Securing WordPress sites is one of the fundamental issues to measure while developing a website. This is useful for those concerned about their site’s better health. On the other hand, you can also efficiently avoid Google’s wrath by putting an extra effort while creating a security strategy for your digital agency.

In this blog post, we will discuss steps on how to secure WordPress site for your ultimate business protection.

Why Securing WordPress Site is Needed?

While WordPress's core software is highly secured, people may face occasional breaches while erecting new customized sites. As a result, WordPress users need to secure WordPress Site when building a new website. We strongly believe that regularly reducing risk factors is far more effective than eliminating those for a single time. If you are not a tech nerd, you can still implement a few steps needed to know how to secure WordPress site.

What Advanced Strategies Are Required for Securing WordPress at Digital Agencies?

Now, let’s dig deep to learn in detail How to secure a WordPress Site with the following winning steps:

Regular Updating

Like other open-source software, WordPress needs regular maintenance and upgrades. Minor updates are installed automatically, but you must update major versions manually. You should also update third-party themes and plugins regularly.

Strong Passcode & User permission

Creating and maintaining stronger passwords may be challenging for many. However, it is a must for digital agencies to maintain their WordPress sites. These stronger passwords will create a barrier for hackers and give the site active security. Several areas should be covered, like databases, FTP accounts, hosting accounts, or various custom email addresses that use your website’s domain name.

Similarly, you should restrict your WordPress user panel access to protect yourself from unwanted breaches or threats by hackers.

Selecting Proper Hosting Partner 

Your business agency needs a proper hosting partner to receive better security features while maintaining the WordPress site. A better hosting partner can provide you with managed WordPress hosting services from which you can get automatic backups, regular WP updates, effective network monitoring, instant disaster recovery options, and much more. All these are required to resolve impending vulnerabilities on WordPress sites.

Choosing Proper Backup Solution

Selecting an ideal backup solution could save you from different cyberattacks. For WordPress, you will find many paid and free versions of these backup options. But the better ones are those that can provide you the most services. As a result, it is recommended to choose those types of backup systems that offer easy and occasional restoration facilities. Moreover, we recommend you choose backup solutions that are used to save full-site to a remote location other than your hosting account. Depending on how often you update your WordPress site, the best option is to back it up daily.

Enabling Necessary Firewall

One of the most popular ways of securing WordPress sites is by activating necessary firewalls like the Web Application Firewall (WAF). Enabling the WAF will establish customized security measures for your site. Moreover, a fine-tuned firewall setting will efficiently hamper malicious traffic and reduce the threats of SQL injection, XSS, or relevant web-based attacks. Other types of firewalls widely used nowadays are the DNS-level website firewall and the Application-level firewall.

Install Popular Security Plugin

For Securing WordPress sites, you must install recognized security plugins. These will help your website execute regular auditing and system monitoring. Doing so will protect your site from future attacks that could happen at any time. Remember, an ideal security plugin can offer you a proper evaluation of file integration, malware scanning, tracking failed login attempts, and much more.

Shift Site to SSL/HTTPS

Transforming the WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS can be a savior for your business to block potential security breaches. This can be done by using the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol, which is responsible for encrypting the transfer of data from your site and a user's browser. Enabling this encryption would save your site from data loss. By enabling the SSL, you will see relevant signs in the browser indicating that the feature is up and running. Many hosting companies currently offer free SSL certificates to spread this feature globally. 

Disabling File Modification

Disabling file editing is one of the most effective ways to trick hackers. It's because WordPress usually allows administrators to modify its settings independently, which welcomes significant security threats. By disabling unwanted file editing, you can be sure that a hacker cannot change important files to sabotage the security of your site. If they somehow managed to access your site’s admin account, they could not do any more harm. Again, an extra layer of security can be added by eradicating the channels of unauthorized users who could cash in on weaknesses on your site. Eventually, this security procedure modulates the unlawful file changes on your WordPress website smartly.

Changing Admin User Name

To secure your WordPress website, you should change the admin username to prevent hackers from brute-force attacks. Therefore, the following three methods you can use to change the admin user name in WordPress:

1. Delete the old admin username and create a new one

2. Activate the plugin for changing usernames

3. Use phpMyAdmin to update the username.

After selecting your WordPress database, you will find a list of tables. At this point, you need to select the ‘users’ table from the left side menu. Then, you will see another list of all the recorded users on your website from where you can identify the admin username for editing on that option.

Installing 2FA

Two-factor Authentication, also known as 2FA, adds an extra layer of security to your WordPress website by requiring users to provide both a password and a time-sensitive code for login. This helps prevent unauthorized access even if passwords are stolen. Popular tools like Google Authenticator can be used for this purpose.

Automatically Removing Idle Users

To protect your WordPress site from hackers, log out idle users automatically. This prevents unauthorized changes to passwords or login credentials. Financial institutions often use this method to log out inactive users. Implementing this in WordPress with a custom logout message will enhance your site's functionality and performance.

Adding Security Questions

Securing WordPress site with additional security questions could be a stronger option for dealing with potential breaches. This advanced strategy would make it more complicated for someone to pose a threat to your site. You can add customized security questions to your website by configuring the Two-Factor Authentication plugin.

If you face more complications, we recommend getting expert assistance for securing your WordPress website.

How Glossy IT Can Help You Securing WordPress with a Solid Security Strategy?

In this fast-paced digital world, it is natural to get exposed to hackers. To keep yourself and your business safe from potential exposure, you need to maintain strict measures for securing your websites. However, many digital agencies struggle to cope with these security measures. As a result, they desperately search for expert help on this matter. At Glossy IT, we have a team that can help to walk through every step of how to secure a WordPress website.

Please give us a shout to learn more about their relevant services.

Summary

The power of WordPress security lies within its value. If you care about your site, then you must take the necessary measures of securing WordPress websites from potential risk factors. Otherwise, your WordPress site will get blacklisted automatically by Google and thus hamper your reputation. Lastly, you should seek skilled tech support if you face difficulties maintaining various security issues.