With a business’s online presence one of the most important factors today, keeping your website
operational, user-friendly and secure is one of the most important aspects of achieving business
success. After all, the website is the most fundamental component of your online presence, and it’s
the main point of contact between your brand and the audience that you are trying to reach. A well-
built, secure site that works well will help you attract and convert customers no matter your
industry. However, a good website is also likely to be the target of hackers, with over 150,000 small
business websites infected with malware in the US in 2019. So, what are the main things that your
business can do to stop hackers from gaining access to your website?
Work with a Good IT Support Company
Many small business owners don’t know all that much about IT, and the truth is that even if you are
quite tech-savvy, it may still not be enough to recover your business in the event of a cyberattack on
your website. But hiring IT professionals might not be in your small business budget either, which is
where working with outsourced IT support comes in handy. An outsourced IT support company
offers small businesses a more budget-friendly way to get access to the right professionals to help
keep their website, customer data, and networks safe.
Use Secure Passwords
While this one might sound obvious, you might be shocked at the number of people who actually
use very basic and easy to guess passwords like ‘password’ or their name for secure logins. Any time
you are asked to create a password for accessing any area of your website, such as logging into
WordPress or your web hosting account, you should create a complex and difficult to guess
password. Ideally, this should be made up of multiple random letters, figures and special characters.
If remembering that sounds impossible, you could use a password management app to make it
easier for you.
Keep Software Up to Date
The good thing about using WordPress to build your site is that updates are automatic, so you don’t
need to worry about whether or not you are using the latest version, as you’ll always be kept on the
latest one. However, there are various other tools and software programs like plugins that you might
be using to keep your website running smoothly which might not always be automatically updated.
It’s important to check for updates regularly and update as soon as there is one available, since
these are often security improvements.
Use a Firewall
There are various types of firewalls that you can use to keep your business website more secure.
Cloud-based firewalls are the most popular option that are very work investing in. The purpose of a
firewall is to analyze all the traffic that flows in and out of your website server and identify and block anything that seems malicious, meaning that it is often an effective way to stop hacking attempts in
their tracks.
No matter what kind of business you run, your website is right at the center of it. Keep these tips in
mind to ensure that your website remains secure.
