Website & Marketing Blog

8 Tips to Improve your WordPress website’s security

Around the world hackers seem to be stepping up their attempts to breach the security of websites and WordPress websites seem particularly at risk. All of our websites have additional security measures to protect them and we are notified of any security attempts. Just today we’ve had a notification that a hacker in Russia has tried to login to one of our client’s websites. They’ve had no success thanks to our security measures but its a stark warning of the threats out there.

Now if you are new to WordPress we don’t want you to worry. A few simple measures will often do the trick and the hackers will move on to find easier sites to hack.

So how can you protect your WordPress website? Well here are some top tips to help you.

1. Use an obscure username to login. This is our top tip. Please make sure that your username is NOT ‘admin’. The Russian hacker that we mentioned earlier tried to login with this username. If you use ‘admin’ as your username all the hacker has to do it guess your password. You’ve just effectively given them half of the login details already. Equally if you use a blog and show your nickname as the author make sure that your login name is different to the nickname shown. Otherwise once again you’ve just told the world what your username is and made life a lot easier for hackers.

2. Keep up to date backups. Back up your database regularly. (It’s under Tools, Export). It’s also worth backing up the entire website.

3. Pay for good quality web hosting. Cheap hosting often means poor security and even your best attempts at WordPress security are a waste of time if your web host isn’t keeping up to date with their security.

4. Keep your version WordPress up to date. Look for Update notifications and update when requested. Each updated version has additional security patches. It is often the older versions of WordPress which are targeted by the hackers.

5. Don’t ignore plugin updates either. If you are not accessing your Back Office regularly then use an update plugin which will update the plugins regularly and save you the hassle.

6. Make sure your password is secure. So many of clients ask if the password can be their ‘usual one’. This is often their child’s or pet’s name! It is bad practice to use the same password everywhere. We suggest searching in Google for ‘secure password generator’ to help you to create a very secure password for WordPress.

7. Check that your username isn’t listed in the Author Sitemap. To do this go to Users and click on Edit to check each account. Scroll to the bottom and make sure to tick ‘Exclude from Author Sitemap’.

8. There are many, many security plugins available which help to add extra layers of security. Its definitely worth installing ones of these plugins just be aware that you can experience some incompatibility with other plugins. So its good practice to test your website and all its functions after installing a security plugin.

If you are new to this then please don’t get too stressed out. These measures will help a lot 🙂 We see a LOT of clients and very few encounter security issues. Those that do usually had easy to guess passwords or had made the mistake of not updating their software or plugins.

Growth of Mobile Commerce Shoppers

We liked this infographic from Part Select so we thought we’d share it with you.

Its based on research by Google Shopper Marketing Agency Council and M/A/R/C Research which explains the continuing growth of customers using their smartphones to shop online.

This trend is called m commerce or mobile commerce.

Did you know 79% of consumers use their smartphone for shopping?

And 90% of these shoppers are using their phones to do ‘pre sales’ research such as checking reviews and prices before making their purchase.

If your customers looked online to find out about your product, service or company before making a purchase what would they find? ( If you need help ask us about our online reputation management.)

What is particularly interesting about the latest research is that shoppers who shop via their mobile SPEND MORE.

If you click on the infographic it will open into a large version so that you can see the different statistics per industry for consumer products.

The importance of ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly is obvious.
Have you ever checked your own website and tried to use it on a smartphone or tablet?

Too many websites look terrible on smartphones, take ages to download and are difficult to navigate around.

If you feel your website isn’t performing well on mobile devices then give us a call or drop us an email.

We provide mobile website development at very competitive rates.

Call us today to find out more on 07964 594065

Protect Yourself from Gameover Zeus and CryptoLocker

Ever since the latesty cyberthreats Gameover Zeus hit the headlines recently we have had many clients asking us about it. While we are not cybersecurity experts we can point people in the right direction. There are other threats about too such as the ransomware CryptoLocker and it is important to take some action NOW to protect yourself.
Here are a few basic tips to help you:-

Make sure all your work is backed up. You do this regularly anyway right?
Check that all your security software is up to date e.g. anti-virus, malware protection etc.. Some viruses can turn off antivirus so make sure everything is running and is up to date.
If you are running Windows or Apple install all the latest updates.
Visit Get Safe Online website for other advice and free tools to search and remove viruses and ransomware.

And if all this fails and you are a victim of online crime then click Action Fraud to ask for help.

Our new website is finally live!

Finally we have managed to find the time to rebuild our own website! We’ve kept it similar to the old one as we had great feedback about the old design. But we still wanted to keep improving and hence this new site is now live. You will see that the butterflies have survived the redesign! So many people mentioned that they like that image that we thought we would keep it a little longer. Its certainly eye catching and memorable. Our new site has better social media links and we’ve brought our blog into the fold too.

What do you think of the new site? We appreciate all constructive feedback so let us know at hello@casemarketing.co.uk