5 Tips for Securing Your Membership Site


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When you have a membership site, you are asking people to trust you and your site with their secure information. When you look at your site, does it say, “I’m safe and you can trust me.” or does it say, “Run the other way! I’m a security threat.” In this article, we will go over 5 tips for securing your membership site.

Security for your membership site is vital to its success since people do not want to process their sensitive information through sites that are not secure. When you use the below tips, you will be well on your way to creating a safe environment for your members to use.

1. Make Sure Your Hosting Is Secure

If you chose your hosting by whichever host was the cheapest that is probably not the best way to make a decision on who is going to handle the sensitive information of your membership site clients. Choosing your hosting is more than just making sure that your website is online. You need to ensure that your site is secure so there are no hacks and data breaches.

When you are researching the host that you want to use, you need to make sure that their servers are properly protected from hackers, but also that they provide proper backups in case something happens to your site. Look for a host with a high uptime guarantee with a secure data center.

If you are just starting out online, you might not understand all of the terminology. If you need to speak with a consultant that you trust to have them vet your current hosting, that would be a great idea. If you get on web chat with some of these hosting customer service representatives, many of them will sell you things that you don’t need and forget to ask you if you want things that you do need.

2. Urge Your Users to Keep Their Information Secure

If a hacker does get their hands on a member’s login information, there can be quite a bit of damage to be done. This is why you should urge your members to change their passwords on a regular basis. Many people do not want to change their passwords because they are able to remember it, but this is a bad strategy for security.

If you want to automate the process and make sure that you customers have to change their passwords, you can require that it be done every so many weeks or months or else they won’t be allowed access to the account anymore. While this may be a little annoying to those that subscribe to your membership site, it is better than having their login taken and damage being done in their member area.

3. Ensure Your Site is SSL or TLS

SSL = Secure Sockets Layer

TLS = Transport Layer Security

If you have sensitive data on your site, you need to have these important security protocols. They will secure your site against hackers that want to get the information as it goes from the site to the server or whatever other application it is going to.

TLS & SSL encrypt data that is between applications and servers to make sure that information remains secure while it is sent across the insecure network. You can use a SSL checker to see if your site has SSL or not.

Besides just being good business practice, having SSL & TLS is another great signal to Google which helps with search engine rankings. So not only should you upgrade your site for security, but you should upgrade your site for serps.

4. If You Don’t Need the Data Then Don’t Store It

If you have no reason to have certain client data, don’t store it on your site. If you have a membership site, this can be a little tricky because you are obviously going to have to store payment data to charge the card each month.

If you are thinking of a membership site, you should look at the best membership plugins for WordPress to see how they handle the payment processes and security.

5. Scan for Vulnerabilities In Your System

While it may not be glamorous, it is important to keep a check on your site’s vulnerabilities. While your site may be working perfectly fine, you still need to make sure there are not places where hackers will be able to easily infiltrate.

There are various scanning software programs available that will take care of the scanning process. Some of them will even go a step further and take care of fixing the problem. Make sure that you choose a reputable scanner that will be safe for your website.

Conclusion

Securing your membership site is important for your customers and it is important for you. If hackers get into your site and get your user’s sensitive information, this could cause a lot of trouble for you and your company.

When potential members know that you are going to great lengths to protect their information, they are much more likely to pull out the credit card and do business with your site.

There are often badges that you can get from different SSL & TLS companies to show that your site is safe and taking care of their information. These can be helpful in building trust and are especially good for sites that are processing payments.