Website security has never been more critical. Hackers, ransomware, and denial of service attacks are all concerns for modern business websites.

Nothing will erode your audience’s trust in you faster than visiting your website and getting a security warning, or having Google flash a “You can’t trust this site” message in your search results.

Even worse, have you ever navigated to a site, started reading, and then been suddenly redirected to some spammy, shady-looking sweepstakes page? Or worse … you try to press the back button, and you can’t?

I have. It’s a pretty good sign that something got hacked on the original site, whether it was the site itself or a piece of code, like an ad script. It definitely makes me think twice about visiting again.

Don’t make your website visitors think twice!

With WordPress, the power of the platform is also the reason that security holes can develop and be exploited. While the ability to mix various themes and plugins with the content management system provides that flexible power, it also increases the potential for malicious access.

So, how can you protect your website from the evildoers who will stop at nothing to harm it for their own nefarious purposes?

The first step below is the most important.

Step #1: Choose a security-focused hosting provider

The most important security-related decision you will make is where you host your website. As you peruse different hosting options, or step back and review your current host from this perspective, ask this simple question:

What does my host bring to the table in terms of security?

You need a host that is specifically designed to provide an integrated environment that keeps your website safe from the bad guys.

What does that look like?

Well, a strong host should essentially take care of the rest of these steps for you. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, right? Absolutely.

You don’t want to stress about security; you want to work on your content to build relationships with your audience members who will hopefully become future customers.

So, let’s look at these other steps and see what your hosting provider should deliver to you.

Step #2: Have automatic WordPress updates in place

The beauty of open source software like WordPress is that there are thousands of people constantly making it better, as well as thousands of eyes looking for security issues.

But it’s generally up to you to make sure you update your version of WordPress when there are problems with a previous release.

This means you have to keep track of when WordPress updates are available, back up your site, and then cross your fingers that the update doesn’t bork something. And then do it again a few weeks later when a new update is out.

That’s cumbersome. And it can be stressful. But it’s necessary.

The best solution is hosting your site with a provider that has an automatic update feature — and to turn it on, if it’s not on by default.

Then, your host essentially takes this responsibility and pressure off your plate. That’s good. That’s the value you pay for.

Step #3: Respect the risk presented by themes and plugins

The next question is will the themes or plugins you want to install add security holes?

If your host comes bundled with themes and recommended plugins, like StudioPress Sites does, then you can feel confident that everything will play nicely together and be as secure as it can be.

Shoddy theme and plugin code leads to easy access for hackers. Plus, it can kill your site speed and…