It is vitally important that you backup your niche stores. There are many ways to accomplish this and I’m going to share how I do this.

I use HostGator so the images and instructions below are for this host. If you host with a different company then your steps may differ.

My instructions to backup your site:
Step One
	Log in to your hosting account’s cPanel.
	Click on the ‘Backups‘ icon or link:
	Look for the ‘Full Backup‘ and click the ‘Generate/Download a Full Backup‘ link:
	Note: You may notice that under this link it says, “Full backups can only be used for moving your account to another server or keeping a local copy of your account.” I thought this meant I could only use this backup when moving to another hosting company. I contacted HostGator about this and was told you can restore files from this backup. I have since confirmed this is correct.
	Complete the information for the full backup. I suggest leaving the Backup Destination as Home Directory, entering your email address, and leaving the rest blank. Then click the ‘Generate Backup‘ button:
	Wait for an email stating your backup is complete. The time for this varies depending on how big your backup is.
	After you get the email stating your backup is complete move on to the next step.
Step Two
	Return to the ‘Backups‘ page and click the ‘Download a home directory Backup‘ link:
	Save the backup to your computer. This may take a while depending on the size of your backup. I have a high-speed Internet connection and it took several minutes to download my backup.
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Your entire HostGator site account is now backed up safely on your computer. This includes any add on domains or sub domains you may have added to your primary domain. If you ever need to restore files you can find what you want within the backup file you downloaded.

For those who may be curious, I save my site backups in a folder called, “Backups.” That folder contains folders to everything I have backups of, including one that is called, “BANS.” In there is a folder called, “System Backups (initiated from within cPanel).” In that folder is a folder I have named, “HostGator.” It is in this folder that I save each site backup with its default name.

For example, if I needed to restore site files I would look for the following file:

Local Disk (E:) / Backups / BANS / System Backups (initiated from within cPanel) / HostGator / backup-anichestore.com-2-13-2008.tar

Don’t forget that your databases also need to be backed up. You can read my instructions on how to do this at http://www.nichestorestrategies.com/how-to-backup-your-sites-database/.

Rochelle