There are some adds which automatically create and maintain backups of your website so that you have a usable copy if something were to go wrong. Given that attacks on websites are increasing by the day, it’s good to ensure that you do everything possible to fortify your website.
Best add-ons for your website
- Sitelock
Sitelock Security is a website protection tool that’s been specifically designed for small and medium-sized businesses. Sitelock provides an array of specialized tools to keep your website secure. These include daily scanning, malware scanning, blacklist monitoring, malware removal, file-level scanning, and SQL injection protection.
Sitelock also provides a badge indicating that it is actively protecting your website. This badge is displayed prominently on your site, and it increases consumer trust in your brand. People are more comfortable buying and interacting with a security-certified website.
- Codeguard
Codeguard Website Backup is an automatic website backup application. As mentioned earlier, website backups are crucial. If you were to lose your website’s data, you would need a working, usable copy of your site to restore it. Backups help you do that.
Codeguard, however, allows you to forget about the arduous task of creating a backup periodically, maintaining it, and checking if it works. It automates the entire backup process. You install it once, and you’re done.
When you install Codeguard, it’ll take a complete backup of your website. Once that’s done, it starts tracking your site daily. Whenever there’s a change, it records that change and implements it to the backup copy. The advantage of this method is that you always have the latest copy of your website available.
So, even if you lose your data, you won’t ever lose more than one day’s worth.
- SSL certificate
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. The best way to know if a website is SSL certified is to look at the browser’s address bar. If you see a green padlock, it means that the site is SSL certified.
An SSL certificate ensures that your customers’ data, whatever it may be, is encrypted. When the viewer enters any information, it gets encrypted, and only the server can decrypt it. It ensures that MiM (Man in the Middle) attacks — where they steal data in transit — are mitigated.
- CDN (Content Delivery Network)
A Content Delivery Network is most useful for a website that has a global audience. For sites with low and local traffic, CDNs aren’t of much use.
A CDN is a collection of edge servers that store a cached copy of your website. These edge servers are deployed across different points on the globe. It ensures that users around the world get the best performance and speed from your website.
One of the limiting factors for a website’s speed is its physical distance from the user. So, a site that has a server in New York is faster in the US than it is India. It takes time for the data to travel from the server to the user, and that increases the load time.
Enabling a CDN on your website solves this problem. The edge server that is closest to the user will cater to the requests. This way, users across the globe get high load speeds.
- SSD storage
SSDs or Solid State Drives are storage devices that are an alternative to the traditional Hard Disk Drives (HDD). HDDs have moving parts like rotating disks and a reader head in them. It limits their performance in terms of how fast they can read or write data. It also introduces an element of wear and tear, given that there’s constant movement. It means that they’re bound to fail sooner rather than later.
SSDs have no moving parts in them. The technology of storing data is fundamentally different. The result is that they are a lot faster than HDDs. They’re also more likely to outlast any HDD. SSDs are no longer the storage devices of tomorrow, but they’re in use today. More and more websites are now using SSD storage to enhance the speed of their websites. You should be considering it too.
- DDoS protectors
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. It’s a type of cyberattack, and it floods a web server with thousands of requests from thousands of different computers. The server cannot keep up and crashes. It’s a very effective and belittling form of cyberattack. Unfortunately, it’s also the most frequently used.
DDoS-protection applications and tools prevent such attacks by maintaining a list of suspected IP addresses. They also detect attacks quickly and deny service to them. These applications also ensure that a detailed record of the attack itself is maintained so that it can be used to strengthen the network.
Conclusion
Add-ons are an effective way of making your website faster and more secure. What’s more, there are plenty of companies out there, meaning you’re spoiled for choice.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask us in the comments section below. Check out more articles that can help you secure, test and offer incredible Tech tips!
