How to Create A Backup of Your Blog Articles With Evernote and IFTTT
It’s important to keep as many different copies of your website articles as possible.
You never know when something can go wrong with your website and force you to start over.
Obviously, we hope that it won’t happen to us… but there’s no harm in preparing for the worst whilst hoping for the best.
Especially when you can make a copy of your blog articles without any effort.
I do this with Evernote and IFTTT – two free programs that create a backup of every article I write to every website I own.
I’ll show you how to do it in this article.
Evernote
Evernote is a note-taking program that I’ve been using for years. It’s free and easy. (There’s a premium option if you transfer lots of data a month, but I’ve never used hit the free limit – and if you stick to words with the odd picture thrown in, you won’t either.)
It allows you to make notes, transfer them between devices and organise them into groups with notebooks, tags and a range of other things.
I use it because I don’t stay at my computer all day every day (just most hours and days) yet I’ll always have my tablet with me. I can make notes and write drafts of things when I’m not at the computer, and Evernote makes transferring the bits and pieces easy.
However, you can also use it for backing up your websites, which I also do.
Backing up your website is a priority. Losing data is crazy. I recommend you get a decent backup plugin, run your web hosts back up plan and do as many things as you can to keep your data safe.
As far as content is concerned, this is doubly true – your content is where the value of your site is.
So you need to do all of the above and keep other copies of your articles off-site. I have all my sites’ articles saved to my computer and a separate hard drive.
But I also use Evernote on autopilot too. It’ll save a copy of every article I upload into a notebook designed for each site I have. I use it in combination with IFTTT, which allows this to happen without me worrying about it.
How To Set Up Evernote
Assuming you have an Evernote account and have downloaded the software, creating a notebook for your backups is easy.
Simply right-click on the left-hand side of the app and you’ll get this:
I like to create a separate folder for my various notebooks, so I have what Evernote calls a “notebook stack.”
You can create one of those then stick your backup folder inside like this:
That’s all there is to the Evernote part of the equation for now.
Onto IFTTT
To set up your backup robot, you’ll need an IFTTT account.
If you don’t have one, you can get one by going to IFTTT.com and signing up. I won’t go through the sign up, because it’s the same process as everything else you sign up for on the internet.
Creating an IFTTT Applet To Back Up Your Website Articles
Once you’ve signed up for IFTTT, find the big button that says, “New Applet.”
You’ll have a sign that says, “If This Then That.”
Click If. Then find “WordPress.”
Then, on the WordPress menu, click “Any New Post.”
If you haven’t connected your WordPress site to Evernote, then you’ll need to do that by inputting your details into IFTTT.
This stage will mean that IFTTT will do something whenever a new post is published on your site.
Now we want to set what the program will do.
So click on “That” when you’re back on the “If This Then That” screen.
Then click on “Evernote.”
If you haven’t connected your Evernote account to IFTTT, then you’ll need to add your details to IFTTT.
Then, you’ll be presented with a list of options. We want to create a note, so click “Create a note.”
You’ll then be presented with a long box with all sorts of forms.
You can ignore most of it. The only bit we need to change is the “Notebook” field, which you should update with the notebook you created in Evernote earlier.
Then on the next page, hit the big “Finish” button.
That’s all you have to do!
Testing
I’d suggest, if you haven’t done this before, throwing out a test post to see that the action works. Sometimes IFTTT can be a little slow off the mark, so it might take a few minutes to send your post.
If it hasn’t worked after about fifteen minutes, then something might have gone wrong. Try the process again and see if you’ve got your details right.
It normally works within that time frame, and I’ve never had it not send a post to Evernote at all.
Final Thoughts
This is an easy way to grab your posts and keep them safe in another place.
However, it’s not the only backup you should do. Make sure to keep as many copies as you can of your work.
An added benefit of IFTTT sending things to Evernote is that Evernote is easily searchable. I find it easier to search Evernote than I do the documents on my computer or the articles on my website.
Also, the fact that you can do this for multiple websites (though you need an IFTTT account for each website) means that if you’re someone with a lot of websites, organising all the content for them is a lot more efficient.