Importance of Website Backup and How to do It Better In 2025

Discover the importance of website backups in 2025 and how to put data protection techniques to use. Explore the benefits and steps on how to secure your website today.

Website backups matter more than most website owners understand. In 2025, it is more crucial to have your website well secured and properly backed up as cyberattacks have become more complex, and website downtime can cost businesses a lot of money.

In this guide, we will explore the importance of website backups, explain how they are crucial for businesses in 2025, and show you how you can carry out good backup strategies.

What is a website?

A website is a group of web pages that can be accessed online and are identified by a shared domain name. It serves as a platform for businesses to promote their products and services and interact with clients.

What is a website backup?

Website backup is defined as the process of creating a copy of your website’s files and database. It is made up of text content, photos, videos, and other data that’s needed for your website to operate. Website backup is crucial because it prevents loss of data if there is an emergency.

BENEFITS OF WEBSITE BACKUP

Website backups offer a wide range of benefits that help your business operate smoothly. This includes:

1. Data Protection: Backups guarantee that you do not lose data from corrupt files or accidental deletions
2. Website Security: Regular backups guard your website from cyberattacks, making it easy to recover data should you be targeted. Learn more about website security 
3. Peace of Mind: With website backups, you do not have to worry about losing your data, allowing you to focus on your business.
4. Disaster Recovery: Backups allows you restore your data easily in the event of a server failure, security breach, etc.

IMPORTANCE OF WEBSITE BACKUP

The importance of backups can’t be overstated. Imagine finding out that your business website has crashed and you’ve lost all your data. You risk losing vital customer information, sales data, etc., if you’ve not been backing up your website. According to statistics posted by TrueList, it’s been reported that about 94% of businesses that experience severe data loss cease operation in two years.

As businesses adopt new technologies such as e-commerce, having a reliable backup is very important; it protects you from cyber threats like data breaches and ransomware attacks. Also during backup, you can run a malware detection tool that aids in detecting potential vulnerabilities.

HOW TO BACK UP YOUR WEBSITE MANUALLY IN 2025

Manual backups allow you more control over what is saved, where it is served, and how it is served. This guide will walk you through how to back up your websites manually.

There are three methods to manually back up your websites; they include:

1. Using Control Panel (cPanel)
2. Using File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
3. Manually Exporting your Database

USING CONTROL PANEL (cPanel)

A cPanel can be used to make changes in your hosting account. It can be used by websites on a shared hosting platform

How to back up your website manually with cPanel:

Step 1: Log into cPanel and enter in your login details

Step 2: Scroll to Files, click on Backup Manager.

Step 3: Under other cPanel backup plugins, Click cPanel Backups

Step 4: Under the Full Backup Website Section, Click Download a Full Account Backup Icon

Step 5: select Home Directory option

Step 6: Fill in your email address if you desire to receive email notification after backup or you click on Do not send email notification of email completion

Step 7: Click on Generate Backup and wait till the process is complete

Step 8: Click on the file to download it. You will locate it in your home directory.

BACKING UP YOUR WEBSITE BY FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL

With File Transfer Protocol (FTP), you can manually back up every file on your website from your hosting server.

You will need:

1. An FTP Client such as FileZilla ( https://filezilla-project.org/)
2. An FTP login detail

How to Backup With FTP

Step 1: Open FileZilla.

Step 2: Click on File, then select Site Manager and click on New site

Step 3: Enter your FTP information. This consists of:

Host Name: This is the domain name of your website

User: Your FTP account username

Password: Your FTP account password

Select 4: Change the Logon Type to Normal

Step 5:  Select Connect

Step 6:  Click on Documents or any folder you want to save the backup

Step 7: Right-click and select Create Directory and Enter It. Name the directory based on your choice.

Step 8: On the top right side of the FileZilla interface, Click on your Domain and find the public_html folder

Step 9:  Drag and Drop the public_html folder to the already created Website Backup Folder

Step 10: Wait for the download to complete

BACKING UP YOUR WEBSITE WITH MySQL

Step 1: Open phpMyAdmin. On the left bar, select the Database you want to backup

Step 2: Click on the Export tab

Step 3: Select Quick in the Export Method option; this saves a copy of the whole database. Select Custom for individual tables and special options. Select SQL for the Format field

Step 4: Click on Go”; the backup file will begin to download

HOW TO BACKUP YOUR WORDPRESS WEBSITE IN 2025

There are three ways to back up your WordPress website

1. By Using a WordPress backup plugins
2. By backing up manually using cPanels
3. By using FTP and phpMyAdmin

Let’s explore them in detail:

 USING WORDPRESS BACKUP PLUGINS

Some plugins include

1. UpdraftPlus
2. Duplicator
3. All-in-One WP Mitigation and Backup

HOW TO BACKUP WORDPRESS USING UpdraftPlus

Step 1: Install and Activate UpdraftPlus 

Step 2: Click on Settings > UpdraftPlus Backup and select Backup Now

Step 3: Once completed, go to Existing Backup. Select Download To Your Computer or Save it to your Google Drive or Dropbox

HOW TO BACK UP YOUR WORDPRESS WEBSITE MANUALLY USING cPanel

Step 1: Log onto cPanel  and input your login details

Step 2: In the Files Section, Select Backup Manager

Step 3: under Backup Manager, click on cPanel Backups

Step 4: On cPanel Backups under Full Backup Select Download or Generate Full Website Backup

Step 5: Select Go Back to go to Available Downloads

Step 6: Click on Backups to download it to your computer

HOW TO BACK UP YOUR WORDPRESS USING Filezilla

Step 1: Log into your FileZilla account at and click Quick Connect

Step 2: Select a folder to save your backup

Step 3: On the right side of the screen, locate the site root directory

Step 4: Select all the files on the sites directory and click on Download

Step 5: The files will be downloaded to a local source

WHAT IS THE MAIN PURPOSE OF WEBSITE BACKUP?

1. Protection Against Loss of Data: You can lose data on your website due to a server crash or hardware malfunction. Backup’s help in ensuring you do not lose all your vital data. A business that doesn’t back up its website might have to rebuild a website from scratch, which can be time-consuming and expensive.
2. Maintains SEO Ranking: A website that is down for a long period of time might lose its place in Google search results. However, having a website backup allows you to easily recover whatever data was lost quickly, which helps maintain your SEO ranking.
3. Business Continuity: e-businesses rely heavily on their websites for the purpose of sales, customer engagement, and branding. If a company doesn’t back up its website, it will eventually lose clients, credibility, and go out of business. Backup prevents this by ensuring uninterrupted business operations, regardless of the circumstances.

CONCLUSION

In 2025, website backup is very significant. Backups enable businesses to survive when hit with unexpected problems.

Collaborate with DesterHost to ensure that your website is well secured with backups while you tend to grow your business.