BLOG

Security Suggestions From A WordPress Development Company

WordPress is nothing short of a revolution that has made the world of web development and editing or running your website easier than ever thought possible. Today, more websites are run on the WordPress CMS (Content Management System) than any other CMS in the world. The ease of use, features, extensions/modules, flexibility, open-source nature, capabilities and security make it a brilliant choice to go for WordPress development no matter what your needs may be. You would be surprised at how many large enterprise organizations are using the WordPress CMS to run a website or blog for their business.

Here is the catch though that some people tend to forget is that as easy as it is to develop a WordPress website, you can easily get hacked overnight if you are not taking simple precautions to avoid catastrophe. Imagine, you have a website that has thousands of visitors or you are running an online Ecommerce business which gets hacked, it can damage your reputation or even worse affect your sales. Sound scary? Well, it should be as it is happened to a number of big brands as well as thousands of businesses across the globe. Below, we will give you some simple advice from the perspective of a WordPress development company that you should keep in mind when developing a WordPress-based website in-house or even if you are working with an outside company.

✓ Trusted Web Hosting Provider – A reliable web hosting provider is one of the keys to a successfully running website with minimal headaches. The last thing you want is to be penny-wise and pound-foolish when choosing a web hosting provider as this can be quite detrimental to you as a brand or company. Check to see what type of reviews they have and ask around to see what your friends or colleagues are using as proof is in the pudding as they say. Go for someone that is reliable, trust-worthy and can provide you good customer support should you face any problems.

✓ Use of SSH – Most experienced WordPress development companies use SSH as their transfer protocol rather than FTP. By using SSH, you are not only encrypting all your data but it’s an algorithm that is much more secure and much more difficult to hack. Granted, it’s not 100% fool-proof (nothing really is) but it’s still a really good idea to use SSH as much as possible as this will greatly reduce any security vulnerabilities that you have.

✓ Regularly Scanning Plugins & Website – A professional WordPress development company will always scan all the plugins, images and your complete website before uploading or changing anything. One of the most common ways to inject a Trojan into your website for example is by an image as many times people won’t scan these thinking that they are secure. Plugins, images and all other content need to be carefully scanned as they can contain viruses and Trojans which can bring down your site very quickly.

✓ Continuous Backup – Any good WordPress development company that you work with or even if you are maintaining your website in-house, you need to have a regular backup schedule in place that allows you to quickly restore your website should you get hit with a virus or problem to minimize downtime. This is critical to ensure that you don’t have any surprises and have regular backups of your whole website as well as database to minimize any future problems. If something happens, you should be able to easily restore it from a previous backup without any hiccups.

✓ Protect The Admin Section – The Admin section of your WordPress website is where the magic happens as they say. Majority of the time, this is where the errors or problems occur as people activate, deactivate or make changes without even knowing what they have done. Only give access to the Admin part of your website to people who know what they are doing and if they are familiar with how to run a WordPress-based website. You can even give multi-level access to users based upon their needs within WordPress which helps you make it even more secure.

Summary
Your website is your face to the world and you need to make sure it doesn’t go offline for any reason. By keeping some of these things in mind during your WordPress development phase or letting the company that is working with you to help you create a new website, tell them to follow these simple security measures to minimize any problems. You would be surprised how quickly your website can go down even with a simple setting change for example within your Admin section. Ensure that you are working with people in-house and a company who really knows what they are doing with the WordPress CMS as it’s a powerful solution no matter how big or small you may be. If you are looking for an experienced, trusted and capable WordPress development partner that takes security seriously, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital for any of your web development needs you have.