Discoverability is key to any website’s success. While word-of-mouth attracts your most valuable visitors, search engine optimization still does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to driving traffic. SEO optimization, in most people’s eyes, typically focuses on quality content and optimizing for mobile, but they often forget to consider the importance of a website’s cybersecurity. They should, as a secure website is equal to an attractive website.
In this article, we explain why this is so. More importantly, we offer practical advice on leveraging cybersecurity to dominate the battlefield of SERPs.
A Secure Website’s Many SEO Benefits
Implementing strong cybersecurity measures on your website is fundamental to shielding it against digital threats. Because of this, improved SEO rankings are a welcome side effect that grows as every aspect of your website becomes more secure.
For example, the last thing you want is for search engines like Google to blacklist your website. This would effectively remove it from Google’s search results, severely impacting traffic. Websites that don’t use secure protocols like HTTPS and lack the SSL certification necessary for encrypted visitor interactions are much more susceptible to code injection and malware attacks. Google recognizes and punishes this.
Without proper cybersecurity measures, your site could also become the target of prolonged DDoS attacks. Its continued downtime is a sign of unreliability, and search engines will penalize it with lower rankings. It’s similar to loading speeds – the slower your site loads, the more people will abandon it before entering. Search engines interpret the resulting increase in bounce rate as a sign that the site isn’t meeting expectations, lowering its standing accordingly.
User perception also plays an impactful role. Someone who encounters a security warning before visiting your site is far less inclined to interact with it. They are even less willing to stay on your site long enough to have a positive experience, let alone write about it elsewhere and attract more organic traffic. Likewise, other websites may avoid backlinking to yours, which can further negatively impact your site’s legitimacy and reach.
How to Make Your Website More Secure & SEO-Friendly
Optimum website security comes down to the right settings and healthy cybersecurity habits. Here are the essentials.
Obtain SSL certification
Start by ensuring your site is properly encrypted through SSL. Obtaining a certificate is straightforward and should be part of your host’s plan. Once you have one, your website’s address will start with https and have a lock next to it. Search engines prioritize the former in search results, while the latter is a simple but effective visual representation of safety users have come to trust.
Use firewalls & DDoS protection
Next, set up a web application firewall (WAF). It’s indispensable for monitoring incoming malicious traffic and stopping attacks like cross-site scripting and SQL injection. Many WAF solutions also integrate with load balancers, which optimize loading times and help manage traffic surges.
But while handling increased traffic is important, not all traffic is legitimate. As mentioned before, malicious actors can launch DDoS attacks to flood your server with fake requests, causing downtime and affecting your rankings. That’s why dedicated DDoS protection is just as essential for keeping your site secure and operational.
Protect admin accounts
Protecting your admin account is paramount, as having direct access to your website lets attackers do everything from outright taking it over to introducing harmful links into your content or engaging in negative SEO.
Make sure you’re using a complex and unique password for the admin account. If you’re on WordPress or another popular CMS, you’ll also want to change the default login page.
Password security goes beyond the site itself, however. The associated CMS, email accounts, and databases all need secure access, which is easiest to set up with a password manager. The manager will create and store complex, unique passwords for all essential accounts.
Moreover, you can use it to set up 2FA to strengthen account security. They also allow you to temporarily share access with associates like guest blog writers without worrying about subsequent credential safety. For a more efficient approach, consider a password manager for IT teams that’s designed to ensure streamlined password management across your entire business.
Secure your connection
Where and how you access the site is also crucial to consider when discussing your website’s cybersecurity. You wouldn’t want to administer it while connected to public Wi-Fi or a similarly unsafe network that makes monitoring, cloning, and extracting valuable information a cakewalk.
If you need to access sensitive parts of the site while on the go, use a VPN. It adds state-of-the-art encryption to any outgoing and incoming data traffic, preventing snoops from knowing what you’re doing online and stealing anything usable from your session. To choose the best VPN option, thoroughly research at least a few providers before making your decision.
Conclusion
Closely tying your website’s SEO performance to its cyber resilience is always a winning strategy. You get to protect yourself and visitors from data breaches, malware, and identity theft while offering a safer, more responsive environment that visitors can gush about. Put the tips we outline above to good use and reap the long-term benefits.