How do I backup a copy of my website files to my local environment?

An easy way to backup your data is to use Filezilla to copy files from your server to your location. Another good option is to use the "scp" command. To copy directories recursively, you can use the -R option for the scp command. An example would be the following:

scp -R your_username@ip_address:/path/to_your/website_files /path/to_your/local_directories

The following links will also help you with both options.

https://www.linode.com/docs/tools-reference/file-transfer/filezilla/
https://www.binarytides.com/linux-scp-command/