The quality of your website is important. You need to have a site that is user friendly, engaging and useful to those who come across it. WordPress training courses are an essential element in achieving this aim, and keeping the behind the scenes elements of your website in good working order. But, what about security? This is something your users are concerned about, are you?
There are numerous aspects to website security and a fault, or mistake in any of them could lead to your site being compromised. Of course, some of these elements are beyond your control, and others are even beyond the complete control of the server on which your website sits or your WordPress personal trainer. One example of the latter was the DDoS attack on a company that caused intermittent problems and outages across the Internet. The attack, rather than being focused on a specific website, was targeted at the DNS (Domain Name System), the road map that gets users to the place they want to be. Computers use numbers, rather than words to communicate, hence why each website has its own numerical code, or IP address. If your computer recognises the IP address it takes you straight to it, if not it needs to refer to the DNS to find it. To ensure that this happens smoothly, these DNS servers need to be carefully managed and maintained, and this is the job of companies such as Dyn, the focus of the attack. The DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack bombarded the server with enough incoming traffic to overwhelm and shut down the server. While there is very little HTML training, the end user, or website owner can do about this type of attack, it is important that the server that is hosting your website is aware that this type of attack is possible, and has solutions and support packages in place, alongside your WordPress training courses.
Not all problems are such large scale, or leave you quite so helpless. There are other elements that you and your server provider do have control over. One such element is ensuring that the server your website is on is properly configured. You need to discuss this in depth with your web design training and server providers and ensure that they work with you to test your website’s security certificate and adjust the server settings accordingly if the tests show that your certificate score needs improvement. If you are unsure, then ask your course provider for advice, they will have the experience and knowledge to be able to point you in the right direction. Of course, it is also important to actually have an SSL certificate in the first place. Not only does this tell users that you are serious about security, it also inforoms Gogle, and other search engines that you are security conscious. As any WordPress expert will tell you, security is becoming an increasingly important aspect in determining website rankings. In addition, you should ensure that you have strong passwords for any admin users and that your WordPress core, themes and plugins are all up to date. Again, if you are unsure of any of these aspects, refer to your WordPress training course provider.
If you take security seriously from the beginning, you greatly reduce the risks to your site, your business and your users. It is not enough to say you take security seriously, you need to act on it too. WordPress training courses are an essential part of this as well as they underpin your understanding of the different elements of WordPress and where you may be vulnerable.