WordPress is completely dominating the world of content management systems (CMS), being used by more than one-third of the websites today. Because of its ease of use, simplicity, and features, it is become the preferred choice of bloggers and businesses.
However, one thing that keeps on scaring the website owners is the security of their website or blog. Since WordPress is the most popular CMS, hackers are targeting it with advanced tricks to exploit the websites. If you have a WordPress website and are not implementing any security practices, then your site remains at the risk of being attacked. Moreover, Google blacklists thousands of websites every week which are not secure or are vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Along with taking care of your business, content writing, marketing, and sales, you also need to take care of your website, because it is one of the most valuable assets of your business.
Also read: 4 best ways to find dead or broken links in WordPress
WordPress security tips to secure your site or blog
If you are serious about your website, then we have curated a few of the best WordPress security tips to avoid all forms of cyberattacks from your site.
1. Choose reliable web hosting provider
Web hosting providers play a crucial role in the quality of hosting services you use. If you use cheap web hosting and poor service provider, then don’t expect to have great security features. There is a reason behind the low cost of poor hosting providers. They don’t provide strong security features.
Hence, you should always power your website with a reliable web hosting, whether it is shared hosting, WordPress hosting, or cloud hosting. In case your websites face any security issues, the good service providers offer support to help you combat such issues. Cheap service providers don’t really provide support or aren’t available 24/7.
2. Avoid nulled website themes
Website development with WordPress is super easy because it comes with free and premium themes that can be used with no technical knowledge. All it takes is finding an appealing theme, live preview, install and activate it. There is no need of coding or programming.
While there are hundreds of themes available out there, you should never use nulled and poor themes. Always choose trustworthy and best WordPress themes for your site. Nulled themes can leave your website vulnerable to attacks, impact your performance and SEO.
Not all theme providers are reliable. Some provide free themes and then hack the websites that use those themes. It would be great to go for a premium theme because they are well-designed and are secure. Also, if you are choosing free themes, then make sure that it is reliable.
3. Use WordPress security plugins
Another great thing about WordPress is that there are plugins available for every purpose. You can find plugins for SEO, social media, email marketing, etc. It will be great to use some WordPress security plugin that can scan your website or blog for viruses, find malware, blacklist suspicious IP addresses, and limit the login attempts.
There are several good plugins available out there, which you can use and strengthen the security of your site on an automated basis. We recommend you use a plugin like Sucuri, Wordfence, Bulletproof, or iThemes security. All these plugins are available as both free and premium models. Some features are free, and some features come at a cost. If you have a new website, then even free features will work well. For established websites, we suggest opting for premium features.
4. Set strong password
Whether it is a social media account or your website, you should always use strong password. Use of weak and common passwords leave you at the risk of being hacked.
Many website owners use passwords like ‘qwerty12345′, abc123’, which are guessable and crack-able. If you are using such weak passwords, then instantly change it to a strong one. Here are a few tips to set strong passwords—your password should be more than 8 letters; it should contain both small and capital letters; it should have numeric characters and symbols. For example, ‘dFhjYu@4t0U’. Nobody can guess or remember such passwords.
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5. Use SSL Certificate
SSL certificate has become an essential thing for websites today, because it improves security, helps you gain trust of visitors, and enhances your SEO.
Use of an SSL certificate moves your website from ‘not secure’ to ‘secure’, which means all the transactions and communications between the web browsers of users and your web server will be encrypted. This is a must-have security feature. Without it, the users will see a ‘not secure’ warning in the URL of your site, which will impact their trust. They wouldn’t consider a purchase on your site. Hence, install an SSL certificate today. It will also optimize your site for SEO.
Related read: How to install an SSL Certificate on WordPress site?
6. Use custom URL for WP-login
Most of the WordPress websites’ login URL is yourdomain.com/wp-admin. This means that everyone including the hackers know where they have to go to insert the login credentials or target a brute force attack.
What you can do is change it and use some custom login URL that only you know about. This will save your site from a lot of brute force attacks. You should also enable two-factor authentication on login page to further beef up your WordPress website security.
7. Keep everything up to date
One thing that many WordPress websites lack is that they don’t use the updated version of WordPress, and the themes and plugins. WordPress keeps on releasing new updates and bug fixes to improve the performance of the platform, add new features, and fix the security issues.
When you don’t update the WP to the latest version, you are at risk of attacks because hackers know about the vulnerability. Same goes for the themes and plugins. Hence, it is a great practice to keep everything updated for better security.
8. Regular backups
What if your website gets hacked and you lose all the data?
Despite using the best security practices for WordPress, sometimes there remains some loopholes or human error, which can result in your website getting hacked. Cybercriminals are very advanced today and stay a step ahead of us. If they hack the site and locks or deletes all your data, what will you do?
You can simply do nothing and loss your business. That’s why you should always have a backup of all your data, so that it can be recovered in cases of cyberattacks and disasters. You should create regular backups of your site, using a plugin or manually.
Read next: 6 easiest ways to monetize your WordPress blog for free
Handing over to you:
With the rise in cyberattacks against websites today, no website owner or blogger can afford to leave the site vulnerable to attacks. There should be the implementation of the best WordPress security tips.
Using the tips mentioned above, you can easily boost the security of your site and save it from many hacking attempts. If you have any questions, let us know via the comments below.