5 Free Ways to Bulletproof Your WordPress Site Improving usability, accessibility and security on a WordPress website using free and open source tools.

1. 5 Free Ways to Bulletproof Your
WordPress Site
● What Does Bulletproof Mean to Me?
● Usable
● Accessible
● Secure
● Provides a satisfying user experience
– For Your Users
– For You

2. 5 Free Ways to Bulletproof Your
WordPress Site
1. Backup and Maintain
2. Beef Up Security
3. Speed it Up
4. Use the Firefox Web Dev Toolbar
5. Improve Search for Usability

3. #1 - Backup & Maintain
● Backup Regularly
● Backup themes, plugins & databases
● Know your Host's backup policies and tools
● Use plugins to make database backup easy
● WP DB Manager
– http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-dbmanager/
● WP DB Backup
– http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/

4. #1 Backup & Maintain
● Have your site regularly backup your
database and email a copy to you.
● Automatic database optimization.

5. #2 - Beef Up Security
● A Stitch in Time . . . to save your behind
● Use the secret key in your wp_config.php
● Read ”Hardening WordPress”
– http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress
● Use SSL for admin pages
– http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/admin-ssl-secure-
admin/
● Use WP Security Scan to audit your site
– http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-security-scan/

6. #2 - Beef Up Security
WP Security Scan
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-security-scan/
● WP Security scans for common security exploits
● Gives easy advice and tools to improve security.

7. #3 – Speed it Up
● Be Prepared for Traffic
● Have a good hosting infrastructure
● Tailor images and code for use on web
● Reduce server requests
● Offload media to other domains
● Use plugins judiciously
● Enable caching plugin like WP Super Cache

8. #3 – Speed it Up
Test your site's speed
● Yahoo's YSlow Plugin
http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/
● Google Page Speed
http://code.google.com/speed/page-
speed/

9. #4 – Use Firefox Web Dev Toolbar
● It's wonderful for:
● Development – write CSS & HTML and see the
effects in real time.
● Troubleshooting – can't figure out why things
aren't working?
● Testing – test for common usability and
accessibility concerns.

10. #4 – Firefox Web Developer Toolbar
Development
● Change CSS & HTML and see instant results
● Locate troublesome layout issues (Firebug too!)

11. #4 – Firefox Web Developer Toolbar
Troubleshoot & Test
● Validate HTML / CSS
● Tools/Validate HTML
● Tools/Validate CSS
● Clean code is poetry

12. #4 – Firefox Web Developer Toolbar
Testing
● Disable CSS
● This is near what a
search engine or screen
reader 'sees'
● Can you still get around
and does the page make
sense?
● Good, semantic markup
helps users and search
engines.

13. #4 – Firefox Web Developer Toolbar
Testing
● Disable Images
● Can you still navigate and make sense of site?
● Is your branding visible?

14. #4 – Firefox Web Developer Toolbar
Test
● Disable JavaScript
● Does your site
degrade gracefully?
● Is there an alternate
version or message?
● Can you navigate?
● Do forms and
behaviors still work?

15. #4 – Firefox Web Developer Toolbar
Testing
● Validate WAI / 508
Accessibility
● Shows major
accessibility issues
● Links to usability
checkpoint definitions
● Not perfect, but a
great start

16. #5 - Improving Search
● Better Search means Better Usability &
Accessibility
● As sites grow, search becomes more critical
● WordPress Search was created for blogs
● Search results are in reverse-chronological order
● WordPress shows "default" excerpts, not most
pertinent excerpt
● Can't easily perform category or tag-specific
searches

17. #5 - Improving Search
Search for 'hosting' with WordPress
●
● Finds matches
● Reverse chronological
order
– Okay for blogs
– Not so, for business
● Not most relevant
● No highlighting
? ● When content grows,
search doesn't improve

18. #5 - Improving Search
● Relevanssi - A search plugin by Mikko Saari
● http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/relevanssi/
● Results sorted by relevance
● Include only posts, only pages or both
● Index comments, tags and custom fields
● Expand shortcodes before indexing
● Highlighted search terms in results
● Search term logging
● Limit results to certain categories or tags.

19. #5 - Improving Search
●Search for 'hosting' with Relevanssi
● Highlighted search terms
● More relevant results
presented first
● Pass category / tag ID(s)
to focus search
● As content grows, search
gets better

20. The Wrap
Eric Amundson
● Personal Blog
● sewmyheadon.com
● @sewmyheadon
● Business Site
● www.ivycat.com
● @ivycatweb
Holler at me if you have any questions!