WordPress has really changed the conventional way of developing a website. Now with the help of WordPress CMS, you can create a website not only in a lesser timeframe but in a cost-effective way too.
In simpler words, using WordPress can lower down your website development cost as well as the development timeframe.
But when it comes to WordPress website development, security is vital. You can’t underestimate the importance of security while creating your website.
Being one of the most popular CMS available on the planet today, WordPress is also vulnerable to various security threats.
In other words, many hackers keep attempting injecting malicious codes to WordPress website and make them compromised.
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 5 reasons for you or your website developer to take care of security as the priority while 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 at the target of hackers.
By hacking your website, the hackers can attempt to infect the resources of your website visitors and steal their confidential information too.
How does this happen?
The hackers usually infect your website to gather data and in some cases even hijack computer resources too. The hackers can also take control of your website and redirect your traffic to the webpages that have malicious codes.
In short, if you don’t protect your WordPress website, the hackers can use your site 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 on stake.
#2 Loss of reputation
When your website is hacked or infected with malicious codes, your reputation is at stake.
The visitors who come to your website when experience security warnings on your webpages or browser, they are likely to quit your website immediately to never come back again.
You can probably recover from any kind of functional issue on your website but reputation loss is nearly impossible to fix once your 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 for 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 is not just for showcasing your business information like services, about us, contact us etc. But a website can also help you in generating revenue and growing your business online.
Especially, if you intend to run an e-commerce store, you expect your customers to pay you online. And when your online shoppers see that your website is infected with malicious codes and it can affect their resources too, they don’t feel comfortable buying your products.
What’s even worst. Your potential customers are likely to lose trust in your business and may not come back to your website again.
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 the sales & reputation, but a compromised website can also cost you 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 even realise until it’s too late the real cause of the sudden drop in their SEO rankings. They start working out on their off-page SEO activities instead of checking their websites first.
I am sure you won’t like to be in a situation like this.
Therefore, it is recommended to get the security breaches on your website fixed as soon as possible. If your website is also affected by viruses or malicious codes, you must hire a web developer and get this fixed as soon as you can.
#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 the webpages of your site will load slower than usual. You can check the loading speed of your website with the help of a tool such as https://tools.pingdom.com
Your website may redirect to some weird websites. It’s because the hackers would take control of your website and make changes in the files so that the users are sent to their own websites.
Some of the links on your website may also stop working abruptly.
Your webpages may also start showing some warning errors for your users. It’s because the viruses or malicious codes break some of your codes.
You may also notice that all or some of the images on your website would stop loading at all.
If you really want to deliver an excellent user experience to your audience, you must take care of the performance of your website.
