The Ultimate WordPress Backup Solution!

I was about to write a step-by-step guide for backing up your WordPress site…backing up your database is only part of archiving the entire WordPress site…when the Backup Buddy plugin was introduced last week.  I immediately purchased the developer’s copy of this premium plugin and I have to say, I’m impressed!

Does it backup everything? Yes. It backs up the database, plugins, files, themes, scripts, and everything else in the WordPress database and directories.

Is it easy to use? Yes. A few clicks backups your entire WordPress install – including the widgets, themes, plugins AND SQL database … the entire package! The restore function is quick and easy too..upload a script and your backup files and it reinstalls WordPress, your themes, widgets and plugins … everything. You can migrate to another domain easily, with no fuss. You can even schedule BackupBuddy to do daily, weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly backups … and includes email and FTP options to another server.

BackupBuddy is an all-in-one solution for backups, restoration, and migration.  Click on the graphic to find out more…

The Backup Buddy replaces the DB-Backup on my list of recommend plugins.

What is a plugin? A WordPress plugin is extra software code that you can easily add to your website from within your admin area that give you extra functionality.  Many plugins are free, but sometimes you may want to pay for a premium plugin that is more advanced and complex. With Backup Buddy you are paying for the plugin as well as upgrades and support from iThemes.

Planning Strategies

This week we completed the training portion of the WishList Certification (first mentioned in this post), and I’m impressed with how versatile the WishList Member plugin is. WishList Member can be used for different types of membership sites as I learned in the Planning Strategies module.

Here’s a summary of the different membership models using WordPress and the WishList Member plugin.

• Publisher Model: where you are creating fresh new content on a regular basis, very much like an online magazine. When somebody joins your membership, they typically get access to not only the new content that you published this month but they also get access to the content that you published in previous months.

• UPS Model: where you are delivering a package of content on a regular basis. It’s called the UPS Model because it is like a package of content that is being delivered each and every month (week, etc.). Each month that a person remains a member, they get a new download area where they can download a package of content for that specific month.

• Micro Continuity: a fixed term membership. The major distinguishing factors between this and most other membership sites is that it is there is a definitive end to the membership and it’s set up all at one point in time, “set it and forget it.”

• Modular Course: where you are delivering your course one module at a time over a period of time. The Modular Course is perfect for those people who teach courses delivered in a modular format. The content is delivered one step at a time so everyone coming in starts at Level 1 and progress from there.

• Protected Download Area: where you create a page with download links to your various tools and resources or products that people are purchasing. Put the product you’re selling into a Protected Download Area, which means that after payment, they have to set up a username and password in order to access that content.  You can set this up so that this access expires after any number of days.

• Project Management: where you create a membership level for each type of person within your company, non-profit, or committees within a community group.

• Community Center: it is a protected communication center like a forum. It’s a use of WishList Member not necessarily to deliver content, but as a foundation to be able to communicate with like-minded people who share a similar interest in the same subject matter. Essentially creating a protected forum or a protected communication area for people who belong to a particular community.

• Private Members Area: where you create an area where you can have resources, materials, and communication for a private group of people. A private members area is a way for you to create a membership where people can not only communicate with one another, but they can also download materials and resources and perhaps even interact with you or with each other.

• Coaching Site: you create a membership level for each client. If you are a coach or a consultant and you are working with clients, you might want to create a private area so you can communicate and can deliver resources and materials that are specific to their particular needs. You can also create a shared members area where if you have resources that all of your coaching clients are going to use.

• Combo Model: a variety of different elements from each of these. You are never going to be stuck with one particular membership type model. And more often than not, you are probably going to have components of multiple membership levels all contained within one site. So, be creative and enjoy!

Contact me to discuss your own membership site!

A WordPress Site Maintenance Solution

A newly discovered (at least by me) plugin to check any and all links on your site is the Broken Link Checker — it automatically checks your posts for broken links and images and reports its findings in the dashboard.

Features

• Monitors links in your posts, pages, the blogroll, and custom fields (optional).
• Detects links that don’t work and missing images.
• Notifies you on the Dashboard if any are found.
• Also detects redirected links.
• Makes broken links display differently in posts (optional).
• Link checking intervals can be configured.
• New/modified posts are checked ASAP.
• You view broken links, redirects, and a complete list of links used on your site, in the Tools -> Broken Links tab.
• Searching and filtering links by URL, anchor text and so on is also possible.
• Each link can be edited or unlinked directly via the plugin’s page, without manually editing each post.

Basic Usage

Once installed, the plugin will begin parsing your posts, bookmarks (AKA blogroll), etc and looking for links. Depending on the size of your site this can take a few minutes or even several hours. When parsing is complete the plugin will start checking each link to see if it works. Again, how long this takes depends on how big your site is and how many links there are. You can monitor the progress and set various link checking options in Settings -> Link Checker.

The broken links, if any are found, will show up in a new tab of WP admin panel – Tools -> Broken Links. A notification will also appear in the “Broken Link Checker” widget on the Dashboard. To save display space, you can keep the widget closed and configure it to expand automatically when problematic links are detected.

The “Broken Links” tab will by default display broken links that have been detected so far. However, you can use the subnavigation links on that page to view redirects or see a listing of all links – working or not – instead.

There are several actions associated with each link listed -

• “Details” shows more info about the link. You can also toggle link details by clicking on the “link text” cell.
• “Edit URL” lets you change the URL of that link. If the link is present in more than one place (e.g. both in a post and in the blogroll) then all instances of that URL will be changed.
• “Unlink” removes the link but leaves the link text intact.
• “Exclude” adds the link’s URL to the exclusion list. Excluded URLs won’t be checked again.
• “Discard” lets you manually mark the link as valid. This is useful if you know it was detected as broken only due to a temporary glitch or similar. The link will still be checked normally later.

Have you tried this plugin? Please comment below.