Simple WordPress Security Tricks For Beginners

So you got yourself a WordPress site. Good for you. The next step is to fortify the site then so that it becomes a formidable wall against threats. There’s nothing more frustrating than having a great website only to have problems afterward because you haven’t made the necessary steps to make it secure.

Fret not, though. You’re in the right article. We’ve collated the best and the simplest WordPress security tricks that anybody can do for their site. You don’t need to be an expert to install and execute these tricks, either. In fact, some of them you have to add to your site, and you’re good to go.

Stay away from mulled themes

One of the most basic maneuvers that you can do to make to ensure that your WordPress website is as robust as it can be is to stay away from mulled themes. Forget about aesthetics for a bit – security is as important as style. Maybe even more important in many circles. Some themes in WordPress can be pretty, but they have been sitting there for quite some time and not updated at all.

So what you can do is this: Choose a recent theme that’s updated regularly. Or if you’re able to design your website on your own. It’s very common for most beginner WordPress users to choose a free theme, but this is where most people are wrong. A firewall freeware is not necessarily added to these free themes while their paid counterparts can pass multiple WordPress checks right out of the box.

Set up a website lockdown feature

A website lockdown feature is very important because when brute force attacks are used against your site, the years of your hard work may turn into nothing. A lockdown feature is basically an opt-out when there are too many login attempts done on your website. When hackers want to log in, and they’re guessing your password, ensuring that a number of failed attempts locks down the website is very beneficial.

There are plugins that you can use for this. Search, and you’ll know. But for recommendation purposes, one of the best out there is iThemes Security. Once you set a lock-down feature, double down on your plugins as well. Check your plugins every now and then to make sure they’re updated. When they’re not, be more vigilant.

Use two-factor authentication

Just like how it works on smartphones and laptops, a two-factor authentication for your WordPress site blocks brute force attempts. What’s great about two-factor authentication is that even if hackers can bypass your logins, there is still a wall that they need to pass to access the majority of your site.

Google Authenticator is one of the few that delivers this promise. You can readily install it on your website, so what you’ll need is just to set up what’s what. You, as the website owner, will decide what two components are needed in order for users to login. Pro tip: since everyone has smartphones these days, you can just set the authenticator to send a code to your phone for every attempt.

Adjust password

This is pretty standard, but most people can be so stubborn with their passwords. And pretty confident too. In this world of connectivity and instant communication, you can never be too confident about anything. Even if your password/s are strong, subscribing to the practice of updating them every now and then will do you and your website so much good.

One of the most basic ways to adjust your password is to play around with combinations, upper case letters, and numbers. We all know that keeping so many passwords can be a burden, but there are apps nowadays that automatically does this for you. So take advantage of those. Never be too confident that your password is a fort because brute force attempts at hacking your site will stop at nothing if they really want to hack you, so you should do the same.

Takeaway

It doesn’t take much to take care of your WordPress site’s security. Follow the tips and tricks above to grant yourself the peace of mind that no matter what threat will befall your site, it can withstand it. WordPress in itself is a secure content management platform, so you have that going for you as well