Are you planning to hand over admin access to your WordPress site to someone else? You certainly need to take some steps to ensure the security of your WordPress website. Since your WordPress site is your creation and you have put in a lot of hard work and effort to make it what it is today, you can’t be unconcerned about its security.
Even if you’re granting a minor control over your WordPress admin, you should be careful. It’s not like you shouldn’t trust the person you’re giving access to. Sometimes, due to lack of technical skills or small negligence when managing a WordPress admin can sabotage your business.
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So, if you have hired someone to manage your site, you must evaluate that person thoroughly before you provide access to your site. This blog post consists of some steps that you should take to ensure that you are comfortable in ceding admin access to your employees.
But before that, let’s have a look at a few common reasons a WordPress site gets hacked.
Reasons Why WordPress Sites Get Hacked
There is no doubt that WordPress is one of the most popular and recommended content management systems available. Still, ever since its launch, it has been frequently targeted by hackers. A lot of reasons have come out for the same. Surprisingly, most of the time WordPress security is compromised due to human faults.
Using a weak password, incorrect file protection, not updating the WordPress version and unprotected access to WordPress admin are a few primary reasons for WordPress hacking. Not investing in reliable WordPress hosting can be another reason for websites getting hacked. Some hosting providers don’t secure their hosting platform. So choose it carefully.
Steps to be Followed when Granting WordPress Admin Access
Look into the Background
Since the employee you have hired had to go through different hiring processes before your final approval, you don’t need to do a full-blown background check. Instead, your focus should be on knowing how ready the employee is to take the responsibility you are going to put on.
Since a good worker doesn’t need to prove a responsible WordPress admin, you should try to know if the employee has experience working in a high-level position.
Get to know whether that employee was given control of any big project. If yes, find out how was the performance. Remember, even a good employee might not have the discipline to meet up with the security standards that you are looking for.
You can’t afford to go through problems in the future just because the person you trusted with WordPress logging details spilt the beans without telling you anything about it. It can be a big threat to the security of your WordPress website.
Conduct a Basic WordPress Setup Test
Before you provide access to your WordPress admin, it is crucial to know whether or not your employee keeps a sound knowledge of WordPress and its functionalities.
To do so, you can ask the employee to give a basic WordPress set-up. If you already have a hosting service, it should not be that much difficult. It can be a good test to know someone’s potential as an admin. Ask the person to configure a WordPress site in a certain way and monitor everything carefully.
See: How to Teach Your Employees About Cybersecurity
Check out how many unnecessary plugins he installs, and install reliable plugins such as WordPress booking plugins for all types of businesses. Also, keep an eye on whether he gives admin access to their friends or other employees without your consent. Check out if that employee is capable of producing the content for your site. Not everyone who operates a site needs to write content for it. However, the point is that you must be aware of the capabilities of the employee you hire.
By conducting a basic WordPress set-up test you can decide if your employee is capable enough to take the responsibilities you are going to give him.
Let The Employee Make Changes (Under Your Supervision)
If you are satisfied with the track record of the employee and you find he is good at handling a WordPress setup also, it is time to take the next step. Give that employee some small jobs for your main website. Provide some admin access and supervise what he does.
It will help you find out what he does when he is uncertain. Does he simply try things to see what will happen? Does he look up the things first? If the former is the case, it is a big thing to be considered as his small mistake may be a big threat to your WordPress security.
Although there is nothing wrong with being the person who chooses to try the things he is unsure about yet such person may not be a good fit for an admin role on a WordPress site, especially, if your website is live and is your livelihood. While the loss of some analytics stats might not bother you, if you eventually choose to sell up and move on, the gap in your metric may devalue your website.
Check-out if Employee is Interested in Working with You
It is a standard practice everywhere that a new worker keeps the intention to remain with the new employer for years to come. However, with time, the employee’s perception of the job starts changing. Therefore, it is always challenging to find loyal employees. So, try to evaluate your employee’s interest in staying with your company.
See: 10 Ways to Protect Your WordPress Site You Didn’t Know About
Some employees are highly ambitious while some retain loyalty until something better comes their way. On the other hand, some people just want to be steadily paid. Such people can likely be trusted.
Final Note
Giving new people responsibilities like admin access to the WordPress site can be quite difficult for anyone. Hopefully, the steps mentioned in this blog help you ensure you are giving your site’s admin access to the right hand.
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