One of the advantages of being a blogger is choosing what you share online and telling your own story. However, opening yourself up to opportunities and sharing your voice and experiences also means people sometimes cross lines they shouldn’t. So if you haven’t reviewed or locked down your security and privacy lately, here’s your sign to do it.
This blog post takes you through what you need to check, so let’s get started!
How To Protect Your Privacy & Security As A Blogger Share on X
01. Always have domains in your own name and account
If you’ve worked with a web designer, marketing company or even just a friend or partner who was helping you with the techy bits, they may have registered domains in their name rather than yours (even if they were just genuinely trying to help).
It’s so important that your domain names are in your name and in your own account to make sure it’s clear you’re the rightful owner in case it ever comes up. Sadly there are occasionally cases where the relationship with a designer doesn’t work out, or an ex-partner decides to be vindictive. Having your domains under your control can prevent a ton of potential headaches further down the line.
Equally, if you’re a web designer, try to avoid having your customers’ domains in your account. It’s easy for a situation to happen where they change their mind and stop paying you, and then you’re potentially in an awkward situation and out of pocket. It also cuts down on admin they may want you to do.
If you need help or advice on this or want to move domains between accounts, please raise a support ticket and we’ll help!
02. Never give out your own login details to your accounts
This applies to everything – your WordPress Dashboard, your Lyrical Host Hub account, your email, and so on.
Even if you’re selling a website, please don’t just hand over login details for your hosting account. It’s full of personal data, including support tickets that may contain personal details, and payment and invoice data. We’ve even seen people hand over accounts to others with their credit cards still active in them. (This is why it’s against our terms to transfer ownership of Hub accounts).
The good news is that you can still add people you’re working with to your accounts in a safe way and choose what permissions they have, by adding users and setting their access.
For WordPress, you can choose from a range of pre-set user roles from the Users section of your admin dashboard. For the Hub, you can choose what features a sub-user is allowed to access (for example, you could let them handle support tickets to deal with tech integrations without you needing to be involved without them having access to your billing details.
Handy links:
How To Add A Sub-User To Your Lyrical Host Account
What To Consider Before Giving Backend Access To Your Website
If you have a virtual assistant or company working on your social accounts, sending emails and so on and they don’t offer a sub-user or roles option, using a password manager can be a workable second choice. That way you can revoke access if needed, although you should only add people you trust and have a watertight contract with as they can potentially change your access and remove you.
03. Set calendar reminders to check your payment methods
This helps you keep on top of active and old cards and subscriptions. Alternatively, keep a list of accounts you have, and when you receive a new card, go through and update them to check you have the right cards associated with the right accounts and old ones have been deleted.
04. Use a virtual address for your email provider (and website footer)
If you send emails to a mailing list, you’re required by law in most countries to include a real contact address in all emails you send. Instead of giving your personal address, you can register for a business address.
Our sister company provides different options so you can get a very cheap address just for your emails, all the way up to taking your real life mail. Find out more here: Virtual Address Services at The Createry.
If you sell from or run a business from your website, many countries also require you to list your address in your website footer, so you can also use a virtual business address for that.
05. Make sure privacy protection is enabled for your domains
This ensures that your personal contact details aren’t visible if people look up your domain. If you have a virtual address as above, you could use that for your domain contact details too.
Many providers, including us, offer domain privacy for free with your domain, so it could already be enabled for you. Just raise a ticket if you have questions (or a less common domain name extension).
06. Use secure passwords and enable two factor authentication
For more details, check out this blog post: 9 Tips For Better Password Security
Tip: Use an authenticator app rather than text message verification wherever possible for better security.
07. Be sceptical of your emails
Avoid clicking links or scanning QR codes wherever possible; always go directly to the official website to log in and check.
Be extra cautious when any kind of money is involved, or anything that sounds too good to be true, or someone is trying to manipulate you into panic mode.
If someone is reaching out about a collaboration, always confirm directly with the real company involved – don’t believe variants of domain names and email addresses (such as john@brandnameherecreators.com instead of john@brandnamehere.com).
Never send anything via email you wouldn’t be happy to see on a billboard in real life, including passwords. We will never ask you for any identifying personal details or payment information outside of our secure ticket system.
08. Check in with vulnerable people
Across all kinds of backgrounds and age groups, there are many people who aren’t super techy savvy. Scams are getting increasingly convincing and harder to detect, and they are often at risk of losing their money or personal information.
Make yourself a reminder to check in with people from time to time, and listen out for clues that they may be vulnerable to scams and phishing attempts. This could include people in your own team, so having training or guides when they join you can be helpful.
09. Check in with us
And lastly, if you’re not sure if something you’ve received is legitimate or not, we’re here to help. Just raise a support ticket from your account to sense check, get a second opinion or reassurance, or ask us for advice any time.
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