As you know, I have been busily upgrading my blog template here on Blogs With Wings. In addition, I decided that I would do a major upgrade to my blogging software that was way overdue.; In the course of installing the new template; and performing the upgrade, I had a few close calls and one or two good scares. At one point I thought I was going to have to completely reinstall my blogging software and rebuild my entire blog from backups. I got lucky and figured out the problem before it got that far. It was pretty nerve wracking. Had the worst scenario played out, I was prepared. Are you?

The whole mess got; me wondering about the tasks that should be performed before you upgrade your blog template or your blogging software. There’s so many things that can go wrong and maybe they don’t happen all that often. Do they? Well, I think that they happen often enough that you should take precautions before you upgrade or make any major changes to your blog. It’s always better to be safe than sorry, so here is a short list of things to do before you perform a blog template upgrade.

1. – Read Available Documentation

If you’ve never done an upgrade, or a template update, or haven’t done one in some time, read any available documentation before you begin. Almost every blogging software platform has some type of documentation, usually available online. Read or re-read these instructions to ensure that you have all the steps clear in your mind. It would also probably be a good idea to print these out so you can quickly refer to them as you are performing the related tasks.

2. – Backup Your Template

Backup a copy of your present template to your hard drive. In the event that a new template doesn’t work, or your blog directory is lost or damaged, you can always upload the old one; and know that it is a working copy and not part of the problem. Again, the documentation for downloading and saving a template should be available from your software provider.

3. – Backup Your Widgets

If you have a lot of extra widgets installed in your template, you might also want to back these up so they can easily be added to the new template when it is up and running as expected. Widgets aren’t the meat of your blog, but you can spend a lot of time running around the internet looking for your lost widgets and then painstakingly installing them back one at a time. Word of the day? Backup!

Backup Your Media Files & Blog Related Databases

In the case of a; a self-hosted blog, you should also back-up any media folders and database files associated with your blog. (A self-hosted blog is one that you host from your own domain server and not on a free internet host such as Google Blogspot or Live Journal.) Save these files to your hard drive in case things really go awry and you have to rebuild your entire blog. You should actually be running backups of your blog on a regular basis. If you are unsure about this, check out this article on blog backups.

It’s reallly just a matter of being well-prepared. When you take the time to review the process for installing a new template or upgrading your blogging software, it is more likely to smoothly. If you’ve done your backups, even if something does go wrong you will be a lot less frustrated when you know you really lose anything. Installing a new blog template or upgrading to newer blog software can be an exciting and rewarding experience. Especially when you are ready for anything.