If the answer is yes to the last question then you need to read through this article and discover that backing up your WordPress site doesn’t have to be the painful or complex job that you might think it is.

Since WordPress is a dynamic, database driven script all the important content is stored in the database, so when we say take a backup, it usually means backing up the database rather than the Wordpres files. Everything such as your blog posts, comments and settings are all stored in the database so if you ever lose the database you have essentially lost everything. There are three ways to backup the database:

1. The easiest option is to install a plugin which automatically takes a backup of your database. One plugin is called Backup and Move and it backs up the whole database and allows you to move it to a new server where it can be restored. Another option is WP-Twin which does a similar job where it makes a clone of your site on another site. If you want to make regular backups there is a service called myRepono where it will cost you less than a dollar a month to take a full backup each day and store it on their servers.

2. There is actually a little known backup tool built in to the core of WordPress which lets you back up the core data like blog posts and comments. It saves the data as an XML file which can be imported to any other website. Although it doesn’t save all your settings the main data is backed up and it only takes a second to do. This option is very useful if you want to export the main data from an older version of WordPress to a newer version.

3. Finally, if you know how to use phpMyAdmin then you can login via your hosting control panel and access phpMyAdmin. There is an option to export the database and save it as an SQL file. If you do this then it will take a full backup with all the settings.

Remember though, if you take a full WordPress backup from an older version of the software and try and import it in to a newer version it could cause problems if you are importing the old site settings.

If disaster has struck and you don’t have any backups or your hosting company has disappeared without a trace it might be possible to salvage some of your content using Google cache. This is a last resort option where you search in Google for site: mydomain.com and then visit the cached page for each result and copy and paste the content in to a text file. You’ll then have to insert each post manually while all the time wishing you had made a backup!

If you don’t have any backups of your WordPress sites I want you to go to your WP Admin area right now, click on Tools and then Export and at least have a copy of all the content you’ve added to your site.

Wordpress Themes are a key part of building your Wrdorpess Website. There are currently tens of thousands of excellent themes built specifically for WordPress but now there is a fierce debate on whether theme and plugin developers can charge for their work and restrict the usage license. Since WordPress is released under an open source license any work derived from WordPress (ie. Themes and plugins) should also be open source.

We take a look at the 6 key differences between free and paid WordPress themes.

Quality

The quality of the design is likely to be much higher. Free themes tend to be simple and clean in their layout whereas Premium themes tend to be more graphical and focus on the visual appeal of the design.

Theme Options

Premium themes are often at the cutting edge of WordPress development and are among the first to incorporate new features. Many Premium themes let you do a huge amount of customization in the Theme Options page where you can change everything from the layout to the header graphics. You can even customize the menu options and set different options for different pages. Free themes tend to have a simple one size fits all option.

Support

Free themes are designed and released because the developer is interested in coding, not running a business. There is no incentive for them to support the theme and answer questions because they are not being paid to do so and they don’t have any business reputation on the line. By contrast a premium theme will often have a forum or help desk where you can ask questions and get your problems resolved.

Updates

Similar to the support, the developer of a free WordPress theme is under no obligation to update their theme to the latest version of WordPress whereas a premium theme developer needs to ensure they are always up to date otherwise they will lose out on customers and money. Updates are particularly relevant when it comes to security measures.

Backlinks

Free theme developers often make their themes available for free because it contains a backlink to their website in the footer of the site which gives their own site a boost in search engines and helps increase their Pagerank. This has seen a rise in ‘Freemium’ themes that have the characteristics of a premium theme but are released for free with backlinks to other websites in the footer. The links are often encrypted or the theme is disabled if removed. The premium themes generally do not have the requirement for you to link back to the developers site.

Security

This relates back to how often the theme is updated because new vulnerabilities are discovered all the time and if the theme is out of date it could compromise your site. However, scammers and hackers can also make use of free WordPress themes to inject malicious code like hidden spam links in to your site without you even knowing it. If a developer of premium themes did this they’d be out of business pretty quickly once word got around about their dirty tactics.

Our Guide is step by step guide to creating your Internet Marketing Action Plan. We hope this helps you get the most out of your online marketing efforts.

The 3-60 Hosting Team

Wordpress’s popularity had made it a great development platform for blogging sites as well as standard websites. There are 1000s of beautiful template themes and plugins that extend the functionality of a site to do almost anything, from animated image galleries, feed back forms to e-commerce solutions.

Wordpress is a user friendly powerhouse that can be used for anything from personal blogging to the CMS for a Fortune 500 website. WordPress even offer a service on WordPress.com where you can set up a free blog in seconds. They even cover the cost of hosting.

So why host your blog or WordPress website with 3-60 Hosting?

We are focused on offering professional grade services to businesses that need more that a free blogging website. We combine our hosting package with basic or advanced SEO options that increase the visibility of your website, we spend time checking that the site is structured properly and you are not being penalized by search engines for content duplication, errors in your site map or spammy looking content. We work with you to target keywords that are relevant to your business or website content. We then optimized your pages with these focused keyword, helping you get ranked on the search engines naturally.

We believe its important to explain what we are doing and give you our analytic reports so you can track your websites progress. We want you to take an active part in your online marketing efforts so you can either continue the website marketing efforts yourself or feel comfortable that we are doing a great job and you are happy for us to take care of it for you.

We offer our quality hosting services with our specific WordPress knowledge to come up with a powerful WordPress hosting solution. Our main objective is to help you succeed.

The 3-60 Guide to Internet Marketing.

Download: The 3-60 Guide to Internet Marketing

Wordpress’s popularity had made it a great development platform. There are 1000s of beautiful template themes and plugins that extend the functionality of a site to do almost anything, from animated image galleries, feed back forms to e-commerce solutions.

Wordpress is a user friendly powerhouse that can be used for anything from personal blogging to the CMS for a Fortune 500 website. WordPress even offer a service on WordPress.com where you can set up a free blog in seconds. They even cover the cost of hosting.

So why host your blog or WordPress website with 3-60 Hosting?

We are focused on offering professional grade services to businesses that need more that a free blogging website. We combine our hosting package with basic or advanced SEO options that increase the visibility of your website, we spend time checking that the site is structured properly and you are not being penalized by search engines for content duplication, errors in your site map or spammy looking content. We work with you to target keywords that are relevant to your business or website content. We then optimized your pages with these focused keyword, helping you get ranked on the search engines naturally.

We believe its important to explain what we are doing and give you our analytic reports so you can track your websites progress. We want you to take an active part in your online marketing efforts so you can either continue the website marketing efforts yourself or feel comfortable that we are doing a great job and you are happy for us to take care of it for you.

We offer our quality hosting services with our specific WordPress knowledge to come up with a powerful WordPress hosting solution. Our main objective is to help you succeed.

Promote 3-60 on your website and make money when your visitors buy from us.

Simply go to our registration page and set up a free account.

http://www.3-60hosting.com/whmcs/register.php

Once registered, go to the Affiliates page using the link in the portal tool bar and click Activate Affiliate Account.

Once your account is activated you will see your unique referral link. Add this link to your site or one of our pre-designed banners and when a visitor from your site follows the link it will be tracked by our system with your unique affiliate ID, when the visitor places an order the commission will automatically be added to your account.