Back up your blog! TODAY.

Could you imagine not being able to log onto your blog overnight?!?

Gone. No access. All your work and beloved comments gone.

What would you do?

This nightmare happened to a blog friend of ours. Lisa at Serendipity Chic Design lost her blog access due to a gmail hack. Basically put, if you can't log into your email, you've lost access to your blog.

After many rounds with gmail security, she was at a loss. So she had to start her blog all over again.

Can you imagine?!?

However, there are measures you can take to ensure your blog is safe, even IF you DO lose an email or your blog. So play it smart and see if you've done the following.

1. Back up your blog

Did you know you can back up your entire blog? So if you had to start over one day, all you'd have to do is IMPORT a saved file into a new blogger template and you're back in biz! Lisa didn't know about this option so she suggested I blog about it. Thanks Lisa, great idea!

The back up will save your published posts, but nothing in draft mode. Nor your blog template settings. Just your posts. Which are the most important anyway. I believe it saves comments but I haven't done it myself to be 100% certain.

If you've never backed up before, today is the day. Do this NOW. Do it once a week. Just do it. It's dead easy.

How to back up your blog

dashboard

settings

basic

export blog (do NOT hit DELETE)

 

 select download blog

Select save/ok. (this is what it looks like on a mac)

No, this will not remove your blog. 

Yes, this will put a backup file on your hard drive.

This is what my saved file looks like on my hard drive. It's called blog and it's dated! How easy is that to find?

How to retrieve your blog backup

 No need for me to write this. Google has done an amazing job at explaining it with loads of screen shots. Click HERE.

2. Update your google recovery options

Just today, google asked if I wanted to update my recovery options. 

Say you forgot your email password or there was a loss to your email. Google's default is to send your password settings to your email when you desire, however if you have no email, you're dead in the water.  This must be a common occurrence for gmail especially because they have additional clicks for gmail users, so beware!

Tip: I'd suggest for new blog users to set up a google account using a purchased email account, rather than a freebie service.

What to do?

You can now also have the settings sent to your cell phone in addition to your email. So did I tweak my settings? YES.

To update your own google recovery options, click HERE.

3. Get that backup system

If you don't have a backup system for your computer, you're playing a dangerous game. Everything could be gone tomorrow.

This recently happened to me in my work office. A power surge knocked out a hard drive. Luckily, I had the info backed onto a secondary computer. AND the info was burned onto dvd's.

There are better ways now to back up. I'm going to be picking up an external hard drive for the mac so I can easily back up the entire contents on this computer. And I will still burn dvd's which I keep in my truck.

And I'm going to burn a separate dvd just for the blog backup too.

Play it safe! Back up your info somehow, someway. Just backing up your blog onto your hard drive is NOT enough.

 4. Visit blog tweak experts.

 If I ever want to know how to do something in layman terms, Sneaky Momma Blog Design is always my first stop. You will discover all kinds of blog tips that are separated in degrees of difficulty. Thank-you Sneaky Momma, for saving me 100x over! This is where I officially learned how to do the backup.

Lisa,  thank-you for sharing your story with me so I could help many others benefit from this experience.

So... congrats, friends. YOU are now educated. Now go save your blog! Lisa says so. :)

What would you do if your blog disappeared the next day on you?
Any other blog saving tips to share?

Click above for more FJI blog tips.