Security is of the utmost importance these days. For any person active online, keeping both personal and financial information secure can be a challenge. Through the use of strong passwords and common sense, most people can safeguard their information with minimal worry.

However, the same cannot be necessarily said for businesses, brands and blogs operating websites. Under a constant barrage of attempts to access information, websites must be in tip-top shape in order to guard their private information and that of their visitors.

WordPress in particular is a common choice of target for would-be hackers and thieves, given its massive usage by brands (over one-quarter of all websites run on WordPress). To ensure your WordPress website is secure and safe, keep reading to learn about a few simple actions you should take immediately.

Create Regular Backups

In the worst-case scenario, hackers could completely destroy your website and render all of your hard work pointless. This is why WordPress websites should be backed up regularly via backup plugins that can do so automatically.

Whether the goal is to back up daily, weekly or at some other specified interval, backup solutions are free and simple to use.

Keep Plugins Updated

Hackers want to access your website for a variety of reasons, including accessing financial information and pinging links to disreputable websites through your pages. One of the most popular ways for gaining entry is sifting through patch notes for common plugins that have recently been updated and then using exploits to gain access.

Configuring your WordPress installation to automatically update whenever new versions of a plugin are available is recommended. Otherwise, it could be only a matter of days in some cases before malcontents are sneaking in through your website’s back door, installing malicious code and pinging links to websites that’ll cause your search engine visibility to crater.

Install Firewall Software

Another great proactive measure webmasters can take to secure their WordPress websites, firewalls help by detecting unusual activity and prevents deceptive entities such as malicious bots from manipulating your website. While the good kind of bots (such as crawlers) can still access of your content, those designed to data harvest or glean page information for nefarious purposes will find it much more difficult to do.

This inevitably minimizes the number of opportunities that a would-be hacker or manipulator will have to access your website. Given that most hackers use various forms of poking and prodding on a massive level, most entities will simply move on if easy access to your website cannot be achieved.

Restrict Login Activity

Last but not least, one of the most direct forms of security – and one of the most direct methods for accessing a website without permission – involve the use of simple logins. Plenty of plugins are available for WordPress that restrict the number of times a user can attempt to login within a given time period. This can help prevent those brute force attempts that some hackers employ. These tools can also be used to restrict an excessive number of new accounts being created on your website, which are sometimes used for the purposes of link stuffing, spam and/or malware.

You can also configure such plugins to automatically notify you whenever suspicious activity occurs, making it a valuable addition to any WordPress security plan.

Through these simple solutions, the overall security of your WordPress website can be greatly enhanced. Every one of these tips can be implemented easily, so make sure to do so today!