The Internet is growing fast. Unfortunately, that means there are also many cybersecurity risks and bad bots searching for any vulnerability they can leverage on the web.
This is why you should always strive to keep your website safe including your landing pages. Remember, web users have become increasingly aware of the risks they could face when browsing online. They are even more wary of losing sensitive data or having devices infected with malware.
This is well illustrated by a 2020 holiday shopping survey done by Generali Global Assistance which found that 30% of Americans surveyed avoided online shopping due to the potential security risks.
In other words, you are bound to lose on conversions if your landing pages are not secure. So, how do you keep your marketing landing pages secure? Well, let’s explore some of the simple but effective steps you can leverage for landing page security.
What Is Landing Page
Before we dive into the security tips, let’s first look at what a landing page is and the purpose. Now, suppose you want to run a Facebook marketing campaign for your product or service.
You will create a link which the target user can follow from the Facebook ad to learn more about the product or service. The prospective client will be directed to a standalone webpage popularly known as a landing page.
The main goal of a landing page is to give your prospects a specific call to action. Perhaps you want them to buy a product, subscribe to your newsletter or register a free account.
If executed well, your landing page can boost conversion rates and boost your marketing Return on Investments (ROIs).
For starters, you should beware of the dos and don’ts in a bid to attain landing page conversion rates. You should invest in a good landing page design with proper copies and concise call to actions.
One research found that 48% of landing pages contain more than one offer which can be quite confusing to the target users leading to poor conversion metrics. Here is a nice guide on landing page design tips to help you get started.
You will also need to use enticing content. Well, 30% of landing pages use video content and rank higher than those lacking visual elements.
Going a step further and incorporating nice graphics like charts, videos, and images could result in an increase in leads that will convert into paying customers.
One other critical aspect that you ought to keep in mind is your landing page security. It is one of the elements of a high quality looking landing page. It will entice the prospective customers to learn more about what you are offering.
You do not want your landing pages to be flagged as insecure by browsers like Google Chrome. This would lead to bounce rates and low conversions.
Here are some steps to secure your marketing landing pages:
Tips To Ensure The Security Of Your Landing Page
Install Security Plugins And Software
For starters, your landing page is still connected to your main website. Therefore, if your main pages have unresolved security issues, your landing pages are also at risk.
Imagine a scenario where a hacker uses an automated script to generate possible passwords and gain unauthorized access to your website.
An excellent precautionary measure you could add to ensure all your web pages are secure is to use tools like security plugins. They will protect your website from brute-force attacks, incessant hacking attempts, and malware.
Using security plugins like WPscan, JetPack, WordFence, and likes, on your site will detect this suspicious activity and lock the user out. The same applies to anyone who uses an invalid username or malware a hacker left behind.
Restrict File Uploads
Allowing visitors to upload files to your landing page wouldn’t be a great idea. You might have a challenge discerning whether the files contain malware that could cause significant damage.
Remember, some formats have a comment section allowing code input that hackers can use to infiltrate your system.
Once a hacker successfully uploads a malicious file to your landing page, they can execute the script within the file and make your site even more vulnerable than it already is.
So, restrict file uploads to your landing page to protect you and your clients from a breach. If you must allow uploads, you could mitigate the risks by renaming any upload you authorize to differentiate them from the ones you didn’t authorize.
You could also modify the file permissions on any file uploaded to your landing page to make them non-executable.
This way even if a hacker successfully maneuvers a malicious file to your site, they can’t execute the script, rendering their file useless.
Install SSL Certificate
The best thing you can do for your landing page and any other websites you own is to buy an SSL certificate and install it on your website’s servers.
Also, if you want to secure all your subdomains, you can choose a cheap wildcard SSL certificate, which is a cheaper option as you will not have to encrypt the subdomains individually.
Hackers love websites with no SSL certificates. They could intercept critical user data if the communication between your server and the end user device is not encrypted using SSL. Most browsers like Google Chrome are trying to weed out website owners running their pages without an SSL certificate.
In a bid to safeguard consumers on the Internet, the browsers let users know if the website they are clicking on is secure or not. You can tell if the landing page is SSL secure if you see a padlock icon next to the URL on the browser you are using.
Google and Firefox might flag your landing pages as insecure if you don’t have SSL installed. This often scares web users from proceeding leading to low conversion rates.
Set Up Real-time Alerts
An attack on your website can occur at any time. You could be asleep when there is a brute-force attempt to infiltrate your landing page or the main website. The wise thing to do would be to plan ahead and remain vigilant.
Real-time alerts notify you of suspicious activity on your landing page at the exact moment they occur so you can take corrective action as soon as possible.
Most CMS and security plugins have a real-time alerts feature that allows you to receive an email or an SMS the moment a hacker tries to guess your password too many times or has succeeded in accessing your admin page without authorization.
Real-time alerts can be that lifesaver that prevents you from incurring hefty losses or damage to your reputation that you could have avoided had you acted sooner.
Keep Your Software Up To Date
One of the most effective ways to keep your web pages safe is to keep everything updated, from your software to your CMS and plugins. Most hacking attempts occur because the hackers discovered a vulnerability in the old software.
There are many malicious bots trained to scour the Internet in search of basic loopholes any web admin didn’t patch up and infiltrate the system.
Almost every system update comes with security-related features that will add an extra layer of protection to your landing page.
CMS and plugin developers work hard to fix any vulnerabilities they encounter before hackers take advantage of them and cause you serious harm in the form of loss of data, money, or leaking sensitive client data.
This is why you should update your core website CMS and other software as soon as a new update comes out.
Include Your Contact Information
Some fraudsters have resorted to setting up fake businesses online that look legitimate. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of unsuspecting victims that fall prey to their scams.
Therefore, it is only natural for your clients to want verification that your business is genuine and you are who you say you are online.
Clients avoid organizations with no telephone or email address because they look shoddy. You could let your prospects rest easy and demonstrate you are a legitimate business by providing your contact information on your landing page.
Ensure you place relevant contact information at the footer of your landing page to prevent your clients from bouncing off your site and uphold your reputation as a genuine business.
Filter Unwanted Visitors
Not everyone who visits your landing page has good intentions or wants to buy from your business. Perhaps a hacker is snooping around your page looking for vulnerabilities or attempting to plant malware that will open backdoors for them in the future.
Thus, you should take measures to restrict unwanted visitors like spy tools and certain flagged IPs that don’t perform any profitable actions.
The tricky bit is digging deep enough to determine which IP addresses to restrict and which to allow. You wouldn’t want to restrict a prospective client who was planning to make a purchase later.
You could use free tools in your host to determine which IP addresses appear too many times and monitor their actions while on your site. You could use a redirect script for suspicious bots that keep visiting your landing page.
You can also use tools like firewalls to filter out specific Ips and IP ranges. This will fitter unwanted traffic to your landing pages.
Wrapping up
In a nutshell, a landing page is crucial to the success of advertising campaigns. The key is to ensure that you create high-quality landing pages that will convert more. Ensure the landing pages are secure, so that users have no qualms about converting into customers!
