However, the security of the established connection depends on the website.  

To take the security at the upmost concern, browsers like Firefox and Chrome are now pointing out non-HTTPS-secured websites. It has increased the necessity of an SSL certificate for WordPress sites. This development is being used by 70% of websites because free and low-cost certificates are readily available.

Online shopping and payments for goods and services necessitate security in today’s digital world.

Additionally, enabling SSL certificates gives websites the ability to secure connections between visitors’ browsers and the servers. Hence, the getting the SSL certificate for WordPress site has grown in importance. Also, SSL is no longer just important for e-commerce sites but for all virtual ones as well.

Hence, if you are also running or want to build a WordPress website, you must implement this security protocol. Let’s now explore how Security Socket Layer (SSL) helps WordPress-powered websites and why your business needs it.

Need of SSL Certificate For WordPress Website

Today, SSL is no more a choice but has become a necessity. We’ve got the reasons why, too.

• Secure Information: The most critical reason is security. Websites frequently supervise the transfer of sensitive data, such as login credentials, payment information, and so on. The results could be far worse if any such information gets leaked. This means SSL configuration costs less when compared to the harm caused by hackers and cyber attackers to the business. 
• Build Website Exposure: The second reason is that SSL impacts the website’s online visibility. Websites will be less likely to appear in the search results if you don’t have any security protocol. Ultimately, SSL is critical for SEO regardless of whether you accept online payments or not.
• User-Experience: Lastly, a company’s website’s ranking depends on the quality of its users’ experiences. Even if inadequate security isn’t the cause of a website’s problems, it can still hinder the company’s operations. It is therefore critical to assure customers that your website is encrypted and secure before they proceed.

How to Add Free SSL Certificate on WordPress Site?

Once you’ve decided on a free SSL certificate for WordPress website, the next step is to set up the HTTP and SSL protocols.

There are two distinct ways to accomplish this. Let’s explore!

Method 1: Add Free SSL Certificate on WordPress Site By Plugin

This is the best approach for those who are just getting started with WordPress websites.

WordPress’s Really Simple SSL plugin must first be installed and activated. To achieve this,

Step 1: Sign in to your WordPress dashboard.

Step 2: Next, select the Plugins option from the sidebar’s left navigation pane. To better understand, the following image has been provided.

Step 3: Press the Add New option next to Plugins to add the plugin on your WordPress site. 

Step 4: Now, use the search box on the right side of the page to search for the plugin you want to install. Here, type Really Simple SSL in the search bar.

Step 5: A list of plugins will appear on the screen below the search box. Choose the icon with the appearance shared below. 

Step 6: Now, click on the Install Now button next to each plugin listed on the screen. 

Step 7: The installation will begin. Once the process is over, the activate option will appear. Click on it to start using the plugin.

Once the installation is complete, navigate to the Settings – SSL menu item in the admin panel’s left sidebar. Simply select the option to gain access to the SSL settings and make necessary changes to your website’s visual appearance.

This is how your dashboard must look like.

The Really SSL plugin will help your website to take care of the below things:

• Set up HTTP to HTTPS redirects
• Enable WordPress to use HTTPS in URLs
• Check SSL certificate
• Rectify the mixed content inconsistencies

Method 2: Manually Set up Free SSL Certificate For the WordPress Site

This method needs manual troubleshooting and modifying of WordPress files. However, this is the most long-lasting and performance-optimized solution of the two.

To perform the manual addition of an SSL certificate on the WordPress site, follow the below procedure:

• Firstly, visit settings & go to General page. Here, update the sites and WordPress URL address fields. This will be done by replacing HTTP with HTTPS

• Now, save changes to your store settings. Further, you will be asked to re-login to your WordPress account
• The next step comes to setting up WordPress redirects to HTTPS. To do so, add the below code to the .htaccess file

WordPress can fully load the site using HTTPS, so following these steps will help you fix the issues of HTTPS not functioning.

How to Fix Mixed Content Error in WordPress Database

Many incorrect URLs will contain data such as files, images, embeds, and more. Fixing all of this will require tracking down all of the previously mentioned URLs. You should switch them from HTTP:// to HTTPS:// instead.

The Better Search Replace plug-in must then be installed and activated.

Once enabled, open the Better Search Replace page by selecting Tools from the menu bar. Add the website’s URL with HTTP to the search engine’s search field now. Then, in the Replace section, enter the HTTPS URL you just created.

WordPress database tables will appear after that. Select all of them and do a full audit now.

Finally, uncheck the last box and click on the Run Search/Replace button. Finally, the plugin will search your WordPress database for HTTP URLs and replace them all with HTTPS.

Fixing Mixed Content Errors in WordPress Site Theme

WordPress themes are another common cause of mixed content problems. However, this problem will not occur if you use a WordPress theme that complies with industry standards.

To find out why and what resources are being loaded, use the Inspect tool in your browser.

The next step is to find and replace the HTTP resources in your WordPress theme with HTTPS.

Fixing Errors Caused by Plugins

WordPress plugins are responsible for loading some mixed content resources.

Remember, no WordPress plugin that adheres to the coding standards will cause issues with mixed content. Instead of fixing the plugin files, contact the plugin’s creator and get the problem resolved.

The Bottom Line

Installing SSL on a website boosts its security, prevents data breaches, and improves its dependability. Installing an SSL certificate on a WordPress site also helps it rank higher in Google’s search engine results.

Hope you now understand how to add a free SSL certificate on the WordPress site. However, if you have any issues with the setup, you can contact a WordPress development firm or a hosting service provider. WordSuccor will be more than happy to assist you.

But, some uncertainty makes everything worthless. Though, you might not have expected your website to be instantly overwhelmed by several simultaneous requests, causing it to crash.  And, this is what happens when the WordPress website gets prone to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. 

The DDoS attack just takes some minutes to bring down the website.  Unexpectedly, at one minute, the hackers target the website and then, overload the network and server.  And at the second minute, the WordPress website becomes inaccessible, unresponsive, and gets offline.

Therefore, your business comes to a standstill. With the loss of visitors and customers, your revenue will decline.  Improving DDoS is not easy- it costs more than hundreds and thousands of dollars.   So, what better is to be ready for such an attack and does not make it destroy anything.  Considering this, we have decided to help you in this difficult matter and give some short, trivial and not universal tips for protecting your site from DDoS attacks.  

So, stay with us to know more!!

What is a DDoS Attack?

A Denial of Service (DoS) attack is an attempt to do harm by rendering a target system, such as a WordPress website, inaccessible to ordinary end users. Typically, attackers generate a large number of packets or requests, which ultimately overload the work of the target system. To implement a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) type of attack, an attacker uses many hacked or controlled sources.

In general, DDoS attacks can be divided into types depending on what level of the open system interaction model (OSI) attack occurs. Attacks at the network level (level 3), transport level (level 4), presentation level (level 6), and application-level (level 7) are the most common.

Classification of DDoS Attacks

When considering the issue of prevention from DDoS attacks, it is useful to look up its two classifications:  infrastructure-level attacks (levels 3 and 4) and application-level attacks (levels 6 and 7).

• Infrastructure Level Attacks

Infrastructure-level attacks usually include attacks at levels 3 and 4. This is the most common type of DDoS attack, which includes vectors such as SYN flood, and other reflection attacks such as UDP flood. Such attacks are usually massive and are aimed at overloading the network bandwidth or application servers. However, this type of attack has certain signs, therefore it is easier to detect.

• Application-Level Attacks

Attacks at the application level usually include attacks at levels 6 and 7. These attacks are less common, but at the same time, they are more complex. As a rule, they are not as massive as infrastructure-level attacks, but are aimed at certain expensive parts of the application and lead to the fact that it becomes inaccessible to real users. Examples include an HTTP request stream to the login page, and expensive search API, or even WordPress XML-RPC streams (also known as WordPress Pingback attacks).

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Working of DDoS Attack

To know how the DDoS attack functions, you must know how the website responds when the visitor visits your website. 

Actually, there is a process  that happens which is defined below:

• When the visitor visits the website, the browser, like, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome sends the request to the website server.
• The server processes the request to obtain the fundamental data and assigns it back to the browser.
• The browser then accepts this data to show the content of the WordPress website to the visitor.

Each server has some restricted resources to run the website. The range is generally granted by the web hosting providers according to the hosting plan. Every request from the visitor secures some amount of server resources. If your server resources are less then it will manage merely some browser requests. 

Do not exhaust the resources with too many requests. Otherwise, your website will turn out to be unresponsive and slow. Even there are chances that if there will be much burden on the server, then the website can crash and go offline. As of now, you know how the origin servers and browsers communicate. To get it more clear, find out how a DDoS attack takes place.

How Do DDoS Attacks Occur?

Each server has some restricted resources to run the website. The range is generally granted by the web hosting providers according to the hosting plan. 

Of course, if your website suddenly gets prone to DDoS attacks, then it only means that hackers have planned it all in advance. You can take it as the hackers preparing an army for attacking your WordPress website.

• Hackers Create a Pool of Devices

Generally, hackers target mobile phones and computers and affect them with malware.

** Some examples are there that show DDoS attacks have DVR and CCTV cameras for launching the DDoS attacks on the WordPress websites.

Later, the malware acknowledges them to forward the requests from the affected device to the targeted website. This machine network can be termed as Botnet. Even the hackers can hire the botnet which is accessible on the dark web.

• They Send Many Fake Requests

The hackers consider the malware on each device on the botnet and control the machines to send the fake requests on the web server.

• Bottleneck Requests are Send 

Even with a single request, the resources get exhausted. With one request after another, the chances of exhaustion become more.  This makes the website to get offline and higher the chances of crashing.

If the hacker cannot drive the successful flood attack and take the website offline, then the attack will influence the website’s performance and website speed. The visitors cannot check or navigate the website. And, if the website is infected with the DDoS attack then, you have to reply in prompt.  The more you wait, the more you lose the revenue and potential customers. 

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How to Find the DDoS Vulnerability on the WordPress Website?

Why is detecting DDoS attacks tough? Because it does not show any warnings. The hacker can force many attacks on the website at any time. As many WordPress website owners are not browsing the websites regularly, it is tough to know if the website is under attack or not.

In most cases, the website owners do not have any idea until the visitors or customers complain that they cannot get access to the WordPress website. Just at that time, you will understand that there is something wrong with the web host or web server. You can monitor if there is any theme or plugin which is creating an issue. 

And, then you will realize that there is a presence of DDoS attacks on your website. That is a big loss in terms of revenue, potential visitors, etc. What best for mitigating DDoS attacks is to know the sign prior. Several hints are there that you can look up and know the presence of DDoS attacks.

• Monitor the Website Traffic

Hackers send many requests to the WordPress website in DDoS attacks. This implies that an expected hike can be seen in traffic. The website traffic can be measured from Google Analytics. Generally, it does not show the real-time data, but, you can turn on the settings, for that, you need to:

• Sign in to Google Analytics
• Move to the view
• Select reports and open it
• Choose Real-Time

On the contrary, you can even use the website security plugin, such as, MalCare for checking the traffic requests that are coming to the website. 

So, install the plugin on the WordPress website, use the dashboard to move to Security->Traffic requests.

If you will notice a pool of requests merely in some time, then this is also an indication of DDoS attack, particularly, when the website does not experience the legitimate traffic. 

• Review the Website Data Usage

The aim of a DDoS attack is to drain the website resources. So, it is better to look after the resources and find out the proportion of used resources. 

Many hosting providers show website analytics on the dashboard. So, it is better to visit the hosting account and navigate to “Manage hosting”- this is where you will notice the usage analytics.

In general, the website cannot drain the resources easily. A lot of traffic is required on the website to exceed the limit. If the CPU bandwidth and usage limit have reached then there are chances of DDoS attack presence. Here, our advice to you is to act fast to protect the website.

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Proven Ways to Protect DDoS Attack on the WordPress Website

Several methods are there that can be used to protect the WordPress website. Disabling some features and security plugins are some of these. Employing an accurate protection plan, you can increase the ability to bounce back from DDoS attacks. Here, we are defining the best ways to protect the WordPress website from DDoS attack:

• Disable REST API and XML RPC in WordPress

With the announcement of WordPress’s recent version, the users can enable the XML-RPC option by default. This can be used for trackbacks and pingbacks. Though, it does not apply to all websites. It is not required if you are not dependent on mobile apps for WordPress website management.

XML-RPC can be compromised easily, that implies that it can be exposed to vulnerabilities that hackers can get exploited to DDoS attack. Hence, it is better to disable it. This can be achieved by updating the .htaccess file. You need to open from the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), like FileZilla or hosting account file manager. Paste the below code after that.

# Block WordPress xmlrpc.php requests

<Files xmlrpc.php>

order deny,allow

deny from all

</Files>

In the same fashion, it is better to disable the REST API in WordPress. It is one of the channels that authorizes the access of third-party apps to the WordPress website. The best manner to disable the WordPress API on the website is by WP Security and Hide Enhancer.

This plugin does not require you to have any configuration and the best part, it is free to use. After the installation and activation phase, you can disable the REST API by navigating to WP Hide->JSON API.

This plugin can even be used after disabling the XML-RPC functionality. Its option is placed in the XML-RPC tab.

• WAF Installation on the WordPress Website

If you are using WordPress for a long time, then you must be aware of WAF.  Precisely, it is the security software that integrates the protection layer on the website and malicious traffic.  Also, it assists in the prevention of the DDoS attack by restricting the filtering out bots and user access. Though, there are several WAFs that you can choose for protecting the WordPress website.  Here, our recommendation is Sucuri. 

The Sucuri Intrusion Prevent System (IPS) and WAF save your website from any malware, brute force attack, etc.  This blocks different types of DDoS attacks and malicious traffic. Sucuri presents many plans that you can pick accordingly. 

• Secure a Secure Hosting Provider

We cannot underestimate the hosting quality on the WordPress website. The server affects the performance and speed of the website.  Undeniably, it also has a major role to play in website security, it influences your capability to protect and improve from DDoS attacks.

The main reason that most of the users prefer to select the web host lies in cost. But, when it is about website protection, then it is better to invest in better hosting.  It is especially true when you prefer to opt for the cheap plan that can cost you in means of losing the essential business assets.

Employing the DDoS attack detrimental effect on the WordPress website in regards to uptime and performance, it is important to select the hosting plan and provider. These help you to know and handle the overwhelming traffic.  

There is hope that you are employing a reliable and premium hosting provider.   If it is not, we advise you to switch to the one that considers security as preference.  It might have some plans that have features, like, 24X7 monitoring and support, free CDN service, and malware scanning.

• Employ Content Delivery Network

CDN offers extra network servers that provide support to the WordPress website speed and handles the server load effectively. Considering the performance optimization, it also gives full justice to security.

In general, the CDN prevents DDoS attacks and does not cause severe damage. It also detects unexpected traffic patterns and works as a reverse proxy.

Several CDN service providers are there. But, we advise you to get the best one, such as Stackpath. The Stackpath CDN considers the layered security layered approach for the protection and mitigation of DDoS attack. It encompasses many premium plans. The other benefit is that it allows you to integrate the website with the WordPress Plugin.

• Download the WordPress DDoS Protection Plugin 

Most of the DDoS protection plugins save a lot of energy and time by streamlining the cumbersome tasks.  Many have features that are important for DDoS attacks on the WordPress website. 

It is mentioned above that WAFs can be extremely useful for website safeguarding.  Installation of the security plugin includes one-built quickly to integrate the protection of WordPress installation.  In addition, the functionality such as bad URL, login attempts, bot blocking, and malicious IP address eliminates the attack mitigation.  Hence, we advised you to download the WordPress DDoS protection plugin, like, Wordfence.

Wordfence can carry out several prominent functions. The WordPress security Plugin also integrates tools for examining live visits and traffic and activity surges.  You can use and download several plugins for free. 

Though, it also provides the premium version that allows access to the overall suite of the security features, like, a real-time threat defense feed.

• Prefer WordPress Maintenance and Monitoring

When it is about website management,  prevention is better.  For minimizing the DDoS attack chances in the WordPress website, it is best to make regular monitoring and maintenance a priority.

Executing the website regular maintenance will keep the website secure and therefore, lessens the vulnerabilities for the hackers.  The regular examination can find a susceptible activity before notable damage.   Several essential tasks are included in the proper monitoring and maintenance, such as:

• Uptime monitoring
• Automated backups
• Speed optimization
• Malware scanning and removal
• Updates to WordPress, plugins, and themes

Yes, executing all is a time-consuming task, but it is evident. We advise you to make it seamless by signing-up for the WordPress Care Plan. The professional WordPress maintenance services providers assures you peacefulness and guarantees that your website is fully cared for. In addition, with this serenity, you can focus more on different valuable and productive tasks.

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Wrapping Up

With the presence of extensive security threats out there, thinking to stand out is tough. But, letting these attacks damage your hard-earned website is not acceptable. The one attack which is more severe is DDoS attack (in terms of severity and frequency).

Hence, it is essential to assure that you have followed all measures to protect your WordPress website from this attack.

Here, in this guide, we have given you a comprehensive view of DDoS attack, significantly with the prevention steps.  Follow them and prevent your WordPress website from the attacks.

We hope this article is helpful for you. In case, you are unsure about the tips and tactics of the same, then contact us. We will help you out and provide you with effective results.

Thanks for reading!! 

So, what exactly is UX? Why is it important for the success of websites? What steps you should take to improve the site’s UX while converting Magento websites to WordPress? Let’s contemplate and find the answer.

In simple words, website UX is the experience obtained by visitors when they browse your site. A website that offers a pleasant experience to victors is loved by both search engines and people alike. If they get unpleasant experience on your website, you start to face several problems, such as high bounce rates, low traffic, and low conversion rates.

Inboard terms, active internet users will not love to visit your website time and again if they negative experiences. A good number of business persons rush to Magento to WordPress Conversion services. With this move, they reduce the E-commerce website operational cost up to a great extent. It also helps them to increase the profit margins by leaps and bounds. Just have a look at some key steps that you should take to improve UX greatly on a new website:

1. Create A Well-Defined Website Migration Plan

Magento to WordPress Website migration is not a child’s play at all. Things may go haywire all of a sudden if you perform the website migration without a well-defined plan. It is possible that you face unforeseen technical problems while migrating your website from Magento to WordPress.
So, first and foremost, create a website migration plan in consultation with all stakeholders. This helps you to take your existing Magento website on a new platform (WordPress) smoothly.

2. Don’t Play with Codes

It is very important for a web designer to create a unique and user-friendly website. Google doesn’t give any importance to two different websites that have the same design, content, CTA buttons, etc. To create unique websites or web-pages, coders play with codes.

This is where they create security loopholes unknowingly. Hackers can easily hack your website using such security shortcomings. So, use simple code to create your new website or its pages. Check the authenticity of your code without any fail. Edit it if required. Google will never show your website in its SERP if the coding of your website doesn’t match its standards.

3. Choose Only Necessary Design Elements

These days, simple websites rule the web. The rapidly growing internet audience loves to visit websites with awesome and cool design patterns. So, when you take your Magento website to the WordPress platform, there is no need to fill the new site with unnecessary design elements. Choose only those elements that are vital to make your brand emphatic and easily recognizable on the web. Just have a look at some recommendations:

Note: There are numerous elements that can make your website look awesome and different from others. Choose different design elements as per your specific business needs. These are some basic suggestions only.

4. Relinquish Your obsession for WordPress Plugins

WordPress plugins are a boon for all tech-savvy and non-technical persons. They are available in free and premium versions. They allow individuals to easily add additional features and functionalities to WordPress websites. It helps them to save valuable time, money, and lots of human efforts in WordPress website operation and maintenance.

So, most WordPress website owners are expediently crazy about plugins. They add too many plugins to their websites. So, as a result, their website becomes slow sooner or later. Slow websites are disliked by Google and visitors. They have a lower ranking in Google’s SERP. In this case, the owner of that website gets only fewer chances of lead generation despite launching special conversion optimization campaigns.

5. Is Your Website super-fast?

Modern Internet users detest slow loading websites. They don’t have sufficient patience to wait for a long time to visit your website. So, they leave it immediately and browse your competitor’s website. It is a big setback for your brand.

There are many reasons why your WordPress site becomes slow. Just find out those factors and eliminate them ASAP. This will make your website load faster on all devices. It not only complements your SEO efforts but also helps to get better ranking in Google and more chances of lead generation.

6. Is Your Website Responsive to Mobile Devices?

The rapidly increasing internet audience uses different mobile devices to browse websites. So, Google, the world’s leading search engine (with approx. 92% market share), prefers only those websites that are responsive to mobile devices. Non-responsive websites are humiliated by Google with a low ranking in its SERP. Such websites receive frequent criticism from the audience and have a high bounce rate. So, make sure your new WordPress website is responsive to all mobile devices.

7. Is Your Website Safe for Use?

The safety of visitor’s data on the web is the biggest concern these days. Frequent happenings of cyber-attacks, online financial frauds, use of malware software for stealing the customer’s data, etc, give sleepless nights to online business owners.

It is because they lose the trust of the targeted customers and potential business opportunities. So, website security should be your prominent concern when you avail of the WordPress Migration Services. It is because Google Chrome now declares the Non-HTTPs website as unsafe. So, add an HTTPs certificate to your website and take all possible steps to make it safe for use.

8. Do You Test Your Website for Technical Issues Before Launch?

As a visitor, how would you feel when a website displays 404 pages? Definitely, it causes disappointment and frustration. So, after taking your Magento website to the WordPress platform, check it for possible faults and technical errors, such as cross-browser compatibility issues, 404 pages, loading speed, responsiveness to different mobile devices, external and internal URLs, etc.

Find all possible errors and remove them ASAP. Make sure that your website is 100% ready to be used by the targeted audience.

9. Don’t Underestimate the Content Role In UX

When you take your Magento website to the WordPress platform (originally known as a blogging platform), content plays a greater role in UX. If your new website offers the content visitors are looking for, success comes in your way sooner or later. So, make sure you use SEO-optimized and information-rich content on your new WordPress website.

Complement your content with relevant images, screenshots, data, facts & figures, etc. It will increase the user experience up to a great extent on your website.

Final Remarks

Magento to WordPress conversion is a new trend in the digital landscape. With this move, entrepreneurs aim to reach out new online shoppers easily on a low investment. Just follow the above-described recommendations to improve the user experience on your new WordPress website.

To give an authentic look and feel to your new WordPress website, consider availing WordPress Theme Customization Services, offered by prominent WordPress development companies.

In this post, you will learn about these WordPress myths. As a WordPress web development services, We think it is our responsibility to make you aware of these myths to encourage the right practice.

Let’s start with a glorious introduction of WordPress.

WordPress: The Leading CMS Platform On The Web

WordPress is not just a CMS anymore. There is more to this amazing platform. The popularity of this web platform can be speculated with these facts,

• As of the last count, WordPress powers more than 26 percent of the web and has a whopping 59.4 percent market share, which makes it the most used CMS platform.

• More than 500 sites a day are created on the WordPress platform.

• There are 44,225 WordPress plugins, which have been downloaded more than 1.25 billion times.

WordPress is translated into 56 different languages worldwide.

These are just a few of the striking data points. When you dig into the nitty-gritty of WordPress, it becomes clear that this is one of the most superior CMS platforms on the web. But along with this title comes a target. When you’re the best, people want to tear you down. When they can’t tear you down, they resort to bending the truth or making things up altogether.

WordPress Myths Debunked

In this section of the post, you will get to know about all the myths about WordPress which are presented as facts to defame this incredible website platform. Let’s see in detail what are these myths are,

WordPress Is Just A Blogging Platform!

Now, this really breaks my heart. How can someone think WordPress as only a blogging platform? There are so many things to it. Yes, it is a fact that WordPress was first just a blogging platform. It was born that way. With time, it develops itself into a fully featured website development platform.

A CMS that fulfills all the requirements of a website. Custom post types, pages, widgets, add-ons, and plugins among other features, you can extend your WordPress installation to power some of the greatest internet hits.

This is definitely a myth by someone who either doesn’t have any idea what WordPress can do or he/she is a hardcore hater of WordPress out of grudge or competition. Contact us and we will be happy to help you to understand WordPress in the more detailed way.

WordPress Is Not Scalable!

I would say that is preposterous. WordPress websites are 100% scalable. They are well known for being responsive. WordPress is a community project aka open source software. There a number of comments in the section that says that their website is not scaling.

This really surprises me. All the WordPress themes are responsive and scalable. Even if you want to develop a theme by yourself, you can manually scale the website for various devices.

This is one of the most bizarre and illogical statement. You should know that this is so not true.

WordPress Is Not Secure

You need to understand that nothing in this world is perfect. When it comes to software, there is always a room for improvement. Being the most popular choice for website building, WordPress is target #1 for the hackers. They constantly try to exploit even a small vulnerability to get it. The volume of attack in WordPress is definitely high. This didn’t mean that it is prone to security breaches.

It’s not that WordPress is vulnerable or insecure – it’s just popular, making it a bigger target. Given the amount of attention that WordPress gets from would-be damage-doers, it’s actually very safe.

There’s another layer here that you need to know about, though. Your hosting company is another element in your overall security package. Depending on the quality of your hosting company, they can actually help to boost your WordPress site’s security quite a bit, keeping it extra safe from pesky hackers.

Websites can go down because of too much traffic, too. This has nothing to do with the strength or stability of your WordPress site, which is its own entity apart from your hosting. The responsibility for your site’s stability falls on your own development decisions and your hosting company’s ability to manage strong servers, not on WordPress. That’s why it’s important to be careful and choose a reliable and knowledgeable web design and web hosting company when it’s time to build or launch your site.

WordPress Is Just A Template Layout!

The height of being ridiculous can be defined as saying anything with no logic and understanding. This being the most common myth you can hear from anyone. Through the use of themes, plugins, original content, and graphic design (we offer all of those!), WordPress sites are highly customizable and unique. Some people often confuse the uniformity of WordPress CMS layout with a simple “template.”

While certain functions in the back-end of WordPress sites are the same, the front-end experiential possibilities are limitless.

WordPress Is Complicated To Learn

I want to clear this point. This myth is a clear manipulation of mere words. WordPress is far too easy to learn that other CMS like Drupal and Joomla. They are typically more challenging than WordPress itself (You can try and see for yourself if you are willing to take the risk).

You can get started working on WordPress within days of learning how to use it! That’s because you really don’t need any HTML or programming knowledge to get started (it helps, but it’s not a requirement). It is, however, important to pick up knowledge about PHP and HTML in order to customize themes, templates, plugins, and other parts of your WordPress sites.

WordPress is intuitive on its own, but the fact that there’s such a massive base of users means there are plenty of resources, guides, and courses available online. If you really want to become proficient at WordPress, you can do it!

WordPress Is Free

We all love free stuff. But you must understand that free stuff is not always bad. WordPress being a free product is indeed great news. But what does free exactly mean where WordPress is concerned?

For starters, WordPress is free in terms of liberty (read usage rights). What that means is you can take WordPress, tear it down, modify it, make copies and/or create your own unique version without seeking permission from any authority.

It’s open-source; software built by a community of contributors, meaning it belongs to no particular company or person. Secondly, you don’t pay to use WordPress, the CMS – you just need to download the script from WordPress.org, install it wherever and you’re good to go.

A service such as WordPress.com will let you use WordPress on their platform for free. They give you a free subdomain e.g. yourname.wordpress.com and free hosting. Other similar services, known as managed WordPress hosts essentially let you use WordPress on their platforms for a fee (as opposed to standard web hosting, where you have a choice among various easy-install options).

Over To You

WordPress is at the top because it deserves to be at the top. With features offered by WordPress CMS, it is highly preferred by WordPress web development company.

We at WordSuccor, we are a WordPress Development Company – proud to work on WordPress and deliver high-quality websites to our clients across the globe. Contact us now and get a free quote for your business or personal WordPress website.

“Security is not about perfectly secure systems. Such a thing might well be impractical, or impossible to find and/or maintain. What security is though is risk reduction, not risk elimination. It’s about employing all the appropriate controls available to you, within reason, that allow you to improve your overall posture reducing the odds of making yourself a target, subsequently getting hacked.” — codex.wordpress.org

I am starting this post with these lines because I think this is the most accurate description of the security of a system. Getting a WordPress website that increases the reachability of your business is the key. However, security of a website is always paramount.

Although in spite of having a complex description, it has become insanely easy to implement. With such ease, any user can secure WordPress website. So, let’s reduce the risk and follow the checklist which will not take more than 15 minutes.

So, let’s get started,

#1: Make Sure of Backing up your WordPress Website

Making backup is basically a contingency plan which will work if anything goes wrong. This plan will enable you to restore the good version of the website if needed. Backing up the website is crucial as there are cases when the website gets damaged or even compromised. With a backup of the website handy, you can overcome these situations with ease.

Generally, all the hosting providers facilitate the backup feature. Yet if you don’t have it, I recommend you should go for UpdraftPlus. However, there are many plugins available for backup and you can choose any of them. The main point here is to keep the backup of your website.

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#2: Delete the Old WordPress Directories

In order to check how many directories you have on your WordPress website, you need to login to your website either by FTP or File Manager. If you’re uncertain about the directories, you can ask it from your hosting provider.

All the old directories should be deleted. When those are not being maintained by their developers, the hackers try to find vulnerabilities and through these directories, they try to find passage on your website. So, delete all the outdated directories and software to ensure no further risk due to these causes.

#3: Delete All the Non-Essential Plugin, Theme or Extension

Now, go to the plugin option and look for the plugins which are useless to you. That is not it, you also have to check for the plugins which are not being maintained by their developers. I strongly recommend not to install any plugin with over 2 years of non-maintenance. The question is, how would you identify? I say just check it in WordPress.com and see for updates, if it shows plugin is not updated for over 2 years, I say delete it instantly.

If these plugins, themes or extensions are not be maintained by their developers, then for sure, the hacker can easily find its way to make the application vulnerable which can be used to intrude into your website.

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#4: Complete Update of your WordPress Website→ Top to Bottom

Now, you have to update everything of your WordPress website. And there is no margin of error in this particular step. In order to properly update the plugins and themes follow these simple steps.

• Update all the plugins.
• Don’t forget to update your WordPress theme.
• Update all the core installations.

If you have any other application like Joomla, Drupal or other applications, update them as well including their extensions.

What if you have a custom WordPress Theme?

If the theme you’re using on your website is a custom WordPress theme, and if you’re not able to update it, you must hire a developer to do that for you. You just simply cannot leave it. Some say it an unfortunate reality, some say it a self-created problem or some says it a necessary step. So, just don’t install and forget.

You can actually configure for Automatic Updates to ensure the regular updates.

→ To Auto-update WordPress core files, copy paste these codes in the wp-config.php file:

define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', true );

→ For the plugins, use:

add_filter( 'auto_update_plugin', '__return_true' );

→ For Themes, use:

add_filter( 'auto_update_theme', '__return_true' );

#5: Secure your CPanel and WordPress Admin Accounts

To secure WordPress website admin accounts, you just have to Sign in to your WordPress website, then Go to Users > All Users > Select “Administrator” at the top of the screen of all the user. Make sure that you know all the accounts. If you find any account which seems foreign to you, this means your website is hacked. In this case, you might want to contact a security expert.

Delete all the unnecessary admin accounts.

Your admin password must be strong and random. Do not use any specifics in your password.

Also Read: Beginner’s Guide to A/B Testing with WordPress!

#6: Install a WordPress Security Plugin

When it comes to installing a WordPress security plugin, there is nothing brainy. For this step I am gonna give you a simple list of three WordPress security Plugin, Those three are,

• Wordfence Security
• iThemes Security
• Sucuri Security

#7: Start Using Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

By adding two-factor Authentication you will add an extra layer of security to your admin credentials. 2FA basically requires another factor of information that only you can provide such as code send to your phone number or mail ID.

This method has the potential to sabotage the brute force attack of a hacker because a hacker cannot access your account since, after the login credentials, an OTP is generated for your mobile phone or email address. So, through this 2FA method, you can secure WordPress website more efficiently.

You can use these WordPress plugins to facilitate this security option.

• Google Authenticator
• Authy
• Rublon 2FA

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#8: Change the “Admin” Username

Always remember one thing, everyone knows your Username is “Admin”. So, change it. Simply go to user section in the WordPress Admin Panel. Then rename or delete the “admin” account or username.

There are also plugins available for that, however, to keep the site speedy, I suggest you follow the above step. With this, your username cannot be guessed by the hackers.

#9: Always Go for Limited Login Attempts

This is quite a disappointment, WordPress doesn’t have Login limits. This means anyone can try limitless to guess WordPress passwords. This also enables the hackers to use brute force which is simply a program which will continue login attempts with all the combination of numbers and alphabet possible.

Limiting the Login attempt will simply break this kind of operation and your WordPress website will be secured. This is recommended after the changing of username credentials.

For this, you can use any plugin. Some of them are –

• Login Lockdown
• Limit Login Attempts

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#10: Enable SSL for Data Security

The next crucial step for the website security is enabling SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). SSL enables you to encrypt all the information from and to your website. This secures the private data of all your viewers.

Identifying SSL is piece of cake. All you have to do is just in the prefix look for HTTPS, if it starts with HTTPS then it is an SSL secured web page and if it starts with HTTP, then it is not an SSL secured web page.

#11: Hide the version of your WordPress

Now, if you delay in the update of WordPress update, I recommend you to hide your WordPress version as it might work as breadcrumbs for telling hacker any useful information.

There are three areas where your WordPress version is hidden.

1. The Generator meta tag (Header)

meta name="generator" content="WordPress 4.0"

2. Query strings on script (& Styles)

subscriptions.css?ver=4.0

3. RSS Feed’s generator tag

https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0

In order to get rid of the version number, in all the three areas, in functions.php file, enter these codes,

/* Hide WP version strings from scripts and styles
* @return {string} $src
* @filter script_loader_src
* @filter style_loader_src
*/
function fjarrett_remove_wp_version_strings( $src ) {
global $wp_version;
parse_str(parse_url($src, PHP_URL_QUERY), $query);
if ( !empty($query['ver']) && $query['ver'] === $wp_version ) {
$src = remove_query_arg('ver', $src);
}
return $src;
}
add_filter( 'script_loader_src', 'fjarrett_remove_wp_version_strings' );
add_filter( 'style_loader_src', 'fjarrett_remove_wp_version_strings' );

/* Hide WP version strings from generator meta tag */
function wpmudev_remove_version() {
return '';
}
add_filter('the_generator', 'wpmudev_remove_version');

Also, make sure that you remove the readme.html file from the install folder as this also expose your version number.
So, these are the 11 ways by which you can secure WordPress website in just 15 minutes. Let’s have a quick recap and make sure that you understand everything.

Also Read: 7 Effective Ways to Make Your WordPress Website Load Faster!

Step1 – Make sure of Backing up your WordPress Website.

Step2 – Delete the Old WordPress Directories.

Step3 – Delete all the non-essential plugin, theme or extension.

Step4 – Complete Update of your WordPress website→ Top to Bottom.

Step5 – Secure your CPanel and WordPress admin accounts.

Step6 – Install a WordPress security Plugin.

Step7 – Start Using Two-Factor Authentication (2FA).

Step8 – Change the “Admin” Username.

Step9 – Always go for limited login attempts.

Step10 – Enable SSL for Data Security.

Step11 – Hide the version of your WordPress.

So, these are the steps to secure WordPress website. If you stuck somewhere let me know through the comments I will help you up to my full potential. Till then have a good one.