Allow your customers to reach you via Skype (Tutorial on adding the button to WordPress)

Hello friends,

In this tutorial I am going to present to you one convenient way for a communication with your website visitors and current (or potential) customers. I will be covering the steps that you need to go through for WordPress, however the tips that you are going to discover in this post can be applied to other websites as well.

So let’s begin – this tutorial will describe how to add the official Skype Contact Me Button for your WordPress website so that your customers can reach you.

First of all – what is Skype (in case you haven’t heard about it yet)?

Skype is a great technological solution that allows you to communicate with other people (family, friends, co-workers, customers, etc) over the Internet. The program can be used for making free audio and video calls from one Skype client to another as well as chatting and file sharing.

Skype can also be used for calling mobile phones and landlines after the purchase of Skype credit. There is also a business version of the tool.

There are Skype clients for mobile devices, Windows, Linux, Mac, Wearables and Xbox devices. The official website is skype.com.

Skype is quite popular and millions of people worldwide are using it every day.

Second – how to add the official Skype button for WordPress (and any other website)?

Begin by visiting this link. Here you will need to adjust a few settings and when you are done you are going to receive a code that you need to add to your website. But we’ll get back to this in a moment.

Add your Skype Name in the respective field. Next choose what your buttons should do. It can allow your customers to call you directly or to start a chat with you. Of course you may select both functions. Next select the color of the button and its size. After you do this you will get a preview of the Skype Contact Me button as well as the code that I have mentioned above.

Now it’s time to copy it and head to your WordPress website. Add a widget that supports HTML. For example the classic Text Widget is great for this purpose. If you are using a Page Builder you may choose a different widget type (which will also result in the possibility of adding the Skype Contact Me button wherever you want). This code can be added in your theme’s templates as well.

When you do this you have to update your Skype settings so that you can accept incoming calls or chat messages from Skype users that are not currently in your contact list. After this final step the Skype Contact Me button is successfully integrated with your WordPress website and your customers can reach you with ease.

These steps can be applied for any other website type. Simply discover where you can add the code and you are done.

That’s all friends! What do you think of this tutorial? Share any thoughts and questions in the comment section below.

See you soon!

How to secure WordPress content with passwords [Tutorial]

Hello friends,

In this tutorial I will show you how to secure any part of your WordPress content with passwords.

Before we begin, let’s take a moment to discuss why you would want to password protect your content in the first place.

In most cases this is not needed. In fact if you are aiming at generating high traffic to your WordPress website you’d want to have as much content as possible. You’d also want to have fresh content each week and most importantly you’d want your content to be accessible by users and bots.

However in some cases it is worth having some or all of the content hidden from the bots and the public. Here are some example situations:

How to secure WordPress content with passwords?

Option 1: The integrated password protection for WordPress:

This method will work on self-hosted sites as well as on wordpress.com blogs. Simply create a new post or a page. Then click on the “Edit” link next to Visibility and choose the  “Password protected” radio button. Then type your password and you are done! Bear in mind that additional steps are required to hide the password protected content entirely – i.e. from Homepage and Archives. Here is a guide on how to achieve this: Click here.

Add password protection to any WordPress post or page

Option 2: Secure only a portion of the content with passwords:

This method requires a plugin and this means that only self-hosted websites can benefit from it.

Begin by downloading, installing and activating the WordPress plugin Content Protector.

After you do this you will get a new section in your dashboard from where you can enter the plugin’s settings. You may add a message that informs users that part of the content is secured using a password. You may set the password and adjust various other settings as well.

Here are some of the Content Protector capabilities:

Next add shortcodes around the part of the content that you want to be secured using a password and publish it. You may also use the TinyMCE dialog menu in order to add shortcodes without making a mistake.

Option 3: Hide all content completely from non-registered users:

This can be achieved for self-hosted sites only. You need a plugin like WP Maintenance Mode. However I personally do not recommend this option. Use it only for maintenance modes only.

So what do you think, friends? Share any thoughts and questions in the comment form below.

See you soon!

How to quickly restore Facebook comments to your WordPress website after migration to SSL

Hello friends,

In today’s post I will share with you one quick and easy to apply fix for your “lost” Facebook comments after you’ve managed to move your website to SSL.

Before we begin – let’s define when this tutorial will be useful for you.

First of all you have to be using Facebook comments for your WordPress website. As you know from our previous posts on the topic, this is a great way to allow more people to get involved with your content without the need of additional registrations. Also each Facebook comment increases the popularity of your website within the social media.

For the purpose of this tutorial you may need to use the plugin “Facebook Comments”. Read more about it here: Facebook Comments for WordPress.

Second – this tutorial will be useful if you have just migrated from non-SSL to a SSL version of your WordPress website by using the “Really Simple SSL” plugin. Read how to achieve this from our post: Really Simple SSL – the proper way to secure WordPress.

Now let’s assume that you have been using Facebook Comments for a while before the migration to SSL. You have set up the plugin correctly and your visitors have commented on your website at least once and you are sure that the comments have been displayed correctly. Then you have decided to migrate to SSL and the comments are gone.

This is where our tutorial begins. Prepare to learn how to quickly restore Facebook comments to your WordPress website after migration to SSL!

Your Facebook comments are not lost! You can check them out in your moderation tool. They may have been disabled or hidden, but they are still there. Re-enable them if needed and then return to your WordPress website.

Create a child theme if you haven’t done this already. This will ensure that your Facebook comments won’t get lost again during your theme’s update. If you have set up your child theme successfully simply create a new functions.php file for it. This can be a blank file (i.e. without any content in it). Save it and then edit it.

Add the following code:

function rsssl_exclude_http_url($html) { 
//replace the https url back to http 
$html = str_replace('data-href="https://www.domain.com', 'data-href="http://www.domain.com', $html); 
return $html; 
} 
add_filter("rsssl_fixer_output","rsssl_exclude_http_url");

Change domain.com to your website’s domain name (with or without www). Do this for both entries (http and https) in the code above. Save the file and clear your cache.

Reload the post or page where you were certain that you had Facebook comments before the migration to SSL. They should be back once again.

In case you are not using a child theme you can add this code to your main functions.php file and save it. However when your theme gets updated this code will be lost and you will need to re-enter it once again.

That’s all friends! For more information and other solutions for the “lost” Facebook comments after migrating to SSL for your WordPress website, please read this post: How to recover Facebook likes after moving to https/ssl.

If you have any questions or other feedback, please share them in the comment section below. See you soon, friends!

How to lower the bounce rate of your WordPress website

Hello friends,

Do you get high bounce rate reports in Google Analytics? And do you want to know how to lower it?

Then you are reading the right post at TheCMSPlace! Here I will present to you several steps that will allow you to lower the bounce rate of your WordPress website.

Before we begin, we must discuss what bounce rate is.

Let’s imagine the following situation – you visit a page on a website. Then you decide to leave the website immediately by either closing your browser window or moving to a new tab or website. In any of these cases you have made a bounce because you didn’t visited any other page on this specific website. Each bounce increases the percentage of the overall bounce rate and if it is too great then this might be a bad ranking signal for the search engine bots and your SEO strategy will suffer.

There is also a bounce rate metric for any of your website’s pages and its purpose is to define which of your pages are causing more bounces.

What is the difference between bounce rate and exit rate?

Bounce is a immediate leave without any interactions. Exit means that the visitor has made some interactions with your website’s pages and has left the website from one specific page.

Is the zero or extremely low bounce rate a good thing?

First of all you might never experience such a result or let’s just say that this happens very rarely. There is always a fair amount of bounces. But if you encounter such metrics then you should know that the extremely low (or zero) bounce rate is just as bad as the extremely high one. In this case there might be some problem with your analytics tracking code. For example you may have inserted it more than once in the code of your pages. This will send a negative ranking signal so make sure that you discover the problem and fix it as soon as possible.

Remember – a fair amount of bounces is always something normal.

Now to the main point – how to lower the bounce rate of your WordPress website?

If it is too high then you need to make sure that your visitors can interact with your pages. First of all you should consider improving your content. Write useful posts that your visitors will read. Use suitable images and language. Make sure that your text is in a suitable tone and that there are no punctuation and grammar mistakes. Insert videos that are related to your main topic. There needs to be something in your posts that the visitors will interact with!

Once you do this then its time to imrpove the internal link structure of your posts and pages. This is very important for various reasons. It is extremely useful to provide links to related or similar posts in any post/page of your website. Also your menu structure should allow your visitors to reach any page with a single click or two clicks at maximum.

You can find more information about this in point 5 of our post 7 ways to improve your WordPress On-Page SEO.

There you will also find suitable solutions in the form of plugins that will allow you to build better internal links in order to reduce your overall bounce rate.

Another useful technique is to show popups that will ask the visitor to interact with your content before leaving. You may ask them to subscribe for your newsletter or to check a special offer or something else.

A suitable plugin for this purpose is OptinMonster. It is a premium optin popup tool created for marketing purposes. In our specific case you will be able to ask your visitors to make some interactions before they leave your website. And who knows they might even like to stay a while longer and even return regularly.

OptinMonster

Another suitable plugin is Icegram. It is free and you might just find it the best solution for your WordPress website.

Icegram - a popup plugin for WordPress

Last but not least – make sure that you are using your widget areas wisely. Putting a useful content there will also help you reduce your bounce rate. This might be more internal links for related articles or a some social media plugin.

So there you have it friends. If you have any questions or other feedback, please share them in the comment section below. Thank you and see you soon!

How to move your WordPress website

Hello friends,

In this post I will show you several ways of moving your WordPress website to another hosting and/or domain.

Let’s begin with the manual way of doing this.

For this to happen you will need the following set of tools:

OK – now let’s view the three possible options:

Option 1 – Your domain name, URL’s and database user will be the same. Only the hosting will be different.

In this case you need to open phpMyAdmin and export your database file. The procedure is extremely simple and can be done even by beginners. Here is a tutorial on this on the official WordPress codex website. On this link you will find out how to export your database if you are using another tool as well.

Then you need to download your website’s WordPress files and folders using the FTP software of your choice. Once you are done you can upload them on the root folder of the new hosting. Then using phpMyAdmin or a similar tool that you have to upload your database and you are done.

Option 2  – The domain name and the URL’s will be the same. The hosting and the database user will be different.

In this case you have to edit the downloaded wp-config file using the desired text editor. Change the username of the database user according to the settings of the new hosting. Then upload the database and WordPress files and folders.

Option 3 – The domain name, URL’s and the hosting will be different. The database user will remain the same.

In this case you have to make a complete backup of the database and the website’s files and folders. Keep them somewhere safe in case things go wrong. You can also compress the files and folders using the tar.gz compression. Then on the old hosting (and/or domain) you have to log in and change the website URL’s from Settings – General. When you save these changes you should expect a 404 error page. Then make a new export of the database, download all files and folders once again and this time upload all of them to the new hosting. Enter the new domain name and everything should be correct. At least you should have access to the admin panel. If some of the URL’s are not working correctly you need to further change and replace the domain name by using the methods provided here.

Option 4 – The domain name, URL’s, hosting and database user will be different.

Follow the instructions in Step 3. Change the database user as described in Step 2. You are done.

This is the proper way of moving WordPress manually. Now let’s see the possible plugins that can make things easier for your:

This concludes the topic on how to move your WordPress website. We are open for any feedback – questions, opinions, suggestions, etc. You are welcome to use the comment section for this purpose. If you want to help others find out how to move their WordPress websites, you can share this post on social media as well.

Than you and see you soon, friends!

Show icons for your WordPress download links [Tutorial]

Hello friends,

Have you noticed that on some websites you are able to click on a download link that has an icon as well as text (or just an icon)? Do you want to add such links on your WordPress website? If the answer is “Yes” then you are on the right post at TheCMSPlace.com because in it I will show you a couple of ways to achieve this.

Let’s begin with the manual way of adding icons for your WordPress download links:

First of all you need to search the web and find a suitable icon for your download links. You can also add multiple icons if you are going to provide downloads for various documents. Another handy trick is to use only one unique icon that represents the download functionality.

Speaking of suitable icons you should consider different situations:

Having all of these figured out leads us to the next situation – how to add the images to your WordPress website and how to make them as download links.

The first part is quite easy – you just upload the image to your WordPress library and then add it to a post/page at a location of your choice. The “tricky”part is the download link. Basically you can also use the default WordPress functionality to add a link to an uploaded file on your website or at a different location. However in most cases the download dialogue of the browser will not show and the browser will try to open the file in a new window/tab. This might be troublesome especially with PDF files which can be read by any browse out of the box.

To evade this situation (unless of course your goal is to allow the browser to display the file in a new tab/window) you should add the following link structure:

<a href="file link" download target="_blank"><img src="YOUR FILENAME" alt="YOUR ALTERNATIVE TEXT" style="width:Xpx;height:Xpx;border:X;"></a>

This should work flawlessly with most browsers (especially Firefox and Chrome)  and should force the “Save As” dialogue instead of opening the file in new window. However in some older versions the above method may not work correctly.

In the example above you should add the filename of the image, an appropriate alternative text (very important for SEO purposes) and replace X with suitable numbers in the style section of the link structure. Bear in mind that you may need to use the WordPress Text editor to edit an already created image link so that it fits the above example.

And that’s it for this method, friends. You may find it not so much user-friendly especially for WordPress beginner users. That is why you can use another way to achieve a similar effect. In this case you will need the plugin MimeTypes Link Icons.

Download, install and activate it like you always do with WordPress links. Then head to Settings -> MimeType Icons and adjust the image size, image type, and the display position of your image links. The image types that you are able to select from are GIF and PNG. You are also able to add unique images for the different different file downloads.

The advanced settings of this plugin will allow you to modify CSS options. And that’s basically it. Now the plugin will search for any text links that may point to a file that is intended to be downloaded and will add the suitable icon next to that link.

And this information should be enough so that you can start adding download links with icons for your WordPress website. The example in the first method is also suitable for text links as well. Just use download target=”_blank (again added using the Text editor).

What do you think, friends? Do you consider this information enough? Or maybe you know some other ways of achieving this? Share any thoughts, feedback and questions on that matter in the comment form below. Don’t forget to spread the word about this post in social media as well.

See you soon, friends!

Transfer WordPress with All-in-Оne-WP Migration

Sooner or later you may need to change the location of your WordPress installation. This might be caused by the need of a new domain name, new hosting or even transfer to a localhost server so that you may test the future changes on your website.

So no matter what is the reason you need to make sure that your database and files are transferred correctly. There are several ways to achieve this however most of them are not suitable for beginners.

The great news is that there is an extremely user friendly solution that will allow you to move your WordPress to the new location with just a couple of clicks. This plugin will also be useful for backup purposes which is also very important. So without further ado I am pleased to present to you All-in-Оne-WP Migration.

All-in-One WP Migration the user-friendly solution for WordPress transfers and backups.

Like always you need to install and activate the plugin. Then a new section will appear in your WordPress dashboard. It is called All-in-One WP Migration. You need to click on it.

The settings subsection for All-in-One WP Migration in the WordPress Dashboard

Once you do this you will be automatically redirected to the “Export” subsection. Please do note that there are two more subsections available: “Import” and “Backups”.

The Export subsection for All-in-One WP Migration. Here you generate the backup file that may be used to restore your installation or to transfer it to another server.

On the “Export” subsection you can choose what text to find and replace in the database and you can add multiple strings using the Add button. You can also set advanced options for the export.

You can choose between:

After this is the “Export to” button. Again you need to choose between:

In most cases “File” will be more than sufficient so let’s click on this option. A new window appears and All-in-One WP Migration is doing its work. After this is completed you can download your file and use it to do the migration on the new server.

How to do this?

First of all you need to download the file that All-in-One WP Migration has generated. It contains a backup of your files and your database. Then create a new WordPress installation on the new server. Do not worry about the details – just go with simple admin user details and default WordPress settings. Complete the installation and then install and activate All-in-One WP Migration on it. Then head to the “Import” subsection and either drag&drop the generated file or click on the “Import from” button and select “File”.

The Import subsection of All-in-One WP Migration will allow you to easily make the transfer of your installation or to restore it.

As you can see you can also choose from:

Then All-in-One WP Migration will begin the transfer of the files and the database and after the plugin has completed its work your old website will be transferred on 100% to the new server. Everything will be replaced correctly without any difficulties. Just sit back, relax and let All-in-One WP Migration do its job.

Now let’s check what is in the “Backups” subsection.

The Backups subsection of All-in-One WP Migration will allow you to manage the generated backup/transfer files.

In it you will see the generated files that are ready to be downloaded. You are also presented with information about the remaining disk space on your server. For each backup you can choose whether to download the file, restore it or simply free more space by deleting it.

Additional information:

As you can see the usage of  All-in-One WP Migration is extremely easy and user friendly. But there are some things that you need to be aware of.

First of all this awesome plugin is free but you are limited to only 512 mb for a transfer. This means that if your WordPress installation is bigger than the default size you need to purchase the premium version of the plugin or you need to make the transfer using other methods. For most of the websites the 512 mb limit is not a problem and you should be just fine with the free version.

The second thing to be aware of is the encoding of the file names in your WP gallery. If they contain any non-latin characters the plugin may not be able to back them up correctly and this will cause problems later on.

If you intend to rely on All-in-One WP Migration for backup purposes I would recommend to have another backup option available just in case. You can use BackWPup for this purpose.

Another important moment is related to the caching plugin that you are using. If possible stop the caching process and clear the cache before making an export file with All-in-One WP Migration.

So this is it friends! Happy transfers and don’t forget to share your thoughts on the plugin in the comments below.

See you soon.

How to troubleshoot WordPress white screen of death

Every WordPress user had encountered this problem. All of a sudden your WordPress website turns into a white screen and there is no way for you to access your dashboard. Don’t worry – there are few techniques that can get you out from this horror movie.

In order to troubleshoot this issue you need to know the reason that stands behind this occurrence.

You have exhausted your memory limit

Your memory resources are consumed mainly by the plugins that you’ve installed. This means that certain plugins can be problematic. There are three ways in which you can increase your memory limit:

1.Increase your memory limit using the wp-config.php file.

Include this code into your wp-config.php

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

You can determine your own memory limit – in the example above the memory limit is set to 64M.

2.Increase your memory limit using the php.ini file

If you have access to your php.ini file edit the following lines:

memory_limit = 64M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (64MB)

3.Increase your memory limit with the use of the .htaccess file

Add this piece of code:

php_value memory_limit 64M

Warning: Always make a backup before editing your files.

There are plugins that can determine your current memory usage inside your WordPress Dashboard.
You can try Server IP & Memory Usage Display. This plugin shows your current memory usage and your memory limit. This way you can properly adjust your resources.

There is an issue with a plugin.

The problem may be related to a plugin that you have installed or updated recently. If you don’t remember when the error occurred and what have you done before the occurrence, try this steps.

  1. Access your website using a FTP client-ex. FileZilla
  2. Navigate to wp-content
  3. Rename your plugins folder to plugins_old – this will deactivate all your plugins.
  4. See if you can access your website. If you your website is back to normal there is a problem with a certain plugin.
  5. Rename the plugins_old folder back to plugins.
  6. Open the plugins folder and deactivate one by one your plugins by renaming them to your_plugin_name_old. Every time when you rename a plugin try to access your website. This way you can determine which plugin is causing the problems.

If this doesn’t solve your problem proceed further.

There is a problem with your theme

Your theme can be the cause of your problems. In order to deactivate it follow those steps:

  1. Access your website through FTP.
  2. Navigate to the wp-content/themes/ and rename your wordpress theme to your_wordpress_theme_old. This will activate your default WordPress theme.

Activate the debug function of WordPress

You can always activate your WordPress debug function. This way an error log will be displayed on your white screen. You can use this for determining the cause of your problems. You can also copy those errors and google them.

Paste this code inside your wp-config.php file:

error_reporting(E_ALL); ini_set('display_errors', 1); define( 'WP_DEBUG', true);

If none of the steps above fix your problem, your WordPress core files may be corrupted. Replace your wp-admin and wp-includes folders with fresh copies downloaded from wordpress.org. To do this you have to use a FTP client.

Conclusion

With the use of these techniques you have very good chances to fix this error. You have to pay attention to the actions that you’ve made before the error occurred. This way you can determine the cause of WordPress white screen of death.

If none of the above steps helped you restore your website from a backup.

Do you have some thoughts regarding this topic. Feel free to share them in the comments field below.

How to secure your WordPress website

WordPress is the most widely spread CMS system. It has numerous options for customization and great diversity of themes and plugins both free and premium. More than 74 million websites run on WordPress, making it the most popular Content Management System (CMS). Installing a WordPress website is rather easy, but not many users know how to properly secure their installation.

In this article we will discuss how to secure your wordpress installation without the use of plugins.

The reasons for your website being hacked fall in three main categories:

Insecure web server

The choice of a hosting provider is very important. Almost half of the hacking attempts are being caused by outdated and improperly configured web servers. It’s crucial to pick a reliable hosting provider that cares about security. You can choose from general hosting providers like Hostgator or you can go with more specialized ones for WordPress like Wpengine or Siteground. The web host is the foundation on which you are going to build your website and you want those foundations to be sturdy. You can choose from different hosting solutions like Shared hosting, VPS (Virtual private server) or Dedicated server. If you don’t know what is the difference between them you can check here.

Most entry level users prefer shared hosting because it’s more affordable (starting from 5$ a month) and goes with provided support. Even if your web host is properly configured and secured, being a shared web server makes it more vulnerable to security threats because your website is being hosted with many others. The corruption of one website may lead to the hacking of many others.

Users that have more advanced knowledge and are in need for more resources go with VPS or even with Dedicated servers. If properly configured, they can provide better security. On the down side they are more costly, especially the managed versions in which you get support and a control panel for controlling your websites.

Your choice of a web hosting provider has to be based on your needs for resources, security and support.

Poorly coded themes and plugins

The choice of a good theme is also very important. Always pick the theme that best suits your needs. This way you won’t be going to need to install additional plugins, making your website more secure and light. The use of many plugins leads to more possibilities for your website being hacked – the less the better. Apart from that, always download your themes from reputable developers known for their good coding skills! This way you can be sure that your website is properly protected.

If you have a bad theme or a bad plugin which makes your website vulnerable to hackers, no matter how well your webserver or website is being secured, you are going to be hacked.

Most of the times your website will be injected with a script that turns your website and server into a Spammy Email Sender, thus possibly leading to your webserver being blacklisted. This is very frustrating because all the Emails send from a blacklisted server go to the spam folder.

Bad login credentials

You’ll be surprised how many people use passwords like: password, 123456789, 987654321 etc. Always pick passwords that consist of upper and lowercase letters and digits and avoid dictionary words.

When you choose your username never go for the default admin-a person or an automated attack will always first go for the admin username.

Steps for hardening your wordpress website security:

I. Using the correct file permissions

Using your ftp client you have to make sure your wordpress folders are set to 755 or 750 and your files to 644 or 640. Your wp-config.php file needs to have 600 permissions. Giving a folder or a file a higher value can lead to potential security threat.

II. Editing wp-config.php

In order for you to install a wordpress website you need to edit the wp-config.php file. This file is very important for the security of your website. It holds information about your wordpress user and database. With it you can also secure your wordpress website.

The first step is to generate your salt keys. Salt keys improve the encryption of the information that is stored in the user’s cookies and also make your passwords harder to crack so don’t be lazy and just do it.

Follow this link and generate your salt keys https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/

The default table prefix for wordpress is wp_. You should change it to something different. This way no one can guess it easily.

This will work only on a newly installed wordpress website. If you want to change the table prefix on an existing wordpress website you have to access your database through phpMyAdmin.

Once you get there, you’ll have to run this SQL script.

phpmyadmin-sql-rename

Next you need to update your usermeta and options tables:

phpmyadmin_sql-update

Don’t forget to check whether you’ve changed your database prefix in wp-config.php. Otherwise wordpress will attempt to make another installation.

Deactivating wordpress plugin and theme editor

It’s a good idea to deactivate your inbuilt wordpress editor. If someone manages to get into your dashboard, you don’t want him to be able to change files.

Add this code in your wp-config.php

If you are a security freak you can also disable the ability for a user to update and upload plugins and themes through the wordpress dashboard. In order to do this add:

III. Hardening your wordpress security through the .htaccess file

By using the .htaccess you can change the way your webserver operates. Through it you can configure your pretty permalinks. It is also the main tool for hardening your wordpress security. Most of the wordpress security plugins use the .htaccess file to do their job.

If you can’t find the .htaccess file through your ftp client you have to make sure that the option for seeing hidden files is enabled.

When editing your .htaccess file it’s a good idea to make a backup first. Also, don’t forget to add the code snippets OUTSIDE the WordPress #BEGIN and #END tags. Otherwise your code can be changed by WordPress itself.

1. Securing your wp-config.php file

As stated above your wordpress wp-config.php file is very important. So securing it is a good idea. In order to achieve this add the following code:

2. Restricting access to your wordpress admin area to a specific IP

This is an excellent way to secure your wordpress website. By doing this you can control from where and by whom your wordpress admin area can be accessed. You can add as many IP addresses as you like. In order to do this you have to create a new .htaccess file and put it into the wp-admin folder. Edit the .htaccess file and insert this code. If you insert this code in your main .htaccess file in the root directory of your website your users won’t be able to access your website.

3. Blocking users by IP address

If you want to prevent a certain user from accessing your website you can block him by using his IP address:

4. Blocking bad user agents and IP addresses

You want to block these users form accessing your website. They are proved to be spammy and malicious. Put this code into your .htaccess file.

Those Blacklists are created by Jeff Starr – you can check his work on https://perishablepress.com/

5. Securing your wp-includes directory

The wp-includes folder contains some important files and It is a good idea to secure them:

6. Disabling browser listing

You don’t want malicious users to be able to see your folders and files structure. Because of that you have to disable it. You can achieve this by using the following code in your .htaccess file:

7. Protecting the .htaccess file

The last thing we need to do is to protect our .htaccess file:

Another way for you to add extra security to your website is to hide your login page. By doing this you secure your website from Brute force attacks. You can do it with the help of some wordpress plugins. This article can give you additional information on this topic.

IV. Always do a backup

No matter how secured you wordpress website is, you have to remember that bad things can happen. By using these techniques you minimize the chance for your website to be compromised to a large degree. However, there is always a chance for something to go wrong. So the best advice I can give you is to always make a full backup of your website and database. This way in case your website gets compromised you can bring it back to normal. Don’t rely solely on your Hosting company for doing your backups. There are some great plugins out there like UpdraftPlus Backup that allow you to back up your website to Google Dropbox, Google Drive , Amazon Cloud Drive etc. You can also backup it by using FTP to anywhere you want.

V. Update your wordpress installation

Don’t forget to always keep your installation to the last available version. This way your website will be more secured. It’s a good idea to make a backup before you update your wordpress website, especially if it’s a major update.

Conclusion

Following these steps will harden your wordpress website by making it more resilient to hacking attempts. Always use unique usernames and passwords, be mindful from where you access your website (it’s a bad idea to access it through unprotected public networks) and always make a full backup of your website.

If you have some insights on this topic feel free to share them in the comments field below.