Keeping your website properly secured is a difficult task, but an important one for small business owners! A properly secured and properly hosted website will ensure that your data is protected, your customers’ contact information is secure, and that your Search Engine Optimization is top-notch. No one wants to trust a sketchy website with their most important information and investing in impenetrable cybersecurity will increase the confidence of both your customers and Google in your online presence.

Still, you may know that you need cybersecurity for your website, but you also probably have questions about how to implement it. You’re too busy trying to grow your business to master cybersecurity; you need a trusted partner to guide you through something as difficult as cybersecurity.

Our web designers and web developers sat down and put together the following guide to help you through the web security process. Please note that these recommendations are high-level and applicable to most clients, but your situation may be unique. For a custom-built cybersecurity analysis, reach out to our web development team for some insight.

Read On To Learn More About Keeping Your Website Secure

Website Security Tip 1: Use HTTPS

You may be asking, “What even is HTTPS?” That’s a valid question and an important one to answer if you’re looking to secure your site. To answer it, we need to define HTTP, the precursor of HTTPS.

HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. It’s a system that allows for the transfer of data from a web server to a browser to allow users to interface with the website in question. Essentially, HTTP allows data to flow across the internet and serve pages. In contrast, HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTP data is not encrypted, which means it can be stolen. HTTPS, however, uses an SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate to establish secure connections for the transfer of data. It all can get very technical; just know that you should absolutely use HTTPS for secure website building.

Website Security Tip 2: Invest In A Quality Content Management System (CMS)

A content management system (CMS) is a platform that lets you manage, host, and display your content, which is often stored and displayed on a website. In layman’s terms, a CMS is a foundation upon which multiple brands can build their websites off of and then modify, publish, and distribute their web content.

Since content management systems are such an integral part of the heart of websites, the quality of the system used is one of the most important parts of your web security. A website is only as good as its underlying components and the best cybersecurity measures won’t do anything if the CMS you chose just isn’t up to par.

The good news is that there are multiple great content management systems to utilize for your website. Which one is the best one for cybersecurity? That’s not an easy answer. There are multiple components that go into choosing a CMS and different web designers and web design agencies will have different opinions. At JSL Marketing & Web Design, we choose WordPress, the largest content management system in the world, but that is not the only answer to this question. The most important aspect, however, is that the agency in question can tell you their content management system of record and why they have chosen that platform.

Website Security Tip 3: Add Secure Plugins

There is a myriad of security plugins that can be added to any website to enhance the cybersecurity of the site. These plugins are an added layer of defense on top of the basic and functional cybersecurity offered by some of the other methods listed here. Depending on your unique situation, you might have additional cybersecurity needs and these plugins are a great way to tailor your web security to you.

Some of the more common security plugins include…

WP Scan
iThemes Security
WordFence Security
Google Authenticator

These are a few of the most common security plugins, but talk to our web development team for a specific use case you have and we’ll try to recommend the perfect plug-in for your unique situation!

Website Security Tip 4: Regularly Backup Your Site

Despite your best efforts, things will go wrong. Hence why it’s so critical to backup your website. An unexpected crash is always stressful, but the ability to reload a recently backed-up version of the site will alleviate a lot of that stress, plus avoid any lost revenue. At a minimum, you want to backup up your site once a week, but biweekly or even daily is better. At JSL Marketing & Web Design, we regularly back up our sites on a daily cadence to ensure that our client sites are properly logged and recorded.

Website Security Tip 5: Train Your Staff On Best Cybersecurity Practices

The above website hosting questions are all well-and-good, but there is still one large and glaring weakness in your cybersecurity: your staff. Ignorance of phishing scams and the reuse of simplistic passwords will weaken the security measures taken above. To counteract this, we recommend having regular training with your staff on your basic web security practices. The cadence needed will vary tremendously with the size of your business and your needs, but once a year is the absolute minimum we would recommend.

Secure Your Website With JSL Marketing & Web Design

While everything listed here is helpful, the best way to protect your website is to incorporate the most up-to-date cybersecurity defenses into your site during your build. The additional layering of web security after the launch of a site will improve security, but designing your new site with web security in mind from the beginning of the site build usually is better. At JSL Marketing & Web Design, we build all of our sites with proven security measures to protect our clients and their information.

Secure & Reliable Web-Hosting
WordPress Content Management System
HTTPS & SSL
Daily Web Backups
WordFence Security Plugin To Monitor Site Changes & Aggressive Login Attempts
Custom Plugin Compatible Templates
The Latest Coding Standards
Third-Party Integrations

Your website’s security is important. Entrust that task to a seasoned web agency with proven security credentials to protect your client’s data.

Get In Touch With The Expert Web Designers At JSL Marketing & Web Design Today!

The World Wide Web is a wonderful place, a new adventure, new frontier and portal to anywhere in the world. How amazing, right?

Well, yes, absolutely, but with all this freedom and adventure comes more than a few risks. And though cybersecurity is trying to keep up with technology the best it can, there are a few things that everyone should be doing in order to ensure their own safety, their website’s safety and even their company’s safety.

Are these steps difficult? Are they overly technical? Are they time-consuming and labor-intensive?

Surprisingly no. All of the tips outlined below are actually things that anyone, and everyone, should be doing. That’s why they’re simple steps.

We at JSL Marketing want you to be safe, whether we’re the ones monitoring your website or not, we want to make sure that your business is secure and protected from those who might want to do it harm.

Read on to learn how you can protect yourself and the top 5 quick, easy and simple steps you can take to get you to cyber-security bliss.

Know That Cyber Security is a Real and Powerful Thing

Most people do not know how to hack into a website, most people don’t know how to create malware or a virus, and therefore, many people assume that these skills are rare or that ‘no one really knows how to do this’ or ‘no one would want to do this to my site’.

This is simply not true.

Many people know how and very well might want to use their shadow-skills against you or your website.

As strange as it might seem, the very first step in cyber safety is to acknowledge and accept that there are security threats everywhere and yes, it can even happen to you.

Keep Up With Your Accounts – All of Them

All of them? What do we mean by that? You only have the one website, right?

Unfortunately, that idea is wrong and could end up being damaging to your online security.

Your business LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even email can be hacked, and each can give the hacker sensitive information that you or your clients do not want on the general web.

This means you should not just be monitoring your main business website, but all connecting sites as well – all accounts, all the time. We recommend using software that can protect your computer but also your websites.

Or you could partner with an agency who can provide extra layers of protection and security for all of your accounts and monitor them consistently as well as making sure your host is secure. In addition, an agency partner should scan your website for vulnerabilities, errors or warnings throughout the month both for SEO and security.

Back Everything Up and Often

This could be seen as a no-brainer, but sometimes little saves like this can get away from us and suddenly we don’t have a copy from the last three months.

This tip helps two fold, first it guarantees you always have what you need, but second, it can help you stay up to date with your anti-virus software or malware detection software.

Having a copy of your website ensures that no matter if you break something, your company does, or you get hacked, you have duplicates you can fall back on if needed to restore order quickly.

Choose a Password Worth Having

Contrary to what many websites or accounts require, eight characters just isn’t enough.

Practice good password creation and management and don’t use the same password for multiple sites. Also, never share your password with others, don’t write it down, email it, keep it in your smartphone unprotected or leave it on your desk or monitor.

No, not even on a sticky note. Because the truth is, not all hacks come from the outside, so, please practice safe password measures when you are home, at work, and everywhere in between.

You don’t need to be paranoid, but you do need to be aware and take needed measures to protect yourself and your customers.

Go for HTTPS

This not only adds a security feature for your customers’ peace of mind, it is also free.

And if added security and happy customers aren’t enough, HTTPS sites also make Google happy, as any non-HTTPS site after July 2018 is getting seriously docked in their rankings by Google.

If you encrypt your login pages, payment pages and others which could have private data, then anything any potential hackers do glean will be meaningless and unusable. Poetic justice, no?

Need Help on Your Next Steps?

JSL Marketing and Web Design has a squeaky clean track record when it comes to keeping our clients safe and their websites secure.

We scan for errors or warnings, can set up your HTTPS site, recommend secure hosting sites, keep your website clean, help with password creation, manage your accounts, always keep our software up to date and even backup your data.

That’s everything you have to worry about – poof – gone and in our capable, careful hands.

So, if adding some extra website security sounds like your next step, connect with us at JSL Marketing and see what we can do to make your website happier, healthier and safer.

Tag: web security

How To Keep Your Website Secure & Protected