Small business owners are very busy. The last thing they think about is WordPress usernames.
But there are steps you must take to ensure that your website is protected. Most owners don’t think much about security – until they are hacked.
Is a website on the internet hack-proof? No.
But there are little steps you can take that make your website harder to hack.
Parts of website security are really complicated. But there are some parts that are not.
Take, for instance, usernames for WordPress websites. I’ll show you how this one little change will make your website harder to hack.
WordPress Usernames
In your WordPress website dashboard, scroll down to “Users”.
Maybe you have one user (you). Maybe you have many. Whatever the case, click on one of the usernames.
You will come to the following screen:
In this case, the Display name and the username are the same. This means that any time you post a blog post – your “display name” gives the hackers your usernames. That’s one half of the login to your website! One small change in your settings will change it.
Usernames can’t be changed once you’ve set them. Select a “Nickname” for your username – that is nothing like it. The Nickname should be completely different from the username. Then, for the “Display name publicly as,” select the nickname.
Simple, right? This one change on your website makes it a little harder for hackers. You will need to implement this change for all users – not just you. Especially those users that have administrative privileges.
Will this stop your website being hacked? Not necessarily.
Will this one change make it harder to hack? Yes.
Think about it – hackers like to find those websites that are easy to hack. Don’t make your website the easiest one on the block to hack!
Instead make a couple of tweaks and have those hackers going down the road looking for an easier website to hack.
For more information about the “Users” function in WordPress, check out WordPress’ own codex.