You can optionally choose another option.
When you scroll down a bit, you will be asked to choose the type of file you want to backup. This includes plugins, themes, uploads and directories.
Tip: Back up everything because you never know when a file might have a problem.
Your backup schedule should be based on how often you add new content to your website. If you add one or two articles per week, you should choose a weekly or fortnightly backup.
Scroll down again and check the box where it says you want to send reports to your email. This will notify you about the backup
Finally, click Save and UpdraftPlus will save the settings you manually configured.
You need to give access to your Google Drive so that UpdraftPlus can save backups to your preferred Google Drive location.
I will show you how it is done.
As soon as you click the save button, a pop-up will appear asking you to follow the link for approval.
Click Sign in with Google and choose your Google Account.
UpdraftPlus will ask you to access the Google Account you just selected.
Click Allow UpdraftPlus to allow access to your Google Account. A folder named UpdraftPlus will be created in your Google Drive.
To complete the setup, click the Complete Setup button and you’ll be redirected to your UpdraftPlus Settings page on your WordPress site’s dashboard.
This way you can set up UpdraftPlus to schedule automatic backups remotely.
How to do manual backup using UpdraftPlus?
Not only automatic backup, you can also take manual backup if you want. So, whenever you make any changes to your website, you can take a manual backup instead of waiting for the scheduled backup.
To create a manual backup, now click on the Backup button
A pop-up will prompt you to check and uncheck some options. Click Backup Now.
UpdraftPlus will now start creating a backup of your files and databases.
You can see the progress on the settings page.
When starting a backup, it is advisable to press a button or go back. This will result in a backup error.
Wait a while until the backup is complete as it depends on the size of the file.
When the backup is complete, you will see the backup as you scroll down.
In existing backups, you will see the backups you have taken at the moment.
You can now download files by clicking on each backup data set
How to migrate your site from SeekaHost and restore backup?
To move your site from existing WordPress hosting to SeekaHost, you need a WordPress hosting plan.
To buy a WordPress hosting plan at SeekaHost.app, create a SeekaHost account.
Register your new SeekaHost account using your email and other details.
Log in to SeekaPanel and go to Hosting Plans> WordPress Hosting
Click Choose Plan, and then choose Monthly or Annual Billing Terms.
Click Continue to Subscribe and proceed with the payment.
Click Order Now and complete the payment.
To create a WordPress site, go to Websites & Blogs> WordPress Sites. Click the Create WordPress Site button in the upper right corner.
Now enter the site domain, and the blog title, keep the site visible and select your subscription. Click Add WordPress Site.
Your WordPress site is now created and activated. You should now change your domain name server.
Copy the nameservers from the SeekaHost control panel.
To change the nameservers, go to your domain registrar and paste the nameservers.
Once you point your domain at SeekaHost WordPress Hosting, you can enable SSL.
To enable SSL on your site go to your domain settings> SSL. With one click, you can enable SSL on your WordPress site.
Then comes the key part of recovering your original WordPress site.
Steps to Recover Your WordPress Site at SeekaHost
You have changed the nameserver, and you have enabled SSL. Now log in to your WordPress Dashboard hosted by SeekaHost.app WordPress Hosting.
Step 1- Once logged in, install UpdraftPlus WordPress Plugin.
I have already shown the steps to install and activate the plugin. So follow the same steps.
Step 2- To import all files and databases, click on upload backup files. You will find this option in Settings> Update.
This will allow you to manually upload the backup and restore everything to SeekaHost.
You can simply upload the backup file. Basically 5 sections (Plugins, Themes, Uploads, Others and Databases). Download it from Google Drive or your website and upload it here
Once you have uploaded all the files, you will have the option to restore it. (Alternatively, you can configure the same remote storage on your new site and rescind the remote storage. This will save you download and upload time.)
Check all the boxes, and click Next. The plugin will restore the backup files from the remote storage.
Your WordPress site is now live and ready on SeekaHost.
Now your WordPress site uses the old backup site user certificate because it only contains the old database.
Conclusion
I’ve shown you all the steps to move your site to SeekaHost and create and restore backups using UpdraftPlus.
I hope the steps are clear and useful.