With an increasing dependence on digital infrastructure, businesses worldwide have swiftly prioritized cybersecurity. In this interconnected landscape, ensuring the security of digital assets is just as critical as their functionality. 

Against this background, more and more website administrators are paying attention to search engine optimization (SEO) strategies for website protection. It would seem that these are different concepts, but there is a relationship between them. 

Google can see what security systems you use: SSL certificate, authorization forms, domain and URL organization and SQL queries. The more attention paid to website security, the higher the trust rating from search engines. 

The following strategies will help secure your website from hackers and improve your website ranking.

Website Security Tips

SEO and website security have a close connection. Google and other search engines prioritize user experience and safety, making security an important SEO ranking factor. When a website is secure, visitors have a lower risk of encountering malware, phishing attacks or other malicious activities. As a result, search engines tend to rank websites securely higher in search results. The introduction of GDPR and HIPAA has, once again, brought attention to cybersecurity and data privacy concerns.

The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, replaces the previous Data Protection law. It takes a fresh approach to handling personal data among digital entities. GDPR enhances and consolidates data protection measures for individuals in the European Union. It introduces new restrictions, guidelines and enforcement. Violations have serious consequences.

Recent statistics highlights the seriousness of SEO spam. A study conducted by Sucuri, a leading website security company, reveals that 52.6% of websites impacted by security incidents had SEO spam injected into their pages. This correlation implies that compromised SEO integrity is strongly linked to website security breaches.

#1 Pay Attention to the First Signs of Hacking

To incorporate cybersecurity into your SEO strategy, start by learning to identify the early signs of a potential cyberattack. These signs may comprise unusual JavaScript code, frequent error messages or warnings such as “site not available.” 

Broken login credentials and interfering malicious bots during website crawling can also serve as indicators. If you can identify the signs early on, your chances of preventing a cyber attack will increase significantly. This will have a positive impact on your Google results and help you avoid penalties.

#2 Monitor Traffic

SEO spam techniques primarily aim to intercept and replicate sensitive data, including personally identifiable information like email addresses and private contact details.

To mitigate SEO risks and enhance your site’s security, it is advisable to regularly monitor and filter web applications. Web applications attract high traffic and should be safeguarded against malware and ransomware by utilizing a firewall.

By leveraging web applications, you can improve your site’s SEO ranking and increase its visibility in search engine results. However, this also makes your site a target for threat actors seeking to exfiltrate data to their servers.

#3 Avoid Regional Restrictions if Possible

When your site is unavailable in parts of the world, it can affect your site’s ranking even where the site is allowed. Moreover, any user can now change their VPN location. Using a VPN region changer, users can pretend to be from the region where your site is available. The same VPN offers more than 2500+ VPN servers, so blocking them or somehow countering the situation is almost impossible. Even though it has a free trial version, anyone can use it. It’s best not to set limits from the start.

#4 Prevent Backend Manipulation With Hosting

The content management system you use to control your website’s backend can unintentionally grant access to threat actors to your site configurations. Website developers and administrators must be aware of how the content on your site loads on a user’s client, such as their web browser and ensure a secure hosting environment. Otherwise, cybercriminals can easily exploit your security vulnerabilities and manipulate your content management system (CMS) at their discretion.

The significance of secure website hosting for SEO purposes has been underestimated for too long. The uninterrupted operation must be at least 99.9%. If search engine robots see that a site is unavailable more often, its position may drop in search results.

You can experience genuine security benefits for your website through impeccable website security and constant uptime. By using secure cloud hosting, you can prevent data exfiltration using your SEO strategies and benefit from additional protection through real-time updates of software stacks. With secure cloud hosting, you discourage entry points into your site’s backend and CMS.

#5 Use HTTPS

HTTPS, short for HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure, encrypts data transmitted between a user’s browser and a website, ensuring essential security. Google states that HTTPS serves as a ranking signal, granting websites that use it a higher chance of appearing on top of search engine results pages (SERPs) than non-HTTPS websites. By the way, HTTPS means that user data will be encrypted during transmission, similar to the free VPN extension in the browser. This is an important protection measure that site administrators can take against scammers and attackers.

You can determine if your website utilizes HTTPS by checking if the URL starts with https:// or if a lock symbol is displayed next to it in the URL bar.

Most hosting companies offer free SSL certificates through Let’s Encrypt. However, if your hosting company does not provide one and requires you to purchase it separately, it may indicate inadequate hosting service, prompting you to consider switching.

#6 Include Security Checks in Your SEO Strategy

Maintaining the integrity of your website and its ranking requires a proactive approach to cybersecurity. Make regular security checks a staple part of your SEO strategy. This not only involves monitoring for potential threats but also controlling the cybersecurity level of your website. To achieve significant results, you should hire a cybersecurity professional. Their job is to identify vulnerabilities and develop cybersecurity strategies.

#7 Use SaaS-based CMS

Maintaining security compliance across an entire site can be a daunting task for webmasters who choose to do it manually and independently. However, by opting for a SaaS-based CMS, they can outsource their site’s data security to a qualified third party. These third-party providers take care of automated security compliance, allowing website owners to spend less time worrying about security measures and focus more on operational tasks.

SaaS CMS platforms further enhance cost-effectiveness by offering pre-built templates and drag-and-drop elements for webpage creation. All these features are available as part of a monthly subscription plan, granting users access to their site from any internet-connected device. In addition to the obvious advantage of accessibility, these CMS platforms are effective for website SEO promotion and allow you to resolve any issues quickly. They achieve this through the use of animation widgets, graphics and optimization tools, creating a consistent and competitive visual brand across various platforms.

Additional Tips

There are several other quick tips to help protect your website and SEO marketing:

• Regularly updating the WordPress core, themes and plugins is a fundamental security practice to maintain improved speed and performance over time. Outdated software may contain vulnerabilities that hackers exploit. By staying up to date, you guarantee a fortified website with the latest security patches.
• Passwords must not only be strong but also unique. This applies to all accounts that have access to the site.
• Choose reputable sources when looking for any add-ons for your site. Pirated plugins are especially dangerous; free plugins are a little less dangerous.
• Installing security plugins adds an extra layer of defense. There are add-ons that offer site scanning, authorization management systems, firewalls, SQL injection protection, etc.
• Regularly backing up your website’s data and files is crucial. Clean backups readily available can minimize downtime and quickly restore your website in the event of a security breach.
• Thwart brute force attacks by limiting login attempts. Implement mechanisms such as the Login LockDown plugin to achieve this.
• Assign appropriate user roles and permissions within your WordPress dashboard to avoid granting unnecessary access that could compromise your website’s security.
• Utilize the .htaccess file to bolster security. This file allows you to control access of users, bots and copyright holders to certain directories. Your main task is to protect yourself from access by users who do not have sufficient permissions to access the data.

What Does Poor SEO Security Lead To?

Failing to prioritize website security can lead to disastrous consequences for your SEO. Your search rankings may experience a sharp decline if a cyberattack occurs, resulting in temporary or permanent website downtime. Regaining the trust of search engines and users after a website compromise is challenging, impacting your long-term SEO efforts.

Furthermore, malware infection on your website can trigger warning messages in search results, dissuading users from visiting. This can cause a decrease in traffic, reduced engagement and ultimately harm your SEO performance.

Low website security frequently leads to spam attacks. Cybercriminals may target your website to insert spammy links or use JavaScript to redirect users to their own malicious sites. Such SEO spam can severely damage your search rankings and online reputation.

Conclusion

Website security is crucial not just for protecting your site and users against cyber threats but also for maintaining high search rankings and ensuring sustainable business growth. Cybersecurity is a necessary element of an SEO strategy and it just needs to be recognized.