Stay Safe Online: Boost Your Business Website Security
Cyber threats are a serious issue, and you should do everything in your power to improve your business website security and protect your brand and clients online.
As a website owner who needs to manage their business, you may be thinking about various ways to upgrade your page and make it more engaging and user-friendly. However, one major concern that can easily affect your business is the actual security of your website. Hacker danger is not something that anyone can predict and it’s much better to be safe than sorry. Here are some tips on how to improve your business website security.
Choose the platform and web hosting that suits your business
There are many reputable platforms to run your website on, the most popular being WordPress. In general, the best thing that you can do in order to up your business website security is to choose the best platform among the most popular and reputable ones that will match your desires and needs the best. In addition to the right platform, make sure that you go with a professional and a trustworthy web host. For instance, TechBear can effectively maintain your business site for you.
Regular security checkups and preventive measures
There’s no better way to improve your business website security than to monitor your site on a regular basis. Thorough, day-to-day checkups will help you keep your security up-to-date. Moreover, you’ll be able to spot any suspicious activity with this level of regular monitoring. Also, make sure that your website is well protected with a firewall. One of the main protective measures also involves proper signup forms. What’s more, encourage your leads to create strong passwords that are not easy to crack. Of course, test out the security of your website by trying to pinpoint its weakest points from time to time. Still, you should always have a crash plan, just in case.
Never store sensitive client information
Is there any need for your servers to store sensitive customer data? Definitely not. In order not to risk the security breach and theft of credit card numbers and other sensitive info, you should never store these on your servers. After all, not only does this put your customers in danger but it clearly doesn’t comply with PCI (Payment Card Industry) standards either.
SSL and PCI for your business website security
As mentioned, PCI has a set of standards that your site needs to comply with. Simply put, these standards protect the customers and if you don’t stick to them, you can get reported and fined. What’s more, your business website needs an SSL certificate so that your site data is safe. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) will show the site visitors a green website name in your URL, which labels it secure. That way, your prospective customers will know that your website is safe. In case you don’t have an SSL certificate, the chances are that your site traffic will drop and your bounce rate will rise.
The meaning of website SSL
Essentially, having website SSL means that the data and info on your website will be secured and that the hackers won’t be able to steal it. Even if you don’t run an e-commerce website, you, as well as many other business owners who use websites for their marketing strategy, are asking people for some type of personal info and offer contact forms. It takes a lot of time and hard work to convince people to take action on your site. Can you imagine how much harder this process would become if they see that your site is not well-protected? Also, the damage caused by hacker problems and stolen info is really difficult to repair.
Can SSL improve your website SEO?
Of course! This is one of many aspects that can strengthen your website SEO. Google will definitely take into account your website SSL which can boost your search ranking. However, you can expect a significant difference in your visibility only if your site SEO is already pretty strong. One good feature such as SSL, unfortunately, cannot negate the consequences of weak content, poor keywords, messy navigation, slow load time, lack of responsive design and so on.
What if you don’t sell anything on your site?
There was a time when SSL was reserved for e-commerce websites only. However, times they are a-changing and, in that respect, SSL has become a necessity. You’re not obligated to have a website SSL if you don’t sell any products on it but you’ll look better in Google’s eyes if you actually have it. As we mentioned before, most websites these days have contact forms and collect some sort of personal information so it’s only a matter of time before SSL becomes a standard norm for every professional business website out there.
How to improve business website security?
Make sure your software is up-to-date
Having outdated software and plugins running your page is practically a security breach waiting to happen. You may not even be aware of this, but there are countless bots that actually scan the Web in search for outdated software in order to attack. Make sure to get a notification every time a new update for certain software or plugin is available — you should install it immediately because, in this case, updating on a monthly or weekly basis may not be good enough.
Put some effort into passwords
It’s incredible just how many people use overly simple and too common passwords for their web pages. The damage that can be done due to the cracked password can be very difficult to repair. One of the easiest ways to protect your website is to use complex, long and/or unique passwords. Best passwords are pretty random. If you’re worried about having to remember all of them, simply use some of the renowned password management tools.
Never put multiple sites on one server
This is one of the more serious mistakes that can lead to terrible hacking aftermath. Basically, a server that contains only one site already has multiple hacking targets. If the site on one server is hacked, this will affect all plugins and themes. In case you have more sites hosted on the same server, the hacking surface gets bigger as well. Once in, the infection can spread easily to every corner of your host server. Dealing with this problem is extremely tedious, aggravating and difficult. In that respect, try to use different servers for different sites.
Back up regularly to improve business website security
It’s no use crying over spilled milk. At least if you remember to back up, it isn’t. A hacking incident can wipe all your data clean, which is why it’s essential that you make backups of your website regularly. Moreover, never store these backups on your web server. Backups don’t get software or plugin updates, which makes them a perfect hacking target when they’re public like this.
Check if vulnerable
Security scans are your first line of defense against hackers. These scans should be performed regularly, and especially after installing new components and patches. You can use many tools available online for possible vulnerability checkups on your website. However, you can never be positive about the security levels of your website without hiring a professional to run regular scans. This investment is well worth it since you should never rely on online tools completely, and especially not if you’re not very knowledgeable about possible threats.
Use legitimate sources
There are plenty of really useful and interesting extensions, plugins and add-ons available online. However, no matter how great these seem to be, you should be very careful when it comes to their source. The first thing you should pay attention to is the number of installs that certain extension has. Age of extension, as well as the last update time, are also crucial factors in deciding which application to try out. If the last update is relatively recent, the author is known for their quality work and the extension has a great number of installs already, it’s safe to presume that this app won’t be a possible threat. In addition, don’t fall for “free trial” extensions since these can infect your website with malware.
