If you are a website owner who manages one or more online properties, you should not take for granted the importance of website security. Even if you think that you are only a small business owner that hackers will barely notice, you should still not risk losing your website content or getting hacked by hackers.

Below are some of the reasons why website security is important.

1. Your website is your brand.

When you created your website, you are not only building an online platform. It is actually the embodiment of your brand and business.

Your customers go to your website to connect with your brand and perform activities like signing up, watching videos, downloading content, or purchasing a product.

If your website is not secure, you are compromising your relationship with your customers. You risk losing content, depleting your revenue, infecting your customers with malware, or worst, losing your brand and online business altogether, which you rigorously worked hard for.

Even if you feel like your business is just small or you’re just starting up, it is still important to think ahead and better be safe than sorry.

2. Website hackers are everywhere.

Did you know that in 2016, Google announced that there were more than 50 million websites worldwide that have been infected with malicious attacks and threats? In 2017, the number grew by 212%. And this is the reality of the Internet you are facing now.

If you have never been hacked before, you may think that it will not happen to you. Sure, it may not, but what if it does? What if, at some point, you get victimized by some hackers and everything you worked hard for was taken or deleted or just disappeared? Would you be able to live with that?

Don’t wait for this to happen to you! Secure your website in order to protect it from hackers, fraudulent activities, malwares, and other unethical attacks to your site.

You will never know when you will be a victim, so you might as well take the necessary precautions by securing your website.

3. You will lose your website’s reputation.

To maintain a functional website that converts and attracts potential customers, you need to build its reputation over time. You engage with your customers, provide valuable content, offer promos and discounts, give them what they are looking for, and answer the questions in their minds.

In simpler words, you create a website where they can turn to solve the problems they are facing, no matter how big or small.

Without proper security, your website might get attacked by hackers or malicious threats. And when this happens, you can easily lose your website’s reputation. Some hackers use other people’s website to send out spam links, images, videos, and content.

When Google associates this activity to your website, it can easily remove your authority and drop you from its search results page. You sure don’t want this to happen, do you?

4. You will lose your revenue.

Aside from your website’s reputation, you can easily lose your revenue when you don’t secure your website.

This can happen in 3 different scenarios. First is when hackers take over your website, make changes to the billing and payment information you set, and withdraw your money to their account.

They can also easily take confidential information from your website such as your name, bank account details, and credit card information.

Another way you can lose revenue through an unsecured website is when your customers decide not to transact with you because of lack of security. Many customers trust only protected websites as these make them feel confident and secure.

Finally, if your website gets attacked my malicious threats and activities, you may get penalized by Google, dropping your website on search results. AS you significantly lose your search rankings, you will also lose traffic, leads, and eventually, revenue.

5. Your website will get blacklisted and it’s difficult to recover from it.

When your website gets hacked, search engines will know, and they will blacklist you to prevent new customers from seeing your website.

When you get blacklisted by Google, almost 95% of your search rankings will disappear, and it will be very difficult to recover from this tragedy. It will require time, money, and a lot of communication with different organizations and companies just to get your name cleared from their records.

Don’t wait for this to happen! Act now and make sure that your website is secure and protected.

These are the top reasons why website security is important. You don’t want all your hard work and effort to go to waste. Remember, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.