WordPress Website Security Maintenance

We use the WordPress.org website engine CMS (Content Management System) for a lot of websites. We also work with other platforms and CMS’s as well.

WordPress is an incredibly versatile, flexible and robust professional website platform. For these reasons and many others, it is extremely popular. To keep your website secure (to avoid it being hacked), website security updates need to be done regularly, as do website backups.

Please note: All modern websites (not just sites created using WordPress) need to be security updated and backed up regularly. It does not matter which platform your website is created on.

If you are wondering if your website needs to be security updated, give us a call or contact us online. We can take a look for you and let you know.

We also offer Website Security Care Plans. If you own a WordPress website and want it looked after correctly so it remains secure, let us know. As part of our Care Plans, we also set up automated backups of your website.

Additionally we provide WordPress website security hardening services. Below is a video that explains some of the basic ways to harden the security of a WordPress website.

When it comes to website security, it pays to be pro-active. Prevention is key.

 

Can I just security update my website myself?

In theory, you can. However, if your WordPress website has been poorly built, or is old (over 2 years old and has not been security updated at least every 2 months during that time), it’s likely your website will break if you try and security update it yourself.

If your site breaks and you have no recent backups of it, it’s often ‘game over’. This means your website will probably be a write-off, and could cost more to fix than what its current value is. Thus it would be time to get a new website built.

Plus, if your live website is not working properly, website visitors will either see that it is broken (which is never a good look)… OR they might try and perform an action on your website (like buy a product, if your website has an Online Shop built into it), only to find your online shop is not working.

An even more common breakage issue: A website visitor tries to send you a message via your website enquiry form, only to find it does not work (because you didn’t know it was broken). This can be very frustrating for the website visitor and is also a bad reflection on your business. They may then decide not to try and contact you at all, and you will miss out on a potential new customer.

It is far better to have us do website security update work for you. We have ways to test your website first to find out if it will break or not. If we find it will break, we then do code-work (and other development work) to fix any breakages, before deploying the security updates to your live website.

How often should my website be security updated?

Your website should be security updated at least every 2 months, or when a major security update is released by WordPress. They provide information about updates here.

How often a website needs to be security updated can also depend on how it has been built and its age. Some older websites (older than 2 years) that have been poorly built (or use old technology) often need to be security updated every 3 to 4 weeks.