Every business owner agrees backups matter, in theory. In practice, we regularly find sites with no backups at all, or backups that have not been tested and turn out not to work when they are finally needed. A backup strategy only counts if it actually works when something goes wrong.
Why backups get overlooked
A website that is running fine gives no visible signal that anything is missing. Backups are the kind of thing that only matters the day something breaks, which makes them easy to postpone indefinitely until that day arrives.
What a real backup strategy includes
Automatic, scheduled backups.
Backups should happen on a set schedule without anyone needing to remember to trigger them manually.
Off-site storage.
A backup stored on the same server as the live site can be lost along with the site itself in a hosting failure or hack. Backups need to live somewhere separate.
Full-site coverage.
Both the database and the files need to be included. A backup of just one or the other is not enough to fully restore a site.
Version history.
Keeping several recent backups, not just the latest one, matters because some problems, like a slow-building hack, are not noticed immediately, and the most recent backup may already be compromised.
The step almost everyone skips: testing
A backup that has never been restored is an assumption, not a guarantee. Periodically testing a restore, even on a temporary staging copy, is the only way to know for certain that a backup will actually work when it is needed.
A simple recovery plan
Know where your backups are stored and how to access them. Know who is responsible for performing a restore if something goes wrong. Keep at least the last few backups, not just the most recent. Test a restore at least once, so it is not the first time anyone has done it during an actual emergency.
Why this belongs in maintenance, not as an afterthought
A proper maintenance plan builds backups and testing in as a standing task rather than something that depends on someone remembering. It is the difference between a website disaster costing an afternoon to fix, or costing the business days of downtime and lost trust.