WordPress is a user-friendly website builder that helps business, organizations and individuals to successfully design professional websites, this is what makes it very popular. However, being popular also means it’s a prime target for cyber attacks. As a result, it’s crucial to take necessary security measures to ensure that your WordPress website is secure. In this blog post, you will learn the 10 useful security tips for your WordPress website
Why Your website Security is Important:
A hacked WordPress website can cause significant damage to your company or personal brand, including data loss, reputation damage, and financial loss. Furthermore, it may lead to your website being blacklisted by search engines or your web host. As a result, protecting your WordPress website is essential.
here are some benefits of having a secure WordPress website:
- Protects your website from cyber attacks, including malware and hacking attempts.
- Prevents unauthorized access to sensitive information such as user data, financial information, and website credentials
- Helps to maintain website uptime, preventing any downtime that could result from security breaches or hacks.
- Ensures the safety of your website visitors and their personal information, building trust and credibility for your brand.
- Prevents your website from being blacklisted by search engines and web hosts due to security breaches or malicious activities
- Protects your website’s SEO and search engine ranking, as search engines penalize insecure websites.
- Minimizes the cost of dealing with a security breach, including data recovery, restoration, and reputation management.
- Improves the overall performance of your website by eliminating security vulnerabilities and enhancing website speed.
- Provides peace of mind and allows you to focus on your core business activities instead of worrying about website security
- Helps to comply with regulatory requirements, such as the GDPR, which mandate website security and data protection.
See Also: 15 Vital Reasons Every Business Must Have A Website
10 Useful Security Tips for WordPress Websites:
Use a secured web hosting:
Choose a web hosting provider that offers security features like firewalls, malware scanning, and regular backups. Here are some reputable web hosting providers:
- Namecheap
- Interserver
- Dreamhost
- Greengeeks
- Inmotion Hosting
- Kinsta
- Cloudways
See Also: Best Affordable Web Hosting for Small Business
Backup your website always:
Regularly backing up your website is a must-do. You can use a WordPress backup plugin like UpdraftPlus to back up your website files and database to a secure location.
Install a security plugin:
Security plugins can help to monitor and secure your WordPress website. Here are the top five security plugins:
- Wordfence Security
- iThemes Security
- Sucuri Security
- All In One WP Security & Firewall
- Jetpack Security
Regularly update plugins and theme:
Outdated plugins and themes can create vulnerabilities, making your website an easy target for hackers. Regularly updating your plugins and theme is crucial to keep your website secure.
Keep WordPress updated:
WordPress is always releasing regular updates in order to address known security issues and fix bugs. Ensure you login to your admin area and check for new updates or better still, enable auto update to always keep your WordPress site updated to the latest version.
Scan and monitor for malicious activities:
Hackers are always trying to gain unauthorize access to websites, this happens many times even without your knowledge and that’s why it’s important you scan and monitor for such activities, use plugins like WordFence or Sucuri to scan your website regularly for malicious activities and fix them.
Limit login attempts:
Hackers use automated bots to attempt brute-force attacks to gain access to your website, this is dangerous if allowed to continue, being able to Limit the ability to login after many failed attempts will help to prevent such attacks from hackers.
Use strong passwords:
Cyber hackers can easily guess passwords and websites with poor passwords will easily fall a victim of hacking. An important tip is to avoid using just alphabets, your name or password that can be guessed effortlessly, instead use a combination of numbers, letters and special characters in a long format to have a strong password for your WordPress website
Use a tool like LassPass to create and store unique passwords for all your accounts.
Use HTTPS and SSL certificate:
Using HTTPS and an SSL certificate secures data sent between your website and the user’s browser, preventing hackers from intercepting it.
Activate 2 Factor Authentication:
2 Factor Authentication adds an extra layer of security to your login process by requiring you to enter a code sent to your phone or email.
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Bonus Tips:
- Remove unused plugins and themes.
- Use a content delivery network (CDN) to protect against DDoS attacks.
- Disable PHP execution in certain WordPress directories
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs
Yes, some security plugins that are poorly coded can slow down your website, therefore, choose a lightweight and optimized security plugin
Yes, you still need to backup your website even if your web host provides backups to be on the safe side.
Always check and update to the latest WordPress version including plugins and themes or enable auto update and save time.
Conclusion:
Your WordPress website security should be your top priority, taking steps to prevent cyber attacks and keep your website safe is important in order to protect your business online. Use the security tips we have provided in this post and keep your website up-to-date to ensure it stays secure.
