10 Easy WordPress Security Tips To Help Keep Your Site Safe & Secure

Whether you are a WordPress beginner or an experienced webmaster, you need to ensure that you use the best security practices for protecting your website from hackers. The first step that you should take towards protecting your site is strengthening the login page, admin page of your website to prevent the hackers from gaining access to your website. Apart from this, you can also install the best plugins and security tools of WordPress.
Here are the best practices that every Wordpress website owner should definitely consider while protecting the site from a various security breach:

1. Avoid using "admin" as your username:

Make sure to avoid using your default username for your WordPress site as this will easily give way to hackers who can brute force to get admin access to your site.
If you have already used your default username for your WordPress site, you can immediately rectify it. Make sure to use a unique and difficult username for your website that is difficult to crack.
Method 1: Create a New User and Delete the “Admin” User
Method 2: Change Your WordPress Username Using phpMyAdmin

2. Use a strong password:

Yes, having a unique username is really important but if your password is weak, the hacker can get access easily and this may lead to a definite security breach.
To avoid such risks, you should choose a password that is strong and really difficult to crack. Use different combinations of different characters (for example StRaNgEr#21) and try to keep it 10-15 characters long. Apart from this, try to change your passwords at regular intervals to fortify your WordPress login page to a great extent.

3. Add two-factor authentication:

This is one of the most efficient ways to avoid any security breaches. By integrating a two-factor authentication, you can ensure the security of your login page optimally. This method involves the requirement of a password along with an authorization code that is sent to your mobile phone that lets you log into your site.
This way, without the combination of a password and an authorization code, one would not be able to access the login page of your WordPress site.
Popular Two Factor Authentication wordpress plugins are Google Authenticator, Wordfence Security. For more such plugins, please visit https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/Two Factor Authentication/

4. Upgrade to HTTPS:

This is one of the important considerations for protecting your site from hackers and security attacks. This is because HTTPS encrypts the connection between your web server and your browser that will keep your data protected from hackers when you transfer your data from one server to another.
Also, one of the major reasons to add HTTPS on your site is that WordPress has made it compulsory to have HTTPS in WordPress websites for getting better SEO results which are a great boost for your online business.

5. Secure wp-admin directory:

Since the admin dashboard is widely targeted by hackers, you should consider strengthening its security. You can do this by keeping the admin dashboard password protected. Under this method, a website owner has to give two different passwords whenever they want to access their site's dashboard - one password is for the login page and the other password is for the WordPress admin area.

6. Protect the wp-config.php and xmlrpc.php file:

The wp-config.php file has all the information about your WordPress installation. Because it is the most important file of your WordPress site, you have to be sure that you protect it from hackers and other security attacks.
xmlrpc.php is actually an API and it is not required until you are planning to use the API in any application you are building such as mobile apps, desktop apps and want to show data from your website into these applications.
For protecting your wp-config.php and xmlrpc.php file, add the following piece of code to your .htaccess file:

order allow, deny
deny from all


order allow, deny
deny from all

7. Disable PHP File Execution in Certain WordPress Directories:

To protect your website from execution of malicious files, create a .htaccess file and upload it to your site's /wp-includes/ and /wp-content/uploads/ directories. This will simply disable PHP execution in these directories where you don’t need it. Save the file as .htaccess and paste the following code inside it. 

deny from all

8. Keep the WordPress themes updated:

Update your installed themes and plugins on a regular basis to avoid hackers from your site. This is because every installed theme and plugin is like an open door to your admin area, you must update these plugins with their respective latest versions.
However, keeping a site up to date on a regular basis can be difficult and so, you can make use of automatic updates by configuring them for themes and plugins by inserting a few lines of easy code into wp-config.php
· Use this line of code for plugins:
add_filter(‘auto_update_plugin’, ‘__return_true’)
· Use this line of code for installed WP themes:
add_filter( ‘auto_update_theme’, ‘__return_true’ );

9. Remove the unused themes and plugins:

This is one of the first few steps you should take towards protecting your website. Unused themes and plugins make your site slow and also make it vulnerable to being hacked.

10. Avoid downloading premium plugins for free from illegal websites and torrents:

Remember, everything that is free comes with a price. Instead of downloading a premium plugin for free, it is highly recommended that you buy it from an official site.
Downloading a premium plugin for free is a wrong approach because this will take the user to illegal websites that can corrupt the WordPress site with malware. This means that hackers are targeting premium plugins as a way to get access to your website.
At any cost, you should avoid downloading premium plugins for free and other illegal websites, downloads, and torrents for downloading a premium plugin.

11. Backup and update your site regularly:

Whether your website is secure or not, you should always consider creating a backup of your WordPress website. This will ensure that your data is safe during unforeseen hacking and security breaches. Also, always keep your core WordPress updated on a regular basis.

Conclusion:

The above mentioned tips will surely help you to protect your WordPress website from being vulnerable to any type of security breach without the need of spending huge sums of money.