WordPress is one of the best and popular Content Management System (CMS) to build custom websites. At the time of this article, WordPress is powering over 34% website on the internet. And with the increasing popularity of WordPress sites, many hackers keep targeting this platform for malicious gains.

No matter what content a business website provides, the website owners must keep a check a check on their website security.

In this tutorial, we have compiled a list of 10 essentials to make sure your WordPress site is secure and fast.

1. Select the Best Hosting Company

One of the best ways to keep your website secure is by choosing a hosting provider who offers you multi-layer security. While you might get tempted to choose a cheap hosting company to save some money, it could turn into your worst nightmare by putting your website at the risk of completely being erased from the servers.

Therefore, you need to put more attention to pick the best hosting company that offers additional security to your website. By choosing the best WordPress hosting, you will be able to speed up the your website. Besides, most WordPress hostings offers you many interesting features like daily malware scans and 24/7, 365 days access at a reasonable price.

2. Avoid Using Nulled Themes

WordPress premium themes not only appear more professional, but also offer you various customizable options. All premium website themes have been coded by professional developers and also tested through multiple WordPress checks to offer secure and fast functioning sites.

However, there are certain nulled wordpress themes, which are just the hacked versions of premium themes and available through illegal means. These themes are also dangerous for your website. Therefore, it is best to avoid nulled or cracked themes.

3. WordPress Security Plugin

It is quite a time-consuming task to daily check website security and malware. The easier way is to install the WordPress Security Plugin to manage your website security while automatically scanning malware and monitoring your website 24/7. you must be aware of which security plugins to install for your website.

4. Set a Strong Password

Setting a strong password is crucial for your website security, but it is often overlooked. If you have been using just a simple password, like ‘12345678, 123abc, etc.,’ you must change it right now. It may be easy to remember, but very easy to be guessed by hackers as well.

A hacker can very easily crack this easy password without much effort. So, it’s best to set a complex password or the one that’s auto-generated with a combination of special characters, letters, and numbers. For instance, ‘White@653’ qualifies as a strong password for your WordPress website.

5. Disable File Editing

At the time of WordPress site setup, you come across a code editor function in the dashboard that enables you to edit your plugins and theme. You can access it by clicking on Appearance>Editor or Plugins>Editor.

However, it is recommended to disable this file editing feature. In case a hacker gains access to your admin panel on WordPress, they may inject malicious code to your plugins or theme using this edit feature. So, it’s best to disable this edit plugin to keep your site secure.

6. Install SSL Certificate

Installing an SSL certificate is important to make your website secure for certain transactions, like payments. Even Google has given more importance to websites with an SSL certificate on search engine results.

SSL certificate is mandatory for websites with sensitive information, such as credit card details, passwords, etc. If a website is without SSL certificate, the entire data between the web server and the user’s web browser is delivered in the form of a plain text that is easily readable by hackers. But SSL encrypts the sensitive information while transferring the data between your web browser and server, making your website more secure.

7. Change the WP-login URL

If you keep the WordPress address default, as “yourwebsite.com/wp-admin,” you may become an easy target for hacker attack for cracking your password and username combination. To prevent this, you must change the admin login URL or put a security question on the login page or during registration. For instance, you an ask for security code sent to your phone number or email at the time of login. This will prevent hackers from access to your website.

8. Limit Number of Login Attempts

Usually, WordPress has as many login attempts a user wants. But if you limit the number of login attempts to two or three, attempts, you will prevent or block hackers’ chances to brute force attempts to get into your website. This way they will be locked out without attacking your security.

You can enable this feature with WordPress login limit plugin via going to Settings> Login Limit Attempts.

9. Install Autoptimize

Speed is very important for a website in the digital age. A visitor may lose interest in your website, even if it’s delayed for a few seconds. Therefore, you must optimize your website for speed using the Autoptimize plugin.

This WordPress plugin is designed for reducing the loading time of a website while saving visitors time. The plugin majorly focuses on certain elements, like scripts and styles, as well as minifying and compressing scripts and styles to remove unwanted WordPress default settings. This will offer greater improvement to the website speed than ever before.

10. Update WordPress to New Version

You must keep updating WordPress to the new updated version from time-to-time. This is because new updates are available with improved changes and security updates. We at Samurais.co take this very seriously and therefor have setup our system to auto update wordpress versions. By staying updated with the new version, you will prevent yourself from pre-identified loopholes, as well as unwanted hacker attacks.