Let’s imagine for a second that your website is a real, physical object. You’re holding it in your hands, doing whatever it is you’d do with a tangible website, when in the distance you see an attacker running at you full speed with a mace. Now, which would you rather having standing between you, your website and the incoming, mace-wielding attacker: tissue paper or concrete?
In this hypothetical (ridiculous) scenario, the answer is pretty clear. So why then, do so many businesses protect their website with tissue paper?
You need to think of your website like a fortress. Without the proper protection, your website is subject to the mercy of hackers. To build a strong defense, you need to invest in secure hosting with a company you trust. There are a couple of additional steps you can take to make sure your website is fortified.
Secure Your Site
☐ Use a secure username & password – Seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how often business owners overlook their passwords. Resist the temptation to login as “administrator” with the password “password123.” A strong password can help keep hackers at bay.
☐ Keep your site up to date – Updates to your software and plugins aren’t just cosmetic. Each update fortifies your website and protects against known weaknesses. Don’t wait to update.
☐ Backup your site, often – Backups are absolutely critical for your website. You should backup regularly and also do a full backup every time you make changes to your site. This ensures that all your content is safe if your website is attacked and you need to start from the ground up.
☐ Monitor your site – No, you don’t need to physically watch your site 24/7. You hire someone else to do it for you! A good hosting company will alert you immediately if they notice suspicous activity on your site.
☐ Only install plugins & updates that you know – If you’re not tech-savvy, lean on your web developer to install any shiny bells and whistles to your site. Bottom line: if you’re not sure where it came from, don’t add it to your site.
☐ Invest in SSL/HTTPS – Ever notice that green lock at the beginning of your URL when visit a website? That’s a signal that the site uses SSL, which is a form of encryption. In plain English? It makes your site more secure.
Taking these steps will keep your site more secure. Or at the very least, harder to bludgeon through with a mace.
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Let Us Worry About Security
As a business owner, you have a million things on your plate. You don’t have time to spend combing through your site. Our BizzyHosting packages are open to anyone who has a WordPress website, whether we designed it or not. Our packages include 24/7 monitoring, regular backups, software updates and 3 hours of technical support.