Why is secure web hosting important?
You can have the most advanced, feature-rich website on the internet, but without a reliable and secure hosting provider, the security and uptime of your website can be compromised.
Insecure web hosts are often targeted by hackers and malware. This means that if the host’s security is compromised, hackers can gain access to all information on the server.
A secure and fast hosting provider will keep your customers happy while keeping sensitive information safe. For this reason, we recommend that you switch to a hosting provider you can count on.
Symptoms of bad or insecure hosting:
1. Large amounts of downtime:
A good Web host should keep your website up and running at all times, allowing visitors to access information whenever they need to. A site with lots of downtime will see less conversions, reduced traffic and a decrease in Google ranking (SEO).
Below are some ways you can track your site’s uptime:
- Look for unusual changes in web traffic.
- Use a site monitoring tool such as Uptime Robot
- Keep an eye on customer feedback regarding the reliability of your site.
2. Slow load times
In a lot of cases, a slow website is just as bad as a website that doesn’t load at all. This is because visitors are used to pages that load quickly. According to Google, 53% of users abandon sites that take over 3 seconds to load, affecting total traffic, bounce rate and SEO.
A good web host will allow your websites to load quickly. Good hosts achieve this by assigning more resources, allowing GZip compression and decreasing time to first byte (TTFB).
3. Lack of security options:
Hosting with little or no security options can leave your website vulnerable to malware and attacks.
A good web host will offer their users a variety of ways to improve their site’s security. This will often include:
- The ability to use a free SSL certificate such as Let’s Encrypt
- The option to block certain IP addresses from accessing your website
- Hotlink protection – Prevents other sites from pulling content (images, etc) from your server.
- DDoS protection – High levels of traffic can slow down or deny access to your site. DDoS protection helps to prevent this from happening.
4. Lack of modern and updated software
For websites that are built on WordPress to run correctly, it is important that your hosting provider gives you access to the latest software. To keep your website secure and fast, we recommend a host with the following updated features:
- The latest PHP version – PHP is the code that WordPress is built upon. The newest versions of PHP will offer protection from exploits, allowing your site to be more secure. Newer PHP versions also allow for quicker load times on most WordPress websites.
- The latest version of MySQL or MariaDB – WordPress stores all page/post content and user information in s database that is separate to the website’s main file hierarchy. It is important that these databases remain secure and functional to protect important information such as passwords, user data and page content.
- Easy to use control panel – Most hosting providers give users a control panel which allows them to easily access files, install software such as WordPress and alter the settings of their websites. Common control panels include Plesk and CPanel. If your website is missing this control panel or it doesn’t function properly, otherwise simple operations can take a much longer amount of time.
- Support for custom SSL certificates – An SSL certificate encrypts information that is sent to and from your website, keeping it secure. Unfortunately, a lot of hosting providers will try to lock you into using their highly priced SSL certificates. A good host will let you upload a custom SSL certificate that matches your needs. This means that you have the option of saving money by using a free SSL certificate.
We provide secure web hosting that you can count on:
Are you or your business looking for secure and fast web hosting options that you can rely on? If so, we can help! The team at OPMC understand you want to spend your time running your business, rather than spending time trying to sort out issues with your website’s hosting. For this reason, we invest a lot of time and resources to ensure our systems and services improve over time.
With our help, we can make your website secure and keep your data safe. This will save you time while we focus on keeping your site running. If you are looking for good web hosting, or want to see how we can help with your hosting issues, please feel free to contact us today!
You can call us on (02) 9955 2237 or click the button below to send us a message.