Having a WordPress website that is up and running comes with the importance of backing it up and ensuring that it is secure. It would be downright unfortunate if you lose your website data or get hacked as it will disrupt your business.
In this blog post, will go over some security tips which can guarantee for the best possible performance and help you secure your WordPress website like a fortress.
Why Security is Important for your WordPress Website?
Generally, WordPress backup security is important for a few reasons:
- Widespread usage – WordPress is so popular that about half of the internet uses it. This means it’s a familiar interface to everyone, including hackers.
- Problems inevitably occur – Bad things do happen sometimes. You can have a perfectly functioning WordPress website one minute, then the next, it’s all gone. It could be due to a crash, cyberattack, hosting issue, or accidentally deleting any important files.
- Google favours secured websites – With the way Google’s ranking system works, it is always in favour of websites that are secured. For example, Google prefers HTTPS-enabled websites that are SSL-certified which protects e-commerce transactions and sensitive information that they send to the user’s browser.
- Multiple moving elements – With the way WordPress is set up, a lot of elements on your WordPress website can come from third-party companies all updating and changing things all at the same time. But with all these moving elements, vulnerabilities may arise, like if you install a plugin with questionable code or when you have no idea that the updates aren’t all cross-compatible with one another.
- Login module – Since WordPress has a login area, you must safeguard everything to strengthen the authorizations and keep it protected from the one of the most common forms of hacking which is the brute-force attack. The same applies for FTP and hosting login information.
- Loss in revenue prevention and brand reputation protection – Even your regular customers will switch to the closest competitor and lose interest in your brand when your WordPress website is compromised. This is particularly true for an eCommerce store as each customer stir can impact your business sales which points to loss of revenues and disrupt the overall trust of your customers in your brand.
Hope these reasons are enough to point up why security is crucial. With that conveyed, let’s dive into the security tips for your WordPress website.
Tips to Secure your WordPress Website
Tip 1: Work with reliable hosts
You should only work with reliable hosting which provides secure and scalable service as some hosts are insufficient and don’t do well under pressure.
With an inadequate security mechanisms in place, you would likely get increased hacker attacks, frequent downtime, and low hosting performance in general.
If you think there is a need to improve the hosting security, then the best solution is to move to a host that takes website security seriously.
For best hosting options, you may explore our hosting plans by clicking here.
Tip 2: Install a WordPress backup plugin
In case something bad happens to your WordPress website, backups will allow you to restore it quickly. It is your first line of defense against any WordPress attack.
There are several available WordPress backup plugins like UpdraftPlus, BlogVault, BackWPup, or BackupBuddy which you can use to have WordPress website backups. All reliable and easy to use as you can establish automatic backups without having to code.
Tip 3: Make sure to have more than one backups
In addition to having a WordPress backup plugin, the next important thing you need to think of is that you must regularly save full-site backups to a remote location. It would be best if you create one primary backup and two copies of your data. Save your backups to two different types of media, and keep at least one backup file offsite which is outside your hosting account.
We recommend online file storage services like Dropbox or Google Drive when keeping backup files offsite.
Having many backups can avoid issues from occurring If one backup gets corrupted or damaged.
Tip 4: Use a security plugin
After backups, the next best way to secure your WordPress website from hackers is by using a security plugins like Sucuri. Security plugins allows you to monitor everything that happens on your WordPress website. This includes malware scanning, failed login attempts, file integrity monitoring, etc.
Security plugins are easy to use as well. You can perform malware scan and cleaning to your WordPress website, and remove malware infections with a couple of clicks.
Tip 5: Rename your login URL
Replacing the login URL can help avoid direct brute force attacks. It limits an unauthorized entity from accessing the login page because there is only someone with the exact URL can do it.
The easiest way to change your login URL is by using the plugin WPS Hide Login. It lets you easily and safely change the login URL to anything you want without making changes to the files in core or adding rewrite rules. Just input your new login page URL and save the changes.
Tip 6: Use email address only as the login username
Using an email address only instead of a username to log into WordPress is a more secure method. It is a recognized identifier for logging in given that each WordPress user account is generated with a unique email address.
There is quite a few plugins which let you restrict WordPress login to only accept email addresses. This will disable the username and turn on email address as username to log in.
Tip 7: Increase your password strength
Improve your WordPress website security by trying something different with your passwords and change them frequently. Adding additional words and making your passwords longer improves password strength.
Instead of using a bunch of random numbers and letters, It would be better if you go for long passphrases as these are extremely difficult for hackers to guess but easier to remember.
Tip 8: Protect the wp-config.php file
The wp-config.php file is the most important file in your WordPress website’s root directory as it holds important information about your WordPress installation. Protecting it is equivalent to securing the core of your WordPress website.
By making the wp-config.php protected, it would be difficult for hackers to break the security of your WordPress website.
To protect the wp-config.php file, move it to a higher level than your root directory. WordPress will still see it even if it is stored one folder above the root directory as the configuration file settings in the current WordPress architecture are set to the highest on the priority list.
Tip 9: Disable file editing
WordPress comes with a built-in code editor which lets you edit your theme and plugin files right from your WordPress admin area. We recommend disabling it as this feature can be a security risk when it gets into the wrong hands.
If you disable file editing, nobody will be able to modify any of the files even when a hacker gets admin access to your WordPress dashboard.
You can disable file editing by adding the following code in your wp-config.php file.
// Disallow file edit
define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);Tip 10: Install and SSL certificate
SSL is an industry-recognized website security standard. It secures your website by encrypting data transfer between your website and users browser. This encryption makes it difficult for someone to breach the connection or spoof your information.
If your website is still running with HTTTP, then move it to HTTPS or Secure HTTP protocol. You can do this by installing an SSL certificate. Check with your hosting provider if they can provide this certificate. Many hosting companies are now offering a free SSL certificate. You can also install an SSL plugin like Really Simple SSL and activate it.
Tip 11: Update regularly
When using any WordPress product, make sure that you update it regularly. By default, WordPress automatically rolls out updates for its users. For major update releases, you need to manually initiate it.
As for the plugins and themes, you must update them manually in your WordPress dashboard. When a plugin or theme has a new version, it notifies you and provides a link to update now. Third-party developers who maintain plugins and themes release updates regularly as well.
Always make sure that your WordPress core, plugins, and themes are up to date. These WordPress updates are vital for the stability and security of your WordPress website.
Conclusion
We hope this article has been effective in helping to secure your WordPress website. Let us know in the comments below if you have other recommended security tips.
If you are going to create a new website and currently at planning stage, then you may check out our steps for planning a website right here.
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