WordPress Security: What is its Effect on Your Success?

WordPress security - red lock on keyboard
l

Written by Karen Carps

April 27, 2017

A lot of buzz exists about online security these days, and for good reason. From a personal standpoint, you can’t be too careful. Identity theft and account hacking are just two of the many reasons you need to be careful, but have you thought about this from a business or professional standpoint? Since I deal predominantly with WordPress, I’d like to focus on why sites should employ WordPress security for optimal success.

So many people work really hard on the production of their websites, only to let them become stagnant as time goes on. An obviously neglected site is the perfect target for hackers. You may not think that your little business or organization site displays vulnerabilities, but hackers attack websites for a lot of reasons. A colleague and friend of mine from By His Designs remarked that no content management system remains completely bullet proof. If the end user’s system has vulnerabilities, he or she raises the risk of the site getting hit. To some extent then, WordPress Security starts with your own system.

WordPress Security and Your Success

So what does WordPress security have to do with your site’s success? It’s not something your site visitors can outwardly see, but what they don’t know CAN hurt them. If you leave yourself open to attack and get hacked, your site could go down completely. That directly affects your bottom line, especially if you have an online store. Now you spend time and potentially a lot of money getting it fixed. That’s time people aren’t spending on your site and that you’re not spending working and making money.

If someone hacks your site and it still doesn’t go down, you still see a world of hurt. In many cases, your site can be spreading malware and infecting machines that visit it. If you ended up with a virus on your computer and were able to track it down to a certain website, you probably wouldn’t go back to that site anytime soon, nor would you trust it or its owner. Leaving your visitors or yourself open to that shows negligence and that you don’t care much about them.

WordPress Security Plugins

Hackers have time on their hands. A lot of time. There’s no way you can run your business, keep your website up, and keep up with the latest WordPress security issues at the same time. The best thing to do is make sure you have something in place that is going to keep up with the those issues for you. Your best line of defense is a well managed, frequently updated security plugin. GuppyFish Web Design’safeguards all its maintenance clients with iThemes Security Pro, one of the best WordPress security plugins available. When they release a security update, I install it immediately to ensure that each site has protection against the latest threats.

This is not the only option available, however. I’ve also used Wordfence, another comprehensive solution. Do your research; there are many available plugins that do a great job. If you have a web designer who offers maintenance packages, make sure that security is part of the deal. While many website hosts have security, they are not always addressing issues that are specific to WordPress security itself. Having someone constantly monitoring your site keeps you freed up to do what you do best: run your business.

If your site has already been hacked, it’s not too late. There’s help for a hacked website.

It’s difficult to express how important WordPress security is to your site. I hope I’ve at least touched on why you should make sure your site is secure. So lock that site up tight, and keep swimming along!

You May Also Like…

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This