Since my initial post last year we have also found out that SSL certificates (HTTPS) will be a major ranking factor in the July 2018 official Google Updates. For all websites, not just your ecommerce sites. Google has not made this optional, it wants all websites to be secure.
Now back to the original post 🙂
Are you one of many Australian businesses offering an online store and information on your products or services via a WordPress website? If so, you’ve probably put time and effort into installing appropriate measures so that clients can make purchases safely. But what have you done to protect the rest of your website? Here’s why investing in SSL Certificate and WordPress Security Hardening is essential.
ARE YOU PREPARED?
According to research by insurance company Allianz, the most common attacks on websites involve a loss of data, compromised financial security and even identity theft – all very real possibilities when you’re shopping online with a credit card or using your banking details. Just because you don’t offer an online shopping service or your website exists purely for SEO or informational purposes doesn’t mean you’re not at risk. Just one incidence of phishing could undo years of your hard work, causing both search engines and potential customers to lose their trust in your website and its authority.
SECURING AND HARDENING YOUR WEBSITE
As a significant percentage of all websites are built off the WordPress platform, we’ll focus our attention on how you can harden this type of website using SSL and WordPress Security Hardening.
One of the first steps you should take is to seek out an SSL certificate to signify that the connection between the browser and your server is encrypted. Most browsers will warn users away from visiting a website without one. While you can enable an SSL certificate only on certain key pages (such as your online store page) we recommend getting it for your entire site.
Apart from the obvious measures of keeping passwords private and randomised, the process of hardening your website is a more complex and ongoing one. It involves ensuring that your plugins and themes and installed and maintained properly and that you’re always using the latest version of WordPress. There are a variety of other measures you can also implement involving server and database security, firewalls and monitoring tools.
We’d recommend seeking professional assistance from an external provider who has the expertise and can dedicate their time to keeping your website secure. Doing it yourself is likely to take time and effort that you could better spend running and growing your business. At iOnline we provide a vast range of security features with our own security and hardening process, as well as secure hosting with the option for SSL, so give us a call today.
