WordPress is a popular CMS (Content Management System) that allows users to easily manage content on their website. Each WordPress installation consists of four main components
Getting Started With WordPress
- The main wordpress software
- The WordPress Themes (Web Design)
- The Website Content (Photos, Writing, Videos, Music)
- WordPress Plugins
Main WordPress Software
The main wordpress software may need to be updated from time to time, (TIP: before any update backup your wordpress database from your domain control panel) The main wordpress software is used to install Themes as well as Plugins (Be aware that you will be responsible for any security issue(s) due to any software installed on your domain hosting) the best thing you can do is to pay the developer(s) for premium versions of the plugins or themes that you install. By doing this you ensure that you can expect support, new versions and fixes.
WordPress Themes & WordPress Plugins
WordPress themes are usually published on https://wordpress.org When you install themes or plugins while logged into your WordPress System, you must never forget that you are on the public Internet and even though you are logged into your WordPress, this does not mean that whatever you do is ‘protected’ as it is not. It is very easy to install plugins and themes and is it also very easy to break your WordPress System. If you send bulk emails from your website, this is counted as emails from your domain and is limited to your fair use contention limits, related to your chosen hosting account. (You may not send bulk emails from your Nkosi Hosting account see our T&C of service – Please use your bulk email account and systems to send bulk emails)
Your Website Content
You need to be aware of what media you load on your website. For example, a client recently started loading hundreds of videos on her website, all on one single page. When a visitor loads that page, all the videos are available at the same time. You need to think what you are trying to achieve and always consider your visitors experience. Will your website load fast?, will your website be easy to navigate? Will users like and have a great experience on your website? Will users easily find the information that they are looking for on your website? Do you publish quality content? Is your content relevant? New? up to date?
Ensure that only you can log into your WordPress system:
There are many ways to achieve this but the easiest is to install a trusted plugin that counts the logins into your wordpress as well as the login failures. If there are too many failures from one location, that location is blocked or prevented from logging in, even with the correct password! This also means that you may block yourself from logging in. You can additionally also add a challenge response system which makes it challenging for bots to attempt login. (Another favorite is to load a fake login page, complete with working Google Capcha, on /wp-admin/ directory that also redirects to wp-login.php. It is always interesting to see how many fake logins there are and as this is completely the wrong place to log in, it cannot do much harm and does provide some additional entertainment during long cold winter nights. (Just remember to copy your php files during general wordpress updates & always make backups of your sql database(s)))