WordPress Security and SEO

Don’t let website hackers ruin your SEO campaigns.

 

Rule #1: Follow best practices

Rule #2: Utilize proper security plugins (or services)

Rule #3: Sign up for CDN’s

Rule #4: Properly configure your .htaccess file(s)

 

What are the wordpress best practices?

1. Always update your wordpress files to the latest versions
2. Utilize the least amount of plugins needed to get the job done
3. Create passwords that are “difficult” to crack
4. Back up your data regularly
5. Edit your .htaccess file accordingly to help protect your install and core files.

Which plugins are best for wordpress security?

There are a few systems out there such as wordfence, better wp security, and backWPUp. Personally we here at Texas SEO, we prefer a hybrid service and plugin that puts real people behind the security of your website called Sucuri. It’s very cost efficient, and they will clear out any malware that is currently on your site. Note, even though their free online tool doesn’t find malware, it doesn’t mean there is no malware on your site, you need a professional to go through your files personally. Sucuri will do this for you.

What are CDN’s and why do I need them?

CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. According to Wikipedia “A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is a large distributed system of servers deployed in multiple data centers across the Internet”

There are 2 major Free CDN’s out there:

1. CloudFlare
2. PageSpeed Service by Google

Again, we personally utilize Google PageSpeed service. Afterall, hey, it’s GOOGLE!

According to Google:

PageSpeed Service benefits:

• Dynamically rewrites webpages – applies performance best practices
• Serves optimized content via Google servers – reduces load on your servers
• Reduced perceived page load time – prioritizing portions of content which get served first, so you visitors have better user exeprience browsing your website
• Security – your website gets security of Google servers
• Parallel fetch – fewer requests and lower round-trip times
• Made by Google – works well, good support and expect lots of improvement updates

 

 

How do I properly configure my .htaccess files?

You don’t, let a professional handle it. Dallas SEO.

 

While there isn’t a way to 100% protect your WordPress / or website in general, you can definitely minimize the chances by following the steps above.