7 Tips To Keep Your WordPress Website Secure

We often get asked by our customers: Is WordPress secure, and why do I need to keep my website security up to date? So we thought we would jot down some information to help answer this question!

WordPress is a fully functional open-source content management system available for anyone to use as a website platform. It has zero ongoing license fees (yes that’s right, it’s free!) all thanks to the WordPress community who have been kind enough to share their genius with the rest of us.

As a result, WordPress is a very popular choice for businesses looking to build their website. Millions of sites around the world are using WordPress as their back-end. Due to its popularity, it is not surprising that WordPress has become a target for hackers (just like Microsoft Windows).

Unfortunately, sometimes a vulnerability will be found that hackers can use to their advantage to access or deface a WordPress installation.

Fortunately, the WordPress team are quick to react to these security exploits, often releasing a fix before you even know there’s a problem. These fixes are also provided by WordPress at no cost.

The role of the Social Tap Support Team is to make sure your site is constantly up to date with the newest versions of WordPress and related plugins.  This ensures your site is as secure as it can be against potential attacks from hackers.

Here are our top 7 tips to keep your site secure:

  1. Make sure your website is always running the latest version of WordPress.
  2. Update all your website plugins on a regular basis.
  3. Set a username other than the default ‘admin.’
  4. Maintain a secure password (use both upper and lower case, a special character and some numbers).
  5. Keep your personal computer protected with the latest antivirus to avoid your important data from being accessed and stolen.
  6. Rather than sharing your login details with other team members, create a new user account for each team member. That way if a team member leaves you can simply delete their account.
  7. Choose a hosting company which backs up your website on a regular basis, so if in the unfortunate event you do experience a security breach, you can restore your website as quickly as possible.

Even the world’s largest organisations face security breaches regularly. Hackers are clever and have a lot of time on their hands. However, if you follow the steps outlined above, or ensure your website is being managed by a reputable company who can do this for you, then you will minimise the risk and ensure your website is up, running smoothly and driving you business every day.