WordPress backup with cPanel is the first of a series of posts to explore various methods to backup your website.
cPanel is a very popular hosting hosting control panel, and has tools that built that can be used to backup our website. It's also free and doesn't require installing extra plugins or paying for outside services. There are other methods we can use for WordPress backups, including FTP or a specific backup plugin but today we'll do our WordPress Backup with cPanel.
There are two parts when doing a WordPress backup with cPanel. First we backup website files and second we backup the database.
Login to your cPanel hosting account and click the Files > File Manager icon.
Once in the File Manager click the public_html link to open that folder. Your WordPress website is stored in this folder.
Select your WordPress files starting with the wp-admin folder and select all the other folders and files. To select multiple files on a PC use the "Shift" key while clicking the wp-admin folder and keep holding the shift key while clicking the very last file in the folder. This will select all files.
Note: In this case I'm not selecting the "cgi-bin" folder as it's not part of my WordPress installation but the cPanel hosting account folder.
Now I'll zip the WordPress website files into one folder to reduce the size. Having all website files in one folder makes downloading quicker, storing and/or restoring easier.
To compress (zip) the website files right click in the right pane in the blue selected area and click the Compress link. Select your type of backup, I'll use the "Zip Archive" option and then click "Compress Files" to proceed.
Your files are now compressed into a single folder and stored in this directory, ready for downloading to your computer (and/or leaving in your hosting account as a backup). Once the compression is completed click the "Close" button on the Compression Results dialog box.
There will now be a "wp-admin.zip" file in your public_html folder. These are your compress website files, ready for download.
Right click on wp-admin.zip > Download and download the file to your computer.
Note: To save disk space on your web hosting account, I recommend deleting the zipped file once you've downloaded the backup to your desktop. To delete the file right click on the file and click "Delete".
In your cPanel control panel homepage find the "Databases" section and click "phpMyAdmin".
Once in phpMyAdmin find your database and click on the link.
Your database will open, click the "Export" link at the top.
Your export options will be "Quick" or "Custom", I recommend "Custom". Then select the "Compression" type as "Zipped". You may ignore all the other settings on the page.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the "Go" button. Your database will now be zipped and once completed, automatically downloaded to your computer.
Note: for larger databases this may take a few minutes to complete.
And that's it, you've now backed up your WordPress files and WordPress database in cPanel, and downloaded both to your computer.
DON'T FEEL LIKE BACKING UP YOUR WORDPRESS WEBSITE?
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It can be tedious adding links from other websites and pages to your WordPress website. Anyone who creates content for their website has been through this, I know, I do, all the time.
Here is a way to instantly create a blog post in WordPress right from the web page you're browsing. And your blog post will be automatically populated with the content from the page you're viewing. All this is done instantly without being in your WordPress admin area, all thanks to the WordPress Press This button. That sounds like magic doesn't it? 🙂
A simple but awesome tool that's built right into WordPress. If you aren't using the WordPress Press This button yet, you're missing out.
Here's the WordPress description of the Press This button:
Press This is a little tool that lets you grab bits of the web and create new posts with ease.
Use Press This to clip text, images and videos from any web page. Then edit and add more straight from Press This before you save or publish it in a post on your site.
To use the WordPress Press This button we must first install it in our browser.
1. In your WordPress dashboard go to Tools > Available Tools.
You'll be taken to the "Tools" page, here's where the action starts.
2. Drag the "Press This" button onto your browsers bookmarks toolbar.
Note: if you don't see your bookmarks toolbar in your browser you can turn it on. In most browsers right clicking on the menu-bar or address-bar should reveal the option to enable the bookmarks toolbar.
You'll see the "Press This" link in your browser bookmarks toolbar. And that's it, you've installed the WordPress Press This button.
Now let's start using this awesome little tool.
Browse to any page on the internet. If you find anything on that page you want to share on your blog click the "Press This" button you just added to your bookmarks toolbar.
A new window will open and the contents of the page will be populated. In this case I was on YouTube and the video is inserted directly into the page that opened.
Notice that the page that opened is your "Add New" Post page inside your WordPress blog. But you haven't opened your blog.
From here you can:
How cool is that?!
This little WordPress Press This button can change the way you add content to your website. Now anything you find interesting while browsing the web can be instantly turned into a new blog post. So much easier than browsing to your blog, opening it and creating a new blog post, then inserting the content you've found. I love the Press This button.
If you have a website, consider our web hosting with full WordPress support and unlimited bandwidth, space and email accounts.
The WordPress menu items limit is a tricky problem which we've only seen twice before. The most recent was a few days ago, one of our clients with a rather large WordPress site started losing her menu items. It started suddenly and for no apparent reason. She started losing menu items after adding a new one. In fact the entire menu would disappear and she would have to recreate the entire menu and save it.
Then as soon as a new page or post was created and that item was added to the menu, the entire menu would disappear. She would then have to recreate the menu (once) again. With a small number of menu items this may take a minute or two to do but with large menus it's a nightmare. Add to that nested menu items and you have a disaster.
As mentioned earlier, it's a tricky one as her menu length was about 40 items, the previous time we saw this the menu items was a bit more, it was over 60. There seems to be no fixed point at which this could occur. According to a WP Beginner article referring to the same problem, they tried to recreate the problem going as high as 200 menu items without replicating the menu limit error. So it's really all over the place.
So it seems it's a combination of WordPress and PHP. There are Suhosin limitations on the POST max variables that are limiting larger numbers of entries from being saved. It's a security precaution that can help prevent DoS attacks. You can read a more complete explanation here on SevenPark.
The quickest solution is to simply add a line to your php.ini file like so:
And that's it, you should have no further lost WordPress menus.
I've written before on WordPress SEO using the excellent WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. Yoast's WordPress SEO plugin is in my opinion the go to plugin if you have a WordPress website. I've had questions from clients about how to use the Plugin. Today I'm going to recommend WP101.com, a video tutorial resource. With WP101's simply easy to follow tutorials you'll be up and running in no time.
Before I continue, this post will include an affiliate link to WP101 and I do receive a small commission for a deferral should you sign up. Having said that, the first video in the WordPress SEO video series is a free which means you get to check it out first before you buy. And should you decide to buy, it's $19/mo or $39 per year for the entire WP101 WordPress training course, not just the WordPress SEO by Yoast. That's great value for anyone wanting to learn WordPress fast and with minimum fuss.
If you run a website and specifically a WordPress website you've no doubt heard the word SEO. SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is simply the process of making your website as search engine friendly as possible. The more optimized your website is to search engines, the easier search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo can correctly index your sites pages.
Once your pages are indexed by the search engine they can start showing up in search results when people do searches. This optimisation process can be daunting as there are many factors, this is where the WordPress SEO plugin comes in. WordPress SEO by Yoast does most of the heavy lifting for you.
Learning the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin is made a hundred times easier with the excellent tutorial video by WP101.
To watch the free WP101 WordPress SEO by Yoast video, click the image below, then click the 'Video Library' menu and then 'WordPress SEO by Yoast'.
Creating a WordPress menu without link may is a simple task to someone who is familiar with WordPress, but to a novice WordPress user this can be a real head scratcher.
I've been asked this question often lately by clients so thought I'd post a quick how to guide.
As you can see from the screenshot above, the menu anchor or top link is 'Services' in this case. It links to the Services page. Under that are links to sub-pages or child pages of the Services page. But what if you didn't want to have the 'Services' anchor link go to a page but just be a placeholder in effect. That's easy to do.
2.1) To do this this find the link in question, in our example it's the 'Services' link. Click the dropdown arrow to expand the menu.
2.2) Click the 'Remove' link to remove the menu item.
Find the 'Links' menu on the left and click it to expand the menu.
4.1) Type a # into the URL box.
4.2) Type the name of your new menu in the link text box.
4.3) Click the 'Add to Menu' button to add it to the menu.
Your new 'Services' menu is now added to the bottom of your menu.
Now to re-order it by moving it to the desired position on your menu.
WordPress makes it very easy to re-arrange your menu. Re-ordering your menu is done by simply clicking on the menu item in question and dragging it to the desired position.
5.1) Drag the 'Services' menu item link to the desired location.
5.2) Drag the sub menu items to their desired positions. To make them drop down menus they must be offset from the 'Services' menu item.
You don't have to remove the # from the URL link box but it looks neater so I tend to do it.
6.1) In the link URL box simply remove the #.
6.2) Click 'Save Menu' to save your changes to your menu.
Congratulations! Your new menu is now ready and all that's left is to view your handy work.
Red Hippo WordPress Hosting comes with WordPress instantly setup as you order.
Other features include:
If you've had a WordPress website for any length of time you'll start wondering about traffic and visitors. Inevitably this leads to a focus on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
I'm going to show you how to set up SEO for WordPress in minutes.
Before we begin, there are many that claim they can do miracles with SEO. Even claiming they have SEO nailed down. This is utter rubbish.
Just like me, you've no doubt received unsolicited emails from dubious characters promising magical results from SEO. Exaggerations include the ability to rank your page at number 1 on Google. Don't only ignore those emails but mark them as spam and block them. After all, if these people could get your website to rank at number 1 on Google, why do they need to send you spam to try to get business!
The more I work on fine tuning my websites and content, the more I learn about SEO. I've never reached a stage where I feel like I've arrived. In fact, the more I learn, the more I realise I don't know enough. Â This may sound like I don't know what I'm doing. Well, I don't know that much about SEO, but what I do know is that the more I work at SEO, the more my skills improve. I'm continuously honing my skills, and you can too. The only way to get better at SEO is to jump right in and start somewhere.
That is a huge subject and well beyond the scope of this article. Briefly, SEO is making your website as search engine friendly as possible. Search engines will include Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. Optimizing includes writing relevant content, a well structured website, attractive design and a myriad of other items. It's a massive subject with a plethora of topics. For the purposes of this article, we're focusing on content optimisation. SEO is a trial and error, hit and miss business. To even seasoned web veterans it can be hit and miss, much more so for the person new to SEO. SEO for WordPress can be easier. If you are have WordPress website you're in luck, there are there are tools to help you.
I have many websites including many running on WordPress and have used many tools on each of them. The best of these WordPress SEO tools I've used is without doubt the Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin. And what's more, it's absolutely free. Just follow that link to download it and install it to your WordPress website. Then run through the setup following the instructions carefully. There are also links to excellent articles right in the plugin back end that I highly recommend reading. They will give you a basic starting point.
Another excellent resource is the Optimize Your WordPress Site ebook by Yoast. This isn't a free ebook but well worth the $19 charge. It includes a wealth of information making it a good investment for your website. It includes information on website optimization, website design, SEO and many other key areas of website optimization.
