WordPress is a leading, free, and open-source content management system for creating and publishing websites. Recent studies suggest that over one-third of all websites on the internet are powered through WordPress. Many famous brands like ACM, Time Magazine, and James Bond to name a few, reside on WordPress as well. This staggering dominance in the cyber world also poses a lot of challenges. Being the main engine that runs your websites, robust security, backup, and optimization options must be in place for this platform.
Let us now discuss how we can back up, secure, and optimize WordPress.
Types of WordPress Optimizations
As with anything in life, websites also require regular maintenance and upkeep to survive. At Atlanta Web Design, two major ways are employed for WordPress website and they are:
- By conducting regular backups
- By enforcing website security
In the next section, we will take a deep dive into these options and how to implement them.
Regular Backups
Backups act as a great disaster recovery option and safeguard your content from hacks, human errors, or hosting problems. Without a backup strategy in place, you risk losing all your data. A backup is a simple snapshot of your website and a strong backup tool should meet the following criteria:
- Backs up the entire WordPress site including the database and files.
- Securely stores your files in the cloud for a specified amount of time.
- Takes consistent backups in the background at regular intervals.
- Allows for easy retrieval when required.
In the next section, let us discuss the best backup option available for WordPress.
The Best Backup Option for WordPress
There is a plethora of host-based and third-party backup options available that meet all the above criteria. However, one service known as WPvivid Backup Plugin tops the charts by offering a free plugin with an extremely easy setup. Websites created on Atlanta WordPress, also use this plugin for their backup.
Let us peek over this plugin’s core features and benefits now:
- Free backup plugin for WordPress.
- Secure website backups to cloud storage platforms including Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Microsoft OneDrive, DigitalOcean Spaces, etc.
- Provides easy site migration to a new domain with just one click.
- Automated scheduled backups. Just set up and forget and the plugin does the rest.
- Website restoration can be done with a simple click of a button.
- Can backup large database sizes of up to 2GB.
- No limitations on the number of backup copies you want to retain on your host.
- No limitations on the backup size.
- Full control on the size of files that can or cannot be backed up.
- Backup splitting is provided so you can split your backups into as many chunks as you want. This greatly helps with size limitations.
- Responsive design works on all types of devices.
Let us now move on to the topic of security for WordPress websites.
Website Security
Security is at the forefront of all services offered by WordPress. However, being the most popular tool for website creation, it can be an easy target by hackers and cybercriminals. A lot of care and foresight are required to keep this platform safe and secure.
Here are a few WordPress best security practices to keep in mind when creating your website:
Update WordPress themes and plugins regularly: Updates address security issues and keep problems at bay. Keeping everything up to date will ensure your site is not open to any security risks.
Use a robust password: Most security compromises happen due to weak passwords. A complex password generated ideally by a password manager such as LastPass should be used. Also, implementing MFA (multi-factor authentication) will add an extra layer of security.
Avoid using the admin username: The default username for most WordPress installations is “admin” but you should avoid it like the plague. If present on your website, you should delete and replace it with anything different – even your real name is ok. The commonality of the admin name encourages hackers to default to it when trying to gain access to your website.
Let us now discuss the best security option available for WordPress.
The Best Security Option for WordPress
Generally, there are three primary types of WordPress security services:
- Firewalls
- Scanners and detection
- General utility
Wordfence is the best security plugin option for WordPress as it has all three qualities built-in. It acts as a WordPress firewall, security scanner, and general utility tool all at the same time. Per the Threat Defense Feed, Wordfence protects over 3 million WordPress websites, providing unmatched access to information about how hackers compromise sites, the origination of attacks, and the types of malicious code they leave behind.
Let us now examine the best features and benefits provided by Wordfence:
- This is a free plugin. A paid version known as Wordfence premium with more advanced features like reputation checks and country blocking can also be purchased.
- It has a built-in firewall that is designed to protect WordPress sites. The malicious traffic is identified and blocked in its tracks before reaching your website.
- It also comes with a virus scanner that scans all your files for malicious code. It scans for different things like malicious code, backdoors left behind by hackers, and known malicious URLs and patterns of infections.
- It provides you with a repair report so you can figure out how to fix any reported issues. An option known as “file repair” is present that can replace the affected file with an original copy of the file.
- Wordfence can block suspicious IP addresses. Any noticed or repeated hack attempts from a specific IP address can be stopped by simply blocking that IP address completely via Wordfence.
- Two-factor authentication can easily be enabled on Wordfence. This will ensure an extra layer of security and authentication for your website.
Wordfence provides email alerts anytime your site experiences a security issue. You can also configure and customize the email alerts per your needs. These email notifications allow you to act quickly in the event of an attack.
Conclusion
WordPress is a very powerful tool and can be used to run websites of any shapes or sizes. Atlanta Internet marketing suggests that conducting regular backup and following the security best practices is imperative for your website’s longevity and integrity. Coupled with the above-mentioned tools and tips and great insight, you can keep your WordPress website up and running, secured, and optimized.