WordPress has changed the conventional way of developing a website. Now, with the help of WordPress CMS, you can create a website in a shorter timeframe and at a cost-effective rate.
In simpler words, using WordPress can lower your website development cost and the development timeframe.
However, security is vital in WordPress website development. You can’t underestimate its importance when creating your website.
Although WordPress is one of the most popular CMSes today, it is also vulnerable to various security threats.
In other words, many hackers try injecting malicious codes into WordPress websites and compromise them.
Here are some of the common symptoms of a compromised website.
- Unwanted automated downloads
- Redirect to strange websites
- Weird URLs on the webpages
- Slow loading webpages
In this blog post, I’ve shared five reasons for you or your website developer to prioritize security when creating your website.
Let’s dive in.
#1 Your customers are targeted
When your website is infected or hacked, it’s not only you who will be affected, but your customers are also the target of hackers.
By hacking your website, hackers can attempt to infect the resources of your website visitors and steal their confidential information.
How does this happen?
The hackers usually infect your website to gather data and, in some cases, even hijack computer resources. They can also take control of your website and redirect your traffic to web pages with malicious codes.
In short, if you don’t protect your WordPress website, hackers can use it to infect your visitors with malware.
To sum up, a compromised website doesn’t affect only the user experience of your audience, but it can also put your users’ confidential information at stake.
#2 Loss of reputation
Your reputation is at stake when your website is hacked or infected with malicious codes.
Visitors to your website who experience security warnings on your web pages or browser are likely to quit immediately and never return.
You can probably recover from any functional issue on your website, but reputation loss is nearly impossible once potential customers see you in a bad light.
Don’t let this happen to you.
What’s the solution here?
Hire a website developer who knows the importance of security when building a website. An experienced WordPress developer always knows how to protect a website or fix an infected site.
#3 Loss of money
A website does not just showcase your business information, such as services, about us, contact us, etc. It can also help you generate revenue and grow your business online.
Especially if you intend to run an e-commerce store, you expect your customers to pay you online. When your online shoppers see that your website is infected with malicious codes and can affect their resources, they don’t feel comfortable buying your products.
Even worse, your potential customers will likely lose trust in your business and may not return to your website.
It is such a huge loss.
Investing some time & money to protect your website will surely yield a high return on investment for you.
#4 Loss of SEO rankings
Did you know that the security of your website can also affect your search engine rankings? So, it’s not just about sales and reputation; a compromised website can also cause a drop in your search engine rankings.
No matter how efficient your SEO team is, if your website is compromised or infected with malicious codes, you may see a sudden & sharp drop in your search engine rankings.
Many webmasters don’t realize until it’s too late the real cause of the sudden drop in their SEO rankings. They start working on their off-page SEO activities instead of checking their websites first.
I am sure you won’t like being in this situation.
Therefore, it is recommended that you fix your website’s security breaches as soon as possible. If your website is also affected by viruses or malicious codes, you must hire a web developer to fix this quickly.
#5 Overall performance
A compromised website would always lack performance in many ways.
When your WordPress website is compromised, you may face several issues, such as:
- Most of your site’s web pages will load slower than usual. You can check your website’s loading speed with a tool like https://tools.pingdom.com.
- Your website may redirect to some weird websites. It’s because the hackers would take control of your website and change the files so the users are sent to their websites.
- Some of the links on your website may also stop working abruptly.
- Your webpages may also start showing warning errors for your users. This is because viruses or malicious codes break some of your codes.
- You may also notice that all or some of the images on your website will stop loading.
You must improve your website’s performance to deliver an excellent user experience to your audience.
So, don’t delay any longer —hire a professional WordPress developer to protect your website. This small investment is worth it.
How to fix WordPress website security?
There are many things that your website designer can do to make your website secure. Some of those activities are mentioned below:
- Upgrading all the plugins of your WordPress website regularly.
- Upgrading the theme of your website regularly.
- Upgrading WordPress to its latest version.
- Installing a security plugin such as “All in one WP security” on your website.
- Make sure that the admin password is solid and hard to guess.
- Ensure all crucial files, such as wp-admin, have restricted access.
- Make sure that the WordPress version is not publicly visible.
- Ensure the WordPress admin URL and usernames are customized and not conventional.