This article explains how to backup your site from a website using CPanel.  First of all, you need to know what files you are going to backup in order to start the process.

How to backup your files

If you just want the physical files to be backed up to your computer, open you FTP client, go in to the “Public_Html” folder and copy everything to your computer.  If something happens to your files, or you change your hosting, you can always copy these files from your computer and place them in to the “Public_Html” folder and have your site running.

How to backup your database

Backing up your database is pretty easy too but it takes couple more steps.  To backup your database go in to your CPanel, find PHPMyAdmin and open it.  In PHPMyAdmin, click on the database you want to backup to your computer, the database list should be on the left hand side.  Once the database tables show up, on the top right, there will be couple tabs, click on “Export”.  The Export page will show up, go to the bottom of it, select ZIP file, and hit “Go”.

This will download your database to your computer as a ZIP file.  Make sure you date and save it in a safe spot because if your site gets messed up in the future, this file will save you!