Your website may be amazing, but if it doesn’t have secure passwords, and it’s not being backed-up regularly, it could all disappear tomorrow.

People never realize how important those things are until someone compromises their stuff. Then what are you going to do?

I’ve heard two stories this week about two different developers who got all pissed off and their clients site suffered. Unfortunately neither company had changed passwords when they ended their relationship with the developers and neither had backups. Now they are left in a panic, and what’s left of their site.

A few weeks ago I heard of a handful of blogs that were all hacked and posts were now littered with links to pharmacy sites. We’re not talking hidden spammy links in the template, we’re talking infiltration of the database and major damage. Unfortunately, these blogs didn’t have a backup either.

Today, March 31st, is World Backup Day. Where as I do encourage you to back up today, you need to be doing it at least weekly. This ain’t no yearly thing.

The easiest way to do that is automate it. Use a plugin, script, or third-party service to back up everything once a week. Frequent backups will save you tons of time, and money, if anything ever does go wrong.

When it comes to passwords, they need to be changed every time someone leaves the company. Full time employee, freelance or contract, it doesn’t matter. You never know when someone will turn on you and your site.

Strong passwords and frequent backups are two of the most important ways of protecting your investment. Companies will spend thousands on a design and site construction, but all that is worthless if you don’t protect it.