Keep Your Website Safe: 3 Tips for WordPress Users

While there are a ton of different website hosts, platforms, and services out there, if you’re like me, you appreciate the DIY flexibility of WordPress. I’m still a big fan of the modular nature of this ecosystem, and the fact that there are so many different developers creating tools for this space.

However, because WordPress has been around for awhile, it can be vulnerable to hackers. So what’s a small business to do? Here are 3 ways to get started shoring up your defenses.

Start simple

By now, most hosting services make it clear that you should use a unique administrative login, but in case you have an older website, be sure that your login isn’t just “admin.” It makes it too easy to hack in. Change it by using plugins such as Username changer, which makes your website just a little less vulnerable to fiends who might start with the basic guesses.

Put up defenses

Next, be sure to add security measures. Whether it’s a plugin like All In One WP Security & Firewall or Wordfence, these tools will help you monitor and blacklist visitors with nefarious intentions. They also shut down brute force attacks, so you won’t be taken offline too easily.

You should also make sure you have an automated backup service through your host—back your site up at least every 24 hours, so you can roll back easily if something goes wrong (important if something happens to your WordPress plugins).

Don’t bite off more than you can chew

Finally, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, maybe it’s time to migrate to a more full-service host. We like Flywheel, which is affordable and includes many of the services we’ve described above. Plus they have great customer service and even design services.

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We are a Flywheel affiliate; if you sign up for their services, we get a small commission. Regardless, all the opinions in this blog post are our own, and we’d recommend them anyway.