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1. Introduction
Developing a website is an intensive and time-consuming process, and often the simple task of website optimization is overlooked. Optimizing your website is literally implementing this website to the best of its ability. This can include enabling your site for search engine optimization, or improving the speed of the site. Doing this on a website that is not built with WordPress can be a very challenging task. There are items such as .htaccess, meta data, and even just finding the right files to edit that can take a very long time. Not to mention, trying to locate which part of the code is breaking the site in other browsers. Now many people who are well-versed in website creation will say, “Well why not just do it right the first time on a custom build?” This is a valid point, but realize what was stated earlier: building a site to its full potential can be a time-consuming task. This is an even more challenging feat to accomplish with a custom build, and here is where WordPress comes in to save the day. Most web developers are very familiar with HTML and CSS, but when it comes to other languages such as PHP, they may not be as proficient. This can create a lot of trial and error during the development process and more often than not, a problem can occur in which the developer has no idea how to fix. Now they must hire someone who is well-versed in PHP to fix an issue. With WordPress, the developer will no longer have to add hours to their development time. The WordPress CMS is built with PHP and has a very simple to understand front end and back end. This means that the days of editing raw HTML files and uploading them via FTP are gone. Step one to optimizing website development is always going to be developing the site with minimal errors. Using WordPress this is already accomplished from the start. All themes are pre-tested for errors and go through a strict development process. All that there is left to do is site optimization.
1.1. Benefits of using WordPress for website development
No FTP software or HTML editing: WordPress is a self-contained system. There is no need for FTP software (such as Filezilla or CuteFTP) or HTML editing software (such as Adobe Contribute or Dreamweaver). You can create a new page or blog post, format text, upload images (and edit them), upload documents, video files, image galleries, etc. all without the need for additional HTML or FTP software.
Manage your website from any computer: WordPress is browser-based. You can log in from any internet-connected computer and manage your site. No need to rely on the same computer to make edits to the site.
Simplicity: WordPress is an incredibly easy to use tool. It allows you to edit and add new content on a site without the hassle of complicated coding. This allows for a drastic decrease in the reliance on a web developer, cutting costs in the long run.
WordPress initially began as a blogging engine, but has since evolved into a powerful content management system (CMS). This makes it ideal for many business websites; in fact, almost 1 in 5 websites in the world are built with WordPress. Whether your website is for a business, a community, or a personal blog, WordPress is a great tool for web development. Here are a few reasons why:
1.2. Importance of optimizing website development
When people think of WordPress, they think of blogging – and indeed it is the best solution for bloggers who want to have control over their blog and not have to worry about the technical aspects. WordPress – and this is key – is an outstanding tool to use for website construction and optimization. It is an effective time saver for website optimization; it truly is an ideal vehicle to use in building a site. All too often people have the perception that WordPress is just a platform for bloggers; this is not the case. WordPress is used by many big companies to build their website. Because WordPress is so easy to use, it’s a great solution for those companies who need to have an employee maintaining the website. With WordPress, you don’t need to be a web expert; updating the site is as simple as editing a file in Microsoft Word. Updating a website builds time and repetitive updating can build to be quite stressful. With WordPress, on the other hand, website owners can easily hand over their site to an employee or just someone who needs to update for a small fee because the person won’t have to spend hours learning how to use it. The user interface is similar to Microsoft Word making it easy as pie to learn. When it comes to time saving, it truly is an effective tool. Imagine you have a hard time building websites and then a customer comes to you and needs a site built in a few days. Let’s face it; building a website with the old conventional way just wouldn’t be realistic. That’s where WordPress comes to the rescue.
2. Planning and Preparation
With the information you have gathered, make a decision on the type of WordPress theme that would be most suitable for your site. ThemeForest is a popular choice for purchasing themes, and there is no shortage of types of themes to choose from. Having a clear understanding of your site’s purpose and audience will help in making the right selection. Also, try doing a Google search using site: [theme name demo]. This will allow you to see sites that are using the theme. You may find that other sites utilizing a specific theme are targeting a similar audience or have a similar purpose to yours. This can be an indication that the theme is suitable.
Create a list of goals for the site in order of priority based on the information you have gathered. A clear list of website goals will assist in theme selection and will also help to define functional requirements later on.
Following this, you need to consider the needs of your audience. Think about who the typical visitor to your site will be. What will they be looking for? What is their knowledge level of the subject matter? What are their site-related goals? Gather as much information as possible about your target audience in order to develop a site that meets their needs.
An effective website has a clear purpose and meets the needs of its intended audience. The best way to meet these goals is by clearly defining them beforehand. Whether intuitive or basic, you need to define the purpose of the website. Developing a clear picture of the site’s purpose will help when making theme and functional decisions later on.
2.1. Defining website goals and target audience
The first step in creating a website is to define the website’s goals. The website may be a personal homepage, a site for the family, a business website, or an e-commerce site. Each of these sites has a different purpose, and the site’s purpose will have a significant impact on its design. A site without a clear goal will not be effective and will not be a good candidate for a WordPress site. Knowing the site’s purpose helps define its target audience. A detailed understanding of the site’s target audience will also have a significant impact on its design. Audience will influence visual style, site organization, use of media assets, and writing style. Finally, define what a successful website looks like. How will the site’s effectiveness be judged? Success may be making a family site more engaging to its members, attracting more customers to a small business, increasing sales on an e-commerce site, or getting more readers for a personal blog. Having clear goals will help assess whether or not the site is effective and will inform decisions in the next step of the website development process.
2.2. Researching and selecting the right WordPress theme
The success of a website relies heavily on the WordPress theme that it chooses for itself. The site’s theme will determine the site’s layout and the feeling that it conveys to its visitors. The theme also affects the functionality of the site and can directly influence the success of the site. If the website is a personal blog, it’s quite fine and even expected for the site to reflect the creator’s personality and style. However, if the website is being created for a business, the stakes are much higher. A theme that is poorly designed can turn visitors away and detract from the site’s intended purpose. In some cases, it is possible that a theme is so poorly designed that the damage done to the site’s image is irreparable. With so much at stake, it is crucial to be very careful when selecting a theme. Consider every design choice that’s made and how it will affect the site’s image. Also, consider how specific designs may affect the site’s functionality. For example, a site with a lot of text articles will not work well with a theme that prioritizes images over text. This will also be a good time to put into writing the goals that were defined in step 2.1.
2.3. Gathering necessary content and media assets
Firstly, with the end goal of our website development in mind, we want to make a list of all necessary pages that will be included on the site. This will help carry a consistent theme throughout the development phase and make sure that we include the necessary content on each page as we design it. For example, if you are developing a website for a small business, you may decide that a necessary page is an “about us” page. The aim of the page is to explain what your business does and why it does it. So when it comes to designing and developing this page, you will want to create content which effectively explains this information and also gives your company an identity to make it memorable. Making sure to include all relevant information that would be found in a company profile. If the website development has veered off course and an inappropriate theme is chosen, for example, a page template with a blog sidebar, there is a risk that this new page may be influenced to become a blog page as the theme isn’t well suited to an about page. By having a clear list of page goals and types of content, this can always be referred to make sure everything stays on track. Now that we have a clear goal for each page, we want to list the type of content it will contain. This will also help with maintaining consistency in the page designs and will be effective when it comes to designing anything from page layouts to individual page items like an image or a title. By making a content type list for each page, we effectively want to compile an overall site content inventory. This sounds quite formal, but for larger websites, this will be very necessary and can be essential in clarifying the completion status of a site being developed. Now, in the case described in the introduction where there is a plan to remake an existing site rather than building a new one, the site will already have content. In this case, the content from the existing site will need to be evaluated to see if it’s suitable and can be used on the new site. If it is, it will be directly migrated, and if not, it will need to be rewritten or new content will need to be made. This means it will need to go through the same process as content for new pages and may also require at this point some sort of content shaping. At the end of the day, it can be said that the more analysis and planning done before the start of development, the less likely it is for things to go wrong during development.
3. Setting Up WordPress
WordPress can be installed by visiting wordpress.org and downloading the newest version. After extracting the files, you will need to upload them to your hosting server using an FTP client (such as Filezilla). While FTP client is a reliable method for transferring files, most hosting providers also offer an easier way to install WordPress using an Automated Software Installation which is available from the hosting control panel. Automated installations are easier than manual installations because they simplify the process down to a few easy steps. Typically, they will require you to input a few fields regarding your new WordPress installation, and then they will automate the entire process. This should work for most hosting providers that offer it, and it is much faster than the alternative. If you wish to manually install WordPress, you can follow the instructions below.
3.1. Installing WordPress on a hosting server
The simplest way to install WordPress to the server is by using cPanel and uploading a zip file of WordPress to your server. Next, proceed by extracting the contents of the zip file into your root or designated directory. This is done by selecting “extract” when browsing your zip file. If your hosting account does not support an automatic extraction of files, you will need to extract your zip file to a folder on your computer and use an FTP manager to drag and drop all the files to your server. A default install can be tested by heading to the designated location of your install in a browser; for example, if you installed WordPress to a directory called “blog,” then you will type “www.yourwebsite.com/blog” to see if it is running.
In order to install WordPress, make sure that you have registered for a web host and have a working server with either cPanel or an FTP program. In addition, you will need to create a MySQL database, username, and password to complete the install. If you do not have one, you will need to contact your web host to find out what the database information is. The wp-config-sample.php in the root of the WordPress directory must be renamed to wp-config.php. You will need a text editor for this step; when opening the file, you will find that this is the area where you can enter the database information. Finally, proceed by saving the changes and uploading WordPress to your desired location on the server. This is usually done by creating a new directory in the root or uploading the install to the root itself.
WordPress is an open source platform that can be installed by any hosting account, but it can also be registered for off from “WordPress” for a blog. A few simple steps of installing it to the server manually are something that every webmaster should know how to do. This will enable them to do a fresh install or reinstall of WordPress in a matter of minutes, giving them peace of mind and a sense of security in knowing that their blog can be easily backed up, restored, and migrated to a new server when the time comes.
3.2. Configuring basic settings and permalinks
WordPress provides you with some options to maintain permanent links. The permanent link structure is a setting for your posts URL. You can access configurations for this by going to Settings and then clicking on Permalinks. A common predetermined setting for WordPress is setting post URLs to a simple format such as “www.example.com/?p=30”. This setting is not only unattractive but useless for Search Engine Optimization. This does, however, fit with the non-blog style WordPress site and has the potential to save system resources.
Usually when you first install WordPress and you’re navigating around wp-admin for the first time, the Settings tab can be a bit of a mystery. It has a number of options, some of which may change not only how your site is viewed by visitors, but also your ability to administer the site. On top of that, the Settings Screen is the first thing visitors will see when coming to your site. This one page sets the tone for your site. The good news is that none of these settings are set in stone. They can be changed at any time.
3.3. Installing essential plugins for optimization
Some sources of different kinds of plugins for safety, some toolbox related to the job, and several other plugins. But before you install them, you have to make sure your WordPress is clean from junk files and that you have done a backup. Because some plugins may crash with certain WordPress options, especially new ones. I suggest you use the One Click Backup plugin, it’s simple to use. Just one click and the backup is finished, and you can restore it with just one click as well. This plugin is very useful. It is an essential plugin before installing others because we never know when something might go wrong with your WordPress. After you have done the backup, the next step is to install the WP Security plugin. This plugin is very useful because the internet world has many potential negative effects on your WordPress, such as hackers, malware, or other internet crimes. This plugin has many features to protect your WordPress from attacks. It can prevent crashes from happening to your WordPress. Installing this plugin is like having a security officer for your WordPress. The plugin has two options, free and premium. But the free option is enough to protect your WordPress. The next essential plugin is the Spam Comment Remover. You definitely don’t want junk messages in the comments, right? And I believe you would get bored removing spam comments one by one. By installing this plugin, you can remove spam comments with just one click. This plugin has a strong effect in preventing malware from coming to your WordPress.
4. Designing and Customizing the Website
The first thing you should consider is the layout of your website. Even though most themes cater to a certain style, the layout is usually controlled by a set of files named “template files”. These files can usually be found in the “theme” directory. For example, twenty-ten has a default template of one sidebar on the right of the content. You can change this by using the “settings” -> “reading” -> “Blog pages show at most” option. Doing it this way is very quick and effective, however it may be a little basic for some users. If you would like more flexibility, the best way to do so is to learn basic HTML/CSS/PHP. This is because many of the options in the WordPress settings menu can be very limiting. For example, say you want more control over the colors of your links, but the theme only gives an option to change the color of all text. Learning to change styles within a specific .css file will allow you to do this.
Designing a website is largely a matter of pleasing your users and can be a very time-consuming process. Although it may seem difficult, WordPress has made the task much simpler.
4.1. Creating a visually appealing and user-friendly layout
And now we come to arguably the most important section of this dissertation – customizing the layout. Once the theme has been chosen, it is important to spend time altering it, rather than jumping straight into adding content. The layout is the first thing visitors to the site will notice, and if it looks unprofessional or confusing, they are likely to leave straight away. With WordPress it is often possible to use the ‘customize’ function under the appearances tab to make alterations to the current theme and see them take place in real time, making it easier to see what works and what doesn’t when altering the layout. This function is available on 2015 and newer themes but is not available on all themes. Should that not be available, the customization can be done manually with reasonable ease. The main goal is to make the layout simple and easy to understand, with as little clutter and as much empty space as possible without wasting space. Menus, if not self-explanatory from the title, should have a description attached. If the theme allows it, use a static front page rather than a list of latest posts. This allows more control over what the user sees first, which can be beneficial for first time visitors. The general idea of course is to get them to see more than just the front page, but this would ideally be after they’ve decided that the site is worth a revisit.
4.2. Customizing the theme’s colors, fonts, and styles
C) Implement new default colors and headers feature. The recently added header image feature is a good way to allow customization without modifying the theme; however, the theme still needs to support the feature and users are required to edit the theme files to add custom headers. Adding the ability to change the color of common elements and add a header image to any theme would improve the customization capabilities across all themes. These options should be built into the core rather than being theme-specific features.
B) Create a CSS color editor. Most themes use a few colors for things like backgrounds, borders and text. Finding these colors in the style sheet can be time consuming. A tool built into the admin area that lists common elements and allows you to change their colors with a color picker would make it easier for non-developers to customize their theme. This tool would generate a separate CSS file or override the color in the theme’s style.css to prevent changes being lost when the theme is updated.
A) Simplify the creation of child themes. Child Themes are the recommended way of modifying an existing theme. A child theme inherits the look and feel of the parent theme and you can override as much or as little as you like without modifying the parent theme. Unfortunately creating them is currently very developer oriented. This could be improved with the creation of a Child Theme plugin which would create a child theme in the same way as the existing theme installer.
Once the basic layout is functional, it’s important to make it unique. The appearance of the theme adds the look and feel to your site. This is an aspect the current WordPress Theme system has made a lot easier, yet it could still use improvement. Let’s have a look at some ways to make it simpler to modify the look of your site.
4.3. Adding and organizing website content effectively
It is very important to understand what message you attempt to convey on your website. You should plan this step carefully, as the content is what will keep readers coming back to your website. Content should be researched and well thought out. Please ensure you understand your topic before writing, as readers will notice if you seem unsure. If you are not fully proficient in the English language, it may be a good idea to have someone proofread and correct your articles as poorly written content reflects badly on your company. Proofreading is always a good idea, even if you are confident in your writing. Once you have a clear idea of what each page should contain, you can start to organize it. On paper, build a rough sketch of how you want your content to be displayed interconnecting pages and categories where necessary. This technique is commonly known as information architecture. When you have decided how to organize your content, you may need to add extra pages onto your website. This can be done in the form of posts or pages, it all depends on the organization of your content.
5. Optimizing Website Performance
Minification is a process of removing unnecessary data from the web content without affecting the function and its displayed result, which is done by various programming languages to increase web content performance. There are many kinds of files that can be minified, but it’s commonly done on JS and CSS files. Although WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache have their own built-in minification system, there are tons of available plugins to achieve the same results. But before implementing any minification system, always back up your JS and CSS files first, as any slight error made during the process might ruin your site.
Caching is a technique used to store requested web content for a certain period, which will speed up the serving process of the content and reduce server lag. There are three different types of caching available for WordPress: browser caching, WP caching, and plugin caching. But the easiest way to enable caching is by using a plugin. WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache are two of the most popular caching plugins for WordPress. Both have their own advantages and can be used according to your needs. This is a one-of-a-kind solution and doesn’t require any further maintenance unless you have made major changes to your site. Always remember that enabling a cache system might cause compatibility issues with some of your site contents or the theme itself, so always make sure to test it out before fully implementing it on your site.
Optimizing website performance is a very crucial phase during and after the development process. As it will affect your visitors and users’ experience while accessing your site. A very common step that is usually taken when dealing with performance issues after developing a site with media contents is reducing the size of media files. Media files such as images take up a lot of space if they’re not optimized for the web. Always use image editing tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, or any other image editing software to reduce the size of your images without sacrificing the quality. After editing your images, always run them through image compression programs to get the best image file size and quality. This will not only reduce the loading time for your site but also reduce the bandwidth usage. Audio and video files can also be optimized by reducing the quality and frame size. There are plenty of audio and video editing software available out there that can help you achieve this.
5.1. Optimizing images and media files for faster loading
The primary downside to utilizing high-quality images is that they are quite large and take longer to load, which in turn slows down the speed of the page. It is recommended to optimize images and other media, which involves retaining their quality but reducing their file sizes. There are several ways to optimize images and other media. The first way is to choose the correct file type. JPEG is best suited for images with lots of color and detail, and has become the standard image format for photographs and a range of images. These images can be quite large however and consequently take a long time to load. For simple images or animations the best format is GIF. Index color GIF is more effective for color reduction and is the best choice if the image has large areas of solid color. The final most appropriate file format for images is PNG, and this format is best used when the image has detailed graphics and some level of transparency. PNG is a “lossless” format which means it does not lose quality when it is compressed. The second way to optimize images is through scaling. It is possible to use a plugin to set the maximum dimension of an image and have WordPress scale it down if it is too large. This will not reduce the file size however and consequently it is best to use image editing software to reduce the image size before uploading it. The aim is to get the file size as close to the file size constraint without exceeding the constraint. The third way to optimize image is to use compression which can reduce image file sizes significantly.
5.2. Implementing caching and minification techniques
Minification is an act of removing unnecessary characters from source code without changing its functionality. These unnecessary characters usually include white space characters, new line characters, comments, and block delimiters. In the process, the source code is compressed to decrease the transmission time between the server and the browser. In WordPress, the easiest way to enable minification is by using a plugin like W3 Total Cache. Minification can be set by accessing Performance – General Settings, look to the minify section and then check Enable to turn it on. There are three types of minify, you may experiment with each type to see which setting suits best for your website. If the minify breaks your site layout or certain functions within your site, try excluding some CSS or JavaScript files from being minified. This can be done in Performance – Minify and click the help button on the configuration to show an example of file exclusion.
5.3. Enabling gzip compression and browser caching
Gzip refers to a software application utilized for document and data compression. This software application substantially minimizes the size of these data and documents, and as a result, it assists website efficiency. Enabling gzip compression relative to web protocols has assisted most websites to pack their contents much faster. For instance, when a website includes more than one CSS file, it is possible to integrate all files into one file and then compress it into a ‘zip file’. This can minimize loading time by approximately fifty to seventy percent. According to Yahoo’s site, this can decrease download times for HTML and CSS files. Gzip compresses your webpages and style sheets before sending them over to the browser. This substantially reduces download time since the files are much smaller. The overhead for the web server to compress the files is balanced out by the fact that compressed files load over the network much quicker.
6. Enhancing SEO and User Experience
What I have outlined above is the groundwork to optimising content. It is a vast subject and unfortunately there are no genuine shortcuts. An often neglected method is to periodically assess and refresh old content. This can be as effective as new content providing that it’s still relevant. While your site is under the early stages of development, it’s wise to get into good habits and make sure everything you write is properly optimised from the beginning. Over time, these methods will become second nature and greatly improve the quality and relevancy of what you produce.
For those of you with a little knowledge of SEO, the mere mention of keyword research may cause you to groan. It’s been often said that keywords are ‘the foundation’ of SEO, in my opinion, this is not the case. The quality and relevancy of the content is the foundation of SEO. The keyword research simply allows you to assess what people are searching for within your given subject. It’s quality over quantity. Just because you may have found a keyword that has a high search rate, it doesn’t mean you should try to rank for it. The likelihood is that there is too much competition and it won’t be beneficial to your content. The more specific your content is to your identified keywords, the higher the probability of it ranking. Always assess the keyword difficulty (there are various tools for this) and if it’s within your site’s ‘niche’, it’s usually beneficial to go for the lesser searched terms. A successful website is built on the strength of its content and the relationship to its audience, there is no situation where keyword research should be ignored. Make sure to utilise your keywords effectively through your content, headings and subheadings and meta tags. A common misconception is that high keyword density is beneficial. This is not true and can actually be harmful to your ranking. It’s more important to stay on topic and concisely relay the message of your content. Always write for your audience before writing for search engines.
6.1. Conducting keyword research and optimizing content
Step one in keyword optimization is to determine the keywords (and phrases) that generate traffic to the site. Looking ahead to the location, this will be fairly straightforward. Initially, create a list of potential keywords and type these phrases and words into the search engines. Take note that if you’re promoting as a local business, the analysis should be performed with the local search in mind. If the location can attract its customers from a specific area, a worldwide keyword is useless. This is because people seeking an online service from a worldly corporation will use a worldwide search, while people using search to find a local business will use a local search.
Keyword research is among the most vital in bringing qualified traffic to your site within the least possible time. The primary aim of conducting keyword analysis is to see what terms people look for your product or service. After confirming the list of keywords, attempt to think about how many pages or websites are vying for the first page ranking for a specific term. The more people trying to find a keyword, the more competitive the keyword is. We must choose the keyword that matches our website and has fewer competitors. It is well known that the site will need keyword changes over time. The keywords used to optimize the location need to be continuously monitored and compared with the keywords used by the competitors on the ranking of the computer and also the ranking for the keywords.
6.2. Implementing SEO-friendly URLs and meta tags
Seo-friendly URLs can be implemented by using relevant keywords in URL path and filenames. For example, if you are developing a website for a company that offers pest control services, it is more effective to use a URL like this: [Link] than [Link] id=125. The filename for the page would of course be relevant-termites. This is because the URL is often highlighted in search results and bolded, and it is more likely to entice someone who is looking for information on how to get rid of termites. A search engine user might also be more likely to click on the URL if it contains the exact search terms that the user is looking for. File names are even more important, as many results only display the URL of the page. Another useful technique is to use hyphens to separate words in a URL. While Google is able to index MyWebsite.com and MyWebsite.com/index.html as separate pages, it can be easier to maintain and increase PageRank for these pages if both addresses lead to the same place. For this reason, it’s easiest to use hyphens and underscores to separate words in a URL for very similar reasons. When using underscores, it is similar to one long word with no spaces, so the more precise method is using the hyphens as Google interprets the hyphens as separating words, which can be useful when keywords are required. Step one for changing the URL structure for a WordPress-powered site is to login to the admin area. Now access the Settings panel and then open the Permalinks page. This is where you can change the default WordPress URL structure to a more search engine-friendly structure. As you can see below, there are quite a few options.
6.3. Improving website navigation and user interface
Site maps are often overlooked by the webmaster but they are a very useful tool for the visitor. Not only does it increase a search engine spider’s ability to find every page in the site, it provides an easy to understand and quick way for the visitor to see the layout of your site and find the information they are looking for. Always make sure that everything is no more than a few clicks away. If it is in an obscure place, the visitor is likely to give up finding it.
An important part of web navigation is to provide ways of changing the page to something of interest to the visitor. Many visitors will arrive at the home page and then look for something that interests them, not knowing how to find the information without searching for it at great length. Having options to change to a different page of interest or an article of interest will make sure the visitor finds the information they want and prevent boredom which will make them leave the site. This is a good way of keeping people on your site and not going elsewhere.
Website navigation is a crucial key to the success of your site visitor. During searching the visitor is looking for information, and how they will find it depends on how the website is structured. They need to get to the information in as few clicks as possible. In an easy and uncomplicated manner. If it is too difficult to find, the visitor will go elsewhere. Simplicity is the key here, with a well thought out and well-designed navigation. This does not necessarily mean the traditional, on every page menu bar. It could be at the end of articles or in the sidebar. What is important is that it is easily understandable and the visitor can quickly find the information that they are looking for.
7. Ensuring Website Security
Your website will absolutely face the problem of being hacked and it’s already happening in early 2012. The report by The Telegraph said that 90,000 websites which are powered by WordPress has been attacked by the botnet of hackers, and it’s not a small number. Even Facebook had to deal with hacking problem, even the biggest social networking had their security system breached, what about us? Web Administrator. Hacked. Completely all the things or only a little part of the website? Salahudin Adzkia’s Weblog. Retrieved November 3, 2013. The common argument for this problem is that our website is only a small fry while there are a lot of big players around the world is still safe, but that statement is a bit misleading. From the hacking standpoint, they don’t look into the size of the website to hack it, hackers will usually scan and find the vulnerable platform from any website and install the malware or anything that can be beneficial for them, regardless of website size. Step to the next level, you can’t ensure that the security vulnerability is unknown, any developer who make a small custom or themes/plugins can inadvertently write a script that open a backdoor for hacker to access. To improving security is an ongoing job and never end, because the evolving growth of cyber crime means that the threat never ends. By knowing threats and continuous learning about security, you can prepare and minimize risk for traffic and avoid attacks on your website. Good preparation and the right steps will make your website more secure from day to day but it is important to understand that no website is 100% safe from attack, and if a site has been hacked then the detection and quick action is required to problem solving and repairing the site. Usually the price of ignorance from the website owner is that they don’t know about their website is already compromised and all of the important data and website assets is lost.
7.1. Regularly updating WordPress core, themes, and plugins
Updating WordPress core, themes, and plugins is a crucial security practice that can lower the risk of a website getting infected with malware. Because WordPress is so popular, it is often a target for hackers, which is why regular updating is necessary. It is important to remember that updating WordPress will affect the website. Although WordPress core gets automatically updated, the website could still have an older server PHP, which is what WordPress runs off, so it is important to ensure the server PHP is up to date. In some cases, the update can cause issues with the website, so it is a good idea to keep note of the changes you are making to the website and ensure something like an entire page layout can be reversed. Still, despite the possibility of these issues arising, updating WordPress is highly encouraged, second to creating backups for your website, this is the most important maintenance practice you can undertake to keep your website secure.
7.2. Implementing strong user authentication and passwords
This permits access to the login page only for the IP address 123.123.123.123. Anyone else who tries to access the login page will get a 403 Forbidden response. Be very careful with this, particularly if your site has a dynamic IP address, as it could result in loss of access to the login page, and banning of your own IP! Go to the Preventing Banned Access Codex page for further notes on using this function.
One obvious line of defense is to monitor access to the login page. If you run a single-author blog, or you and your trusted contributors are the only people who need access, then there’s no reason for anyone else to try and access your login page. Anyone who hits the login page and doesn’t have permission will be banned. An example .htaccess rule that would achieve this is as follows:
By default, WordPress is a very secure system. However, many attacks are made on WordPress sites (big and small) by exploiting the default access to the WordPress admin user. It is highly recommended that you do not use “admin” as a username anywhere on your site, and always use a strong password. User accounts with weak passwords are a common security hole. There are a few things that you can do to help protect WordPress against unauthorized access, or to find holes that could be used to compromise a site.
7.3. Installing security plugins and monitoring tools
Acunetix WP Security is a security system that helps any WordPress website to combat against security threats, whether it is hardening the security system or scanning for security risks and holes. It adds an extra security layer by adding a firewall security, something which most free security scanning systems don’t have.
BulletProof Security is another popular and effective security system. It detects and guards against XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection, and SQL Injection hacking attempts. Coming with a setup wizard, it is designed to be very easy to set up and use.
The All In One WP Security & Firewall plugin is an easy and effective security system that has been known to show increasing popularity. It is a comprehensive, user-friendly, all-in-one WordPress security and firewall plugin. It reduces security risk by checking for vulnerabilities and by implementing and enforcing the latest recommended WordPress security practices and techniques.
iThemes Security allows users to protect their site in more than 30 ways. A very important feature is that it hides commonly looked for areas that may be a target for potential hacking attempts.
Sucuri Security is a security system that is used by a large number of big websites. It is very useful for removing and preventing malware.
Wordfence Security provides a full-featured and very powerful security system for WordPress. One of the key features is that it provides real-time security threat analysis. A key advantage of Wordfence is that it does not consume large amounts of hosting space and uses only a small amount of memory while scanning.
There are several security plugins available in the WordPress Plugin Repository. Some of the popular and effective ones include Wordfence Security, Sucuri Security, iThemes Security, All In One WP Security & Firewall, BulletProof Security, and Acunetix WP Security.
References:
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Gupta, D. “A Critical Review of WordPress Security Scanning Tools and the Development of a Next-Generation Solution.” 2023. ncirl.ie
Lin, Jiahuei, Mohammed Sayagh, and Ahmed E. Hassan. “The Co-evolution of the WordPress Platform and its Plugins.” ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology 32.1 (2023): 1-24. queensu.ca
Hoseini, J. “E-Commerce by WordPress: e-commerce by WordPress & content management system comparison.” 2023. theseus.fi
Aslan, Ö, Aktuğ, S. S., Ozkan-Okay, M., Yilmaz, A. A., and Akin, E. “A comprehensive review of cyber security vulnerabilities, threats, attacks, and solutions.” Electronics, 2023. mdpi.com
Swant, Smit, et al. “Analysis of Advance Manual Detection and Robust Prevention of Cross-Site Scripting in Web-Based Services.” The Fusion of Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing Techniques for Cybersecurity. Apple Academic Press, 2024. 153-167. HTML
Petrică, Gabriel. “Cybersecurity of WordPress Platforms. An Analysis Using Attack-Defense Trees Method.” Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime-2022. Asociatia Romana pentru Asigurarea Securitatii Informatiei, 2022. cybercon.ro
Phulre, Ajay Kumar, Megha Kamble, and Sunil Phulre. “Content Management Systems hacking probabilities for Admin Access with Google Dorking and database code injection for web content security.” 2nd International Conference on Data, Engineering and Applications (IDEA). IEEE, 2020. HTML
Rahmawati, Tia, et al. “Web Application Firewall Using Proxy and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) for OWASP Cyber Attack Detection.” 2023 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things and Intelligence Systems (IoTaIS). IEEE, 2023. HTML
