When building your author website, you’ll carefully select your theme, typeface, and color scheme. As a writer, you’ll agonize over every sentence. But, while the creative elements of a website may be well in hand, many writers are not as savvy about the technical security aspects of smart web design.

If your author website isn’t protected and secure, it can be dangerous—not just for you, but for anyone who visits your website. Web Design Relief presents the 411 on website security issues.

How Your Author Website Gets Hacked

An author website is basically made of files stored somewhere in the world on a computer. That computer then publishes those files for everyone to see in the form of a website. But, for any computer connected to the Internet, skilled hackers can gain access and control over the files inside your website. They can then upload their own nasty files and redirect your website to scam other websites—damaging your website’s credibility.

At this point, your website’s host company will take action. Many hosting companies do not claim responsibility for the files you host. So when they realize your site’s been compromised because the files are deemed inappropriate or potentially dangerous, the hosting company can—and will—end your service contract. You’ll lose access to your website and possibly all of your files stored on their servers.

Until the security breach is fixed, your website will be deemed unsafe. Your host company will freeze your account and unpublish your website.

Ways To Keep Your Author Website Secure

Strong password protection. Make sure your website has strong password protection. This includes the login information with your webhost.

Quality web hosting. Confirm your webhost is providing a firewall for your server that will help mitigate the typical hacker attacks.

At Web Design Relief we recommend running your website on WordPress, which has an amazing Content Management System.

Smart security plugins. Having the right plugins in place will help fight hacker attacks. At the very least, a good plugin will notify you about attacks on your website. Using plugins such as Wordfence Security and Anti-Malware will safeguard both you and your visitors.

Up-to-date software. Check that your website is always running the latest software releases. Keeping your author website current is one of the services offered in our Web Design Relief Hosting Care Package.

Secure contact form. You want to have a way for your website visitors to contact you. Rather than listing your personal email on your website, use a contact form. This will protect you from spam and dangerous phishing attempts on your personal information.

One way to weed out spam is to use CAPTCHA on your website’s contact form. This tool will protect you against thousands of spam attacks, which could debilitate your email inbox in minutes.

A New Day…A New Spam Attack—And What To Do About It

Unfortunately, new and unpredictable ways of breaking your website security are constantly being developed by hackers. No website is 100% immune to attack.

But if you remain vigilant and informed, you have a better chance of staying a step ahead of hackers who want to hijack your author website.

If you want to put your website security into the hands of caring tech experts who understand the unique needs of writers, Web Design Relief can help. We host the websites we create for our clients and take full responsibility for the safety and protection for the sites under our care.

We take your website’s safety seriously and are up to date with the most recent security techniques. Schedule a free consultation with our experts today!

Question: What are some of the ways you protect your website?