Web hosting is a vital part of running a business smoothly and any fault results in loss of income and customer satisfaction. Website backup is an important aspect of web hosting that should not be ignored at any cost.
Web hosts should always have a decent backup facility as without a backup all the crucial information that the business depends on for proper functioning may be lost. Though this is a remote possibility, it is always safer to have a backup as there are a number of possible causes for the breakdown of a web server. And in some unfortunate cases, the user may overwrite important files (e.g. in the process of editing the website).
Where to Back Up
If you only use one computer, the backup facility that is present in it can be used to back up your site also. Nearly every desktop is equipped with such a backup feature, hence you can use it while you set up your site.
Another option to protect the data of your website is storing all the information in a separate folder in your system. You can also store the data on a disk and retrieve it whenever needed.
Any small business web hosting supplier should give you an appropriate backup for the data you have on your website. To see how that works at your web host, simply go to your Control Panel. The backup files are in a zip folder which is later saved in the web host server. It is important that all these files including the zip folders should be adequately backed up in the case of emergencies.
Usually online backup files are in a zip folder and saved on the web host’s server. Note that all these files including the zip folders should be adequately backed up for cases of emergencies.
The zip file can be downloaded to your local system for added security. It will help if there is some problem with the web host and you are not able to access the files.
An obvious alternative to all these is to have a safe online backup service that’s separate from your hosting account. Such services exist: Sitevault, CodeGuard and more. You can do this with the help of software that is available on the web.

More sophisticated web hosts like A2Hosting will have an automated backup system built into cPanel. Usually, you can use that to restore your files and databases with one click.
They provide easy automation, and the cost is also not very high. Since this method can back up almost all the data you need, the money spent on it is worth every cent, and you need not worry about whether the backup is functioning properly.
Be Careful with Zips
Compressing the files to a zip format is a risky action as any corrupt files present will cause the zip file to be blocked and it may become difficult to unzip them.
Some kind of a backup system and reliable servers are crucial in the search for a proper small business web host. If you give proper attention to these features in your research, optimum performance is guaranteed.