I talk about creating and managing an online presence alot – and every now and then someone will ask me what I think is the most important aspect of an online presence. Often times they are totally shocked by the answer. Backups. Backups are by far the most important thing when it comes to your online presence because without a proper backup you could loose your entire presence within seconds.

I can’t begin to count up the amount of clients I have worked with who have relied solely on their hosting providers backups – especially as more and more hosts offer free daily backups, weekly backups, or the like. However a rule of thumb for just about all of your data is that you should always keep and maintain your own backups. You want to rely on yourself as the last resort for all your data – not on someone else. Just like you don’t hand the spare key to your car to the guy who makes your sandwich every morning at the local deli.