And Why You WANT TO have a back up in place...
If you are familiar with website platforms or have done even a little bit of research, you understand that backing up a WordPress website is a no brainer. WordPress websites have a lot of pieces that need to work together, and they don’t always play nicely. Plus, backups are a manual process that cost you time or money. And there are lots of horror stories about WordPress websites making clear that a good solid backup is a necessity. But what about Squarespace? Do you need to backup your Squarespace website?
I personally think it is a smart decision, and in today’s blog I am going to show you why along with tips on how to do it.
Squarespace is a great website platform…
I want to say this first, because I know there are some WordPress users and web designers out there who really poo-poo Squarespace. However, for me, having worked with both for the past six years, I have come to love a lot of things about Squarespace, and I think they both have their pros and cons. It all depends on your website needs and priorities as to which platform is a better fit for you.
Here are a few things I love about Squarespace…
- Easy to use even for those less familiar with technology
- Making changes is quick and simple
- It's all in one without having to search for plug-ins or apps to make it work
The best thing about Squarespace is that they take care of the security for you, and downtime is rare. Which means your website truly is out there representing your business every day of the week and every hour of the day. Sure there may be an outage here and there for serious updates, but those too are rare and always scheduled for the middle of the night when less people are surfing the web. And if that outage is unplanned, the Squarespace team is on top of it making sure websites are restored as quickly as possible.
The ease of use, built in security protection and reliability are the primary reasons many business owners have made the switch from WordPress to Squarespace.
But my friends, if technology has taught us anything, it is that the worst can happen, even when we think it's not possible, and recovery isn’t always straightforward.
Do I need to backup my Squarespace website?
In my personal opinion… Yes. Having a backup can make a bad day a little bit brighter.
If a crash happens due to something Squarespace has done they have backups, and redundancy in place to take care of you, but most Squarespace “emergencies” don’t come from hackers or platform failures. They come from us.
No matter how careful and intentional we are, when things get busy and we are juggling more than we should at any given moment, we make mistakes. We may accidentally delete something important. Overwrite the custom CSS we or our web designer added to make the website look and work the way it needs to. Or maybe we are just “trying something” and make some big changes to styling that we realize 30 minutes later we don’t like at all, but can’t remember what we had before.
If you have a backup, it’s a lot easier to recover from mistakes and issues, and a lot less stressful.
Backing up WordPress is pretty easy and well defined. Your host most likely has a back up, but it never hurts to have an extra backup, so you simply install a plug-in to do it for you, and voila! You have daily backups in place.
Squarespace is a little different. There isn’t a big, obvious “backup everything” button, but you can still make a backup, especially if you are about to make some major changes, and want a fall back plan in place.
The DUPLICATE feature in Squarespace
Squarespace allows you to create an exact DUPLICATE of your website at no extra cost. You simply click the three dots next to the site name and choose “Duplicate Site.” This creates a full copy of your website at that moment in time.
A few things to keep in mind about the duplicate feature.
- It's a snapshot in time. Any changes made to your Live site after the duplicate is made will not be on the duplicate.
- There is a time limit on how long this backup is available.
- Standard users get a two week “trial” website. You can request an extension through Squarespace but that isn’t guaranteed and will only give you an extra two weeks if approved.
- Squarespace Circle Members have a six month trial period for websites without a subscription. To be a Circle Member you have to be an owner or contributor on at least 3 Squarespace websites with a subscription, so this is possibly not available to you.
When should you use the duplicate feature?
If you’re considering making big style changes, duplicating your site gives you a safe place to experiment. Instead of making changes directly on your live website and then scrambling to undo them if you don’t love the result, you can use the duplicate as a low-pressure playground.
You can test layouts, fonts, colors, and spacing without worrying about breaking anything or confusing visitors.
If you decide you love the changes, you will still need to recreate them on your live site since the duplicate can’t be copied over, so this adds a little time, but at least you know it worked, and how to implement those changes is fresh in your mind, so it should be relatively quick to make them on your live website.
A More Permanent Backup Solution just in case the worst happens…
I recommend, regardless of what website platform you use, to have a copy of your website content saved outside of your website. This is more of a content organization than what most would consider a “true back-up” but it can really be a life saver if the worst ever does happen.
By keeping copies of everything saved to your computer, a Google Drive, wherever you store your other digital files, you know the content always exists, and you won’t have to start over from scratch.
Here is how I organize this content for my own website.
Website Written Copy
I recommend that you create a new document for each page and blog post you have on your website, no matter how small the content is. Title the document with the page title you use on your website, so you can quickly locate that page when you need access.
You will also want to structure the document in a way that helps you restore every element of the page including
- Page title
- SEO title
- Meta Description
- Keyword/phrase
- URL/Slug
Adding a simple table to the top of your page that looks like this will help keep this content clear and easy to copy and paste.
Example:
Page Title: | Dreaming of Having a Brand That Feels Like YOU? Do this First! |
SEO Title: | Ready for a Brand that feels like YOU? Do this First! |
Meta Description: | Your brand is so much more than colors and graphics. It is your reputation, how you show up, and how others see you, and it begins with brand values. |
Keyword/phrase | brand that feels like you |
URL/Slug | /brand-that-feels-like-you |
Below this add in your written page content and be sure to include the appropriate formatting including headings styles, bullets, tables, and any other styling that is needed.
If a page gets deleted or overwritten, your words are still safe, and you can recreate the page quickly without having to rewrite and redesign everything
Save Copies of Your Images
Maintaining copies of your images after adding to your website is just a really good best practice. Especially if you have a visually heavy website with a portfolio showcasing your work. (Hello Interior Designers! I am specifically talking to you on this one!)
If you want to keep things easy, you will want to do some organizing of your images as well, just so you can find what you are looking for when you need it. Here is how I organize my own images…
- Create a folder for each page of my website
- Add the images used on that page to the folder
- Make sure each image has a clear title
- Add a document to the folder that shares all important information for the images… location on the page and alt tag descriptions, photo credits, and/or captions
Finally make sure that these image files are sized and optimized appropriately for the website, as this will save you the added steps of doing this later if you need to restore them.
If you need a tool for optimizing your images I recommend TinyPNG. The free version allows you to optimize 5 images up to 5 MB at a time and the paid version is relatively inexpensive if you want to be able to do more or you are working with larger files sizes.
This step is particularly important for brand photography, product images, portfolios and anything custom-created for your business.
Get Full-Page Screenshots of Your Pages
The layout and design of your website is just as important as the written content and the images. And while you will likely play around with that if you ever have to recreate a page, having a visual guide to see how things looked will help you recreate quickly and minimize the time spent on your layout.
I use Google Chrome as my browser, which offers an extension called GoFullPage, that allows you to quickly take a full screen shot of any page, and download that as an image or PDF file.
Click here to Add GoFullPage Extension
If you are not using Google Chrome each browser and operating system has its own tools available for capturing images, so just do a little searching to find the best tools for your setup.
Once you have the full-page screenshots, be sure to title them to match the webpage title on your website, so that you can find them easily if and when you need them. Store these screen shots with the other information related to your website so you can find them if and when you need them.
Back up Your Products as a CSV File
If you sell products through Squarespace, you can quickly back these up to a CSV file, which will save all of the raw information regarding your products. Here is what you need to know about backing up your products…
- This is a snapshot in time. Once you export the file, it does not stay connected to your store. Any future changes you make in Squarespace will not automatically update the CSV.
- Only physical and service products can be exported. Digital or download products are not included.
- Customer reviews will not be exported.
- Product metadata such as categories and tags will export, along with product image titles.
- Image alt text, does not export, so having your images backed up as I shared above will be very helpful
- Only three variant options will be exported per product. Any additional variants beyond that won’t appear in the file.
- Featured images, variant images, and additional product details are not included in the export, so again, organizing your images will pay off!
Learn more about exporting your products HERE.
Don’t Forget Your Branding and Styling Elements
Content and images are often what gets the most attention when we talk about backups, but there are more details to capture. Like your branding and styling choices that make your website feel like you.
Brand Details
You probably already have a brand style guide that outlines your core fonts, colors, and logo usage, which is a great place to start. But websites often have their own layer of styling that doesn’t always live anywhere else.
The fonts may vary slightly, or be completely different than what you use in your other marketing. Plus, your heading sizes, spacing, and line heights are important elements that shape how your visitors experience your website.
Here is what I recommend tracking, for quick and easy reference later:
- The fonts used on your website, including any alternates or backups
- Font sizes for headings, subheadings, and body text
- Line height and spacing choices
- Section spacing and padding patterns
- Button styles and hover effects
- Any consistent layout rules you’ve used across pages
You can simply take a screen shot of the Site Style screens or create a basic spreadsheet that captures all of these elements.
Custom Elements
If your website includes any custom elements, such as custom CSS or custom fonts you will want to make sure that you save those details externally as well.
- Create one document to hold all CSS used across the site.
- Paste any sitewide CSS into that document.
- For individual pages, add a small section at the bottom of the page content.
- Paste any CSS that applies only to that page into that section.
If you use custom fonts, be sure to save a copy of the font file so that you have that in case you ever need to reupload it to your website. Especially if this is a font you purchased, as you may have to purchase it again if you lose the font files.
Most website issues aren’t dramatic platform failures, but they can feel like it if you don’t have a backup plan in place…
Squarespace is a stable platform, and it does a lot behind the scenes, but it is not you and doesn’t know exactly how you think and what you prefer. Saving your content outside the platform, organizing your assets, exporting what you can, and documenting how your site is styled simply gives you a back up plan so you never have to start from scratch. It takes time to do this, I know, but if you ever need it you are going to be really grateful and maybe even feel a little smug that you took the time to protect your content.
