Essential steps for WordPress website security

Introduction

If you run a WordPress website, it’s important to keep it secure. You don’t want to wake up one day and find out that somebody has defaced your site or worse—stolen data from your users. In this post, I’ll walk you through how to protect yourself and your site from hackers by using the right tools and techniques.

Keep your WordPress core and plugins up to date.

The core of WordPress is the software that runs your site, and plugins are extra features you can add to it. You should make sure both are always up to date.

• Keep your WordPress core (the basic software) and any installed plugins up to date. This ensures that you have access to all the latest security fixes and bug fixes from WordPress and from each plugin developer, respectively.
• Don’t use outdated versions of core or plugins; they may be vulnerable or insecure even if they’re not yet publicly known as such. Also, avoid using unsupported versions: these get less attention from developers when new issues arise in them, so they’re more likely than supported ones (and therefore less secure) in general. If you must use an old version because there’s no alternative available for whatever reason (e.g., if there was no way around upgrading), then monitor closely for any security updates coming out through its support forums/mailing lists/etc.; otherwise consider finding another solution instead!

Use strong passwords for all accounts on your website.

Using strong passwords is the most important thing you can do to protect your website. If someone gets access to one of your accounts, they could be able to access other accounts that use the same password.

• Use a password manager: A password manager helps you keep track of all your passwords in one place and generates new ones when needed. They’re free, easy-to-use, and offer features like two-factor authentication (which requires an additional code sent via text message or email) and automatic logins when visiting sites with which you’ve previously signed up.
• Use a strong password generator: A tool like LastPass can generate random strings of letters, numbers, and special characters that are unique yet easy for humans to remember–e.g., [email protected] !3#3!2!2$%!1!!1

Enable two-factor authentication for all accounts on your website that support it.

Two-factor authentication is a security measure that requires two pieces of information to log in.

This means that when you try to sign in, you’ll need both your username and password, as well as the code generated by a mobile app. The code is usually sent via text message or email, but it can also be generated on the phone itself (or sometimes even within the browser).

Update your plugins regularly, as well as themes and addons.

You should also make sure to update your plugins regularly, as well as themes and addons. This is because hackers often look for vulnerabilities in these areas first, so updating them will help you stay safer. The WordPress dashboard allows you to do this with ease: just go into “Updates” under the “Plugins” menu and click on “Update Now.”

Don’t install unneeded plugins or extensions.

• Don’t install unneeded plugins or extensions.
• Only install plugins and extensions that you need and understand, and make sure they don’t consume too many resources on your server.

Keep your web server software updated and patched.

WordPress is a powerful and popular content management system, but it’s not immune to security vulnerabilities. For example, if you use WordPress as your website platform and haven’t updated your web server software in a while, you could be at risk of having your site hacked.

Updating and patching your WordPress installation is relatively straightforward: just log into cPanel (or whatever hosting control panel you use), click on “WordPress”, then select “Update” from the dropdown menu next to “Latest Version”. If there are any updates available for other plugins on your site that might be vulnerable or buggy (such as those related to security), they’ll also be listed here–you may want to install those as well before moving onto step 2!

If you’re not sure which version of PHP is installed on your server or if it needs updating, head over here–they’ll walk through everything step by step!

Use a firewall to keep intruders out of your site’s network traffic.

A firewall is a good way to keep intruders out of your site’s network traffic. A firewall can be hardware or software-based, and it may be a single device or a series of devices.

A firewall will monitor all incoming and outgoing requests on the server and block any that look suspicious or malicious.

If you follow these tips, you’ll be more secure than most websites out there

If you follow these tips, you’ll be more secure than most websites out there. As with most things in life, it’s important to remember that no matter how much effort you put into protecting yourself and your website, there are always ways for hackers to get in if they really want to.

There are also some things that aren’t within our control as web developers or site owners–and even though we can’t control those factors completely (yet), we still need to do what we can in order to reduce our risk of getting hacked.

Conclusion

We hope that this article has given you some good tips on how to keep your WordPress website secure. If you follow these guidelines, your website will be more secure than most others out there and less likely to be targeted by attackers.