Your website is essential. It's valuable for you and, of course, for your readers. So, if anything happens to it, you are the one who will lose the most. Now, it's not that we're trying to scare you, but your site is at risk. More than 30,000 cyberattacks happen each day. Hence, you can't go through life with the "it won't happen to me" mentality. Don't think that you're too small of a fish for them to mess with you. Small businesses are their targets as much as big guys. So, what you need is a guide on how to protect your website from hackers in 2021.

And that's exactly what we've got for you today. You've learned how to run a website, you follow the best SEO strategies, and you have given your heart and soul to this thing. The last thing you want is to lose all of it in a split second. And with all that ransomware floating around on the internet, it's a thing that can happen. But to make sure it doesn't happen to you, here's what you need to know.

Use a good firewall

You might imagine a hacker as someone who goes online and searches for the sites to hack. However, this isn't how things really are. Most of the time, they create bots that sniff out vulnerable sites. So, the process is pretty much automated. But, these bots are programmed in a certain way. They don't have a mind of their own, and they do just the specific actions. Because of this, a good firewall can stop them.

In essence, the firewall is a code that detects malicious requests. No matter what kind of request for information we're talking about, it always goes through it. So if the code smells something fishy, it will block the request, and it won't be processed. If you want to protect your website from hackers in 2021, you need a firewall to do it.

Don't change the firewall configuration

Some firewalls allow you to configure them as much as you want. But, if you aren't a website security professional, don't even think about doing this. A lot of research and thought has gone into creating firewall rules. And if you remove some of the vital ones, you'll be in big trouble.For example, most WordPress firewalls have a rule that prevents anyone without administrator access to access the ''wp-config.php'' file. This file is the core of any WordPress site, and it holds plenty of valuable information. However, you can turn this rule off with a simple click of the mouse.

And the worst thing is that you can do it unintentionally. You might compromise your website security and not even know it. And when you put it like that, it doesn't come as a surprise that the expert advice on this matter is not to touch anything if you don't know what you're doing. Website maintenance and website security in particular is a serious job, and you need to understand this. Your best bet here is to hire a professional to do it for you. It might seem expensive, but retrieving your site from hackers will be much more costly. You can be sure of that.

Have a strong password and use a password manager

You'd be surprised with how many websites get hacked just because their password was weak. Easy to guess passwords are your worst enemies, and think about them this way. Hackers even have long lists of these, and they use them to perform ''dictionary attacks''. These are the most basic attacks out there. But there are many other ways to hack a password. So, if you want to protect your website from hackers in 2021, use strong passwords.

And what does such a thing look like? Basically, you want to have a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. The more uncommon your password is, the less the possibility it has to be cracked. If you do your job correctly, brute force algorithms will need years to decode it. And that's precisely what you want.

There are also many plugins you can use to enforce strong passwords from all your WordPress users. Don't be afraid to use them. They add another layer of security, which is always a good thing.

Monitor admin users

Most people think that hackers break into a site, install malware, and then leave. But unfortunately, this is not how they do things. Instead, they'll create a ghost account with all the privileges. This way, they can come back to your site whenever they want. So, even if you read the ultimate guide to generate revenue from a blog, you won't be able to make any money if there's always someone on your site who sabotages you.

Luckily, it's easy to solve this issue. The only thing you need to do is reviewing and removing WordPress users regularly. Now, this can be a daunting task if you have a big team working on your site. But, it's more than worth it. Delete the users who don't contribute to your site, and you'll be just fine.

However, there's no reason to stop there. You see, if one of your admins falls prey to a phishing scam, your site will be in danger. To avoid this, utilize the WordPress user roles. With them, you can restrict access as much as you want. If someone's an author, they don't need admin privileges. Leave that only for the people who really need them.

Install SSL on your site

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol that encrypts all the information that comes to and goes from your website. So, even if a hacker manages to intercept some data, they won't understand it. In fact, they won't have a clue what they're looking at. That's how good this thing is. It's a website security equivalent of a computer trick for Windows every geek must know.

One more great thing about this protocol is that it protects your users and readers as well. It also gives you the ''s'' in your ''https'', and a padlock in the address bar. So, you'll even get a visual confirmation that your site is secure.

Conclusion

These are pretty much all the things you can do on your own to protect your website from hackers in 2021. Of course, you can add many more layers of protection to your site. But, you'll need professional help to do it. Things get a lot more complicated, and the chance for error is high. Hence, it's not something you want to cut your teeth on. On the other hand, implementing the simple things we have talked about today will get you a long way. So, get on it right away.