Safeguard Your WordPress Website with Proactive Maintenance and Security Measures
WordPress is an easy to use, sometimes difficult to understand, content management system. While it can help to quickly design and build a website, there are a number of areas where having a better knowledge of how WordPress works can keep you ahead of the game.
The main reason why WordPress is so popular is due to the Open Source accessibility of it; as in, if you need something, usually someone has written a plugin that will make it work. Because it’s open source, people can easily create ways to solve the problems that WordPress itself doesn’t address.
However, being Open Source can lead to its own issues. This blog covers one of the biggest issues that can arise with an Open Source platform.
Security
WordPress’s popularity has made it a prime target for hackers seeking to exploit vulnerabilities in outdated software or poorly-secured themes and plugins. To ensure the safety of your data and your visitors, regular security measures are essential:Â
- Timely Updates: Keep the WordPress core, themes, and plugins up-to-date. Developers continuously release security patches, closing potential loopholes that hackers could exploit.Â
- Backups: Regular backups protect you when things go wrong. Being able to rollback your site if it does get hacked (or if you accidentally delete content that shouldn’t have been deleted) means that it is easier to get the site back to where it needs to be without losing everything you worked on.
- Security Plugins: Leverage reputable security plugins to bolster your website’s defences. These tools can actively monitor, block suspicious activities, and prevent common attack vectors.
- SSL Encryption: Implement SSL certificates to secure data transmission between your visitors’ browsers and your web server, protecting sensitive information like login credentials and payment details.
Securing your website doesn’t need to be difficult or make it a complete fortress; you need to make it harder than others around it. In most instances, the hackers are looking for sites that are simple to break into through the vulnerabilities and weaknesses presented. By keeping your website maintained, you make your site harder to hack into.
However, not everyone has a great understanding of maintaining their site, want the stress of dealing with issues with their site that might arise, or don’t necessarily have the time to spend on this additional step of having a website. This is why I offer my clients a chance to purchase a maintenance package but it is also for other WordPress site owners who just want to ensure that their site is protected as best as possible.
