We live in a dangerous online world where hackers, malwares, brute force, vulnerabilities, phishing and other similar words make us scary.

It would not be a surprise for us if your website has been hacked. This is because more than 70% of WordPress were extremely vulnerable in terms of security during 2012.

Considering the importance of the issue, we have created a detailed guide. This guide will provide all the best WordPress security tips to enable you to secure your WordPress website in a hassle-free manner.

Why WordPress Security is Crucial for Your Website

This is an important question to answer because a hacked WordPress website can do lot of damage. Furthermore, snoopers or hackers can get access to your sensitive information and can circulate malwares to your users to the next level. The worst scenario is also possible that you should not ignore at any cost. This could result in the form of ransom-ware payment.

If you are generating income or revenue from your WordPress website then you need to remain proactive as much as you can. This is because WordPress security can save you from an unwanted hassle in a big way.

Update Your WordPress on a Regular basis

Being a WordPress developer, you should keep this fact in your mind that WordPress is an open source software. Hence, you should take every possible measure to keep it updated and highly protected. Fortunately, you have thousands of security plugins at your disposal that you can use to achieve your WordPress website protection objective.

By installing these plugins or themes in your website, you can secure your website to certain degree. At times, it becomes your utmost priority to update your WordPress plugins or themes at a regular interval. By doing so, you can avoid an upcoming threat that can cause serious consequences to your website in a proactive manner.

The Role of WordPress Hosting

You should not underestimate the value of WordPress hosting when it comes to protecting your website according to your own requirements. Thus, you need to take benefit from different shared hosting providers like Siteground or Bluehost. Both these shared hosting services apply additional parameters to secure their servers as much as possible.

Still, not all the things are rosy with shared hosting providers as uses share the servers’ resources with others too. Therefore, you cannot consider the option of shared hosting as your safest bet to protect your WordPress website.

You must take a chance with a managed WordPress hosting service. This kind of hosting service offers an extremely secure platform particularly for your website. All these providers have a huge range of benefits that you should avail as much as you can. You can assume these advantages in the form of backups, automatic updates, and advanced security configurations.

Now, we will let you know about 20 simple tricks you can apply to secure your WordPress website in 2017 straightaway.

Tricks to Secure Your WordPress Website

1. Use Email as Login

Mostly you have to use your email as your login. By using an email address instead of username, you can easily protect your WordPress website to the next level. This is because of the fact that usernames are an easy target for hackers since these can be easily predictable.

On the other hand, email addresses are hard to identify. Having said that, WordPress users account usually apply the notion of uncommon email addresses that allow you to login as a valid account user. Furthermore, you should use WP Email Login to get features that are more decisive.

The best thing about this login is that you do not need to configure it at all. Similarly, you can start using it right after the activation.

2. Rename YourLogin URL

When it comes to renaming your login URL, you do not need any kind of rocket science. You can access the WordPress login page through the wp-login.php or wp-admin. This is one of the easiest ways to protect your WordPress website in an appropriate way.

3. Adjust Your Passwords

You should know how to play with passwords since this tactic gives you an edge over the hackers or snoopers. By applying different combinations like uppercase, numbers, lowercase and other special characters make difficult for snoopers to crack the password. In addition, you should keep changing your passwords at regular intervals.

4. Monitor your Files

The task of monitoring your files is hassle –free and simple to understand. You just need to monitor the changes that have been made to your website’s files. You can evaluate the files by the help of plugins such as Wordfence or iTheme Security.

5. Regularly Backup your Site

It does not matter how much secure your website is. If you do not backup your website then you may have to pay the price for your negligence. By doing so, you can always reinstate your WordPress website in a working condition anytime from anywhere.

6. Set Strong Passwords for your Database

Once again, the role of strong password for your database becomes handy. You have to make sure you are using all the elements to keep your database secure as much as possible.

7. Remove your WordPress Version Number

The unwanted users or netizens may easily track your WordPress version number. Therefore, it is better for you to remove your WordPress version number at your earliest. You can easily hide the WordPress version number through security plugins of your choice.

8. Connect the Server Correctly

It is your prime responsibility to connect the server in a true manner. When you are setting up your site, you must connect the server with SSH or SFTP. The server connection method protects your file transfer process in a secure way. Moreover, you should not ignore the significance SFTP brings due to its crucial security features.

9. Disallow File Editing

After disallowing file editing, hackers will not be able to modify your files even if they have access to your WordPress dashboard. Furthermore, you should include the below mentioned command to the wp-config.php file in the end:

define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);

10. Change the Admin Username

You must apply the proactive approach at the time of performing WordPress installation. Thus, you should not select “Admin” as the username of your main administrator account. This is because you have to deceive the hackers in the best possible manner, as Admin is an easily guessable username for hackers and other misleading users.

11. Include User Accounts with Utmost Care

At times, it happens that there are different users who try to access the admin panel. In this way, your website becomes vulnerable to threats. If you are running a WordPress blog or site, you should add user accounts with much care. You should take benefit from Force Strong Passwords, a plugin that allows your users to use secure passwords.

12. Change the Default Secret keys

When you install WordPress, there are four security keys mentioned to your wp-config.php file. These keys enhance the security of your information present in the users’ cookies. In addition, these keys also make harder to crack the passwords for hackers.

13. Keep your Themes and Plugins Up to Date

When you update your WordPress, you must update your themes and plugins too. This activity makes your site highly secure and unreachable for unwanted users. By updating you themes and plugins, you actually minimize the chances of threats and other vulnerabilities to certain extent.

14. Delete Plugins and Themes you don’t use

If you are unable to use all of the plugins and themes, it is better to remove them. This is because you have to decrease the risk as much as you can. If you deactivate themes and plugins, it will not make a much difference. Thus, you must delete the unused plugins and themes straightaway.

15. Limit Login Attempts

The hackers are always trying hard to get access to your website. Hence, you should remain alert to combat the threats that you may face from hackers. Therefore, you should give less number of chances to hackers by limiting the login attempts. Furthermore, you are able to secure your website from brute force attacks by following the less login attempts technique.

16. Use Forced SSL for logins

Being a WordPress developer or owner of your site, you should know the value of forced SSL. You always make sure that your users are getting access through secure login pages. If you are not protecting your website, it is fine. However, you must use forced SSL approach to observe the huge difference in terms of security. To achieve this objective, you need to use an up-to-date SSL certificate.

17. Remove Error Messages from your Login Page

You should consider the fact that every time when you make a failed login attempt, hackers get the hint. This is because error messages on the login page may provide valuable insight about the website to the hackers. You can easily delete the error messages by the help of command line that is given below:

add_filter('login_errors',create_function('$a', "return null;"));

You must make sure that you add the above command in your functions.php file.

18. Hide Author Usernames

You always require a username and password to login into WordPress. Having said that, WordPress makes it easy to guess the authors’ usernames by default. After making your authors’ usernames anonymous, you are making the lives of hackers much difficult.

You should write the following command in your functions.php file.

add_action(‘template_redirect’, ‘bks29so_template_redirect’);
functionbks29so_template_redirect()
{
if (is_author())
{
ks29so_redirect(home_url() ); exit;
}
}

19. Install Efficient Security Plugins

The more you install good security plugins, the more you are transforming your site in the security zone. Therefore, you must prefer installing security plugins those offer a huge range of different protection benefits under one package. You may consider using Wordfence or iThemes Security since these plugins provider required level of protection.

20. Always select Plugins and Themes those are regularly updated

You should always prefer to use plugins and themes those are updated on a regular basis. The outdated plugins and themes create security threats for your website. Thus, you should keep this aspect in your mind whenever you are choosing plugins and themes for your website.

Wrapping It Up

We expect you would have liked our detailed guide on 20 simple tricks to secure your WordPress website in 2017. After following these above-mentioned tricks, you will be able to protect your WordPress website to the utmost extent. However, you have to keep this fact in your mind that your site security depends a lot on your agility.

Therefore, you should apply these simple ways to improve the protection level of your site on a regular basis. The website protection is not a onetime task; in fact, you have to perform this activity for a longer period of time and in the required manner.

If you are a beginner then these diverse solutions will safeguard your WordPress website effectively from the eyes of online snoopers or hackers. Though, you have to use these tricks in the correct direction.This is because you can provide a gateway to hackers if you do not follow these security measures appropriately.

Feel free to provide your feedback in the comments section below.