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Most people are pretty good at protecting the physical products in their lives. We put insurance on our cars, cases on our phones, and locks on our bikes. But bloggers live in a world where they also need to protect their digital products. Things like blog posts, eBooks, photos, and videos represent huge investments of time and money. Can you imagine if you woke up tomorrow, typed in the URL of your blog, pressed return, and saw a white screen? Then, in a moment of panic you looked in your computer's photos folder, only to find that your pictures were missing as well. It’s rare, but it happens. Hence the reason for backing things up.

Most people have a general concept of backing up, but I’ve found that more often than not people haven’t thoroughly backed up their computer and their blog. If you’re a full-time blogger (or wanting to become one), then it’s vital that you have your business (i.e. your computer and your blog) properly protected.

Here are four ways you should be backing up your computer and your blog.

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Google Analytics is an awesome tool for bloggers. Here are three reasons why:

1. It’s free.
2. It’s packed with a ton of useful information.
3. It’s fun to look at (especially if you ♥ data).

Here’s the thing though: Google Analytics isn’t so awesome if the data it provides is inaccurate. If your Google Analytics data is inaccurate it’s usually because (1) something is off with the tracking code, as FBP member Rachel recently shared on the community forum, or because (2) you haven’t taken measures to make sure that you’re not tracking yourself.

We’re going to talk about that second issue in today’s blog post.

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There are currently over 26,645 plugins available that bloggers can use to enhance their WordPress sites.

Whoa. That's a lot of plugins.

Enough to bring many people into a state that I call analysis paralysis. This is when someone constantly analyzes and researches but never makes a decision.

I've fallen victim to it many times.

If someone doesn't get stuck in analysis paralysis then they'll probably get stuck in customization craziness. This is the stage after you install the plugin and are presented with a settings or preferences page. Oftentimes victims of customization craziness do Google searches and (sort of) read through tutorials, then make changes that have:

1. No apparent effect on their site or
2. Completely break their site

This usually results in:

1. Complete frustration or
2. Complete panic

Once again, I've been there.

So what's the cure for analysis paralysis and customization craziness? The cure is to methodically walk through the setup and customization process, which is exactly what we're going to do here at Food Blogger Pro as we start our plugins deep dive courses.

With the plugins deep dive courses we'll take a look at what we consider to be the six most important plugins for food bloggers. If I were to create a food blog today, these are the six plugins that I would immediately install and activate. In this blog post I'll preview the six plugins and discuss why they're important. If you're a member of Food Blogger Pro you can expect the first course to be available next week.

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