When it comes to websites and software, getting a mate to help you out isn't always the best approach - if you need a professional website that works and keeps your business and your site visitors' secure, then engage with a professional.

Good intentions as they may have, your mate most likely won't be there to get you out of the mire when the inevitable happens. Recently, three new clients had hacks through back door vulnerabilities of their previous website CMS. For one in particular, we had to completely rebuild their website, from scratch with nothing more than a very large spreadsheet for inspiration.

WordPress - one of the largest content management systems in the world is great but it does have insecurities and vulnerabilities - often manifested via unpatched plugins. If you're not on top of your WP management, then you're simply asking for trouble.

Sites hosted on shared platforms, where hundreds of sites run from one server, has the potential makings of susceptibility to security breaches and malfunctions. One rouge website can have a detrimental impact on the other hosted sites.

As a company, we keep our dedicated, Nottingham-based servers strictly for our clients only; we don’t offer hosting for other sites which would potentially quality, performance and security.

On top of this, we host secure ‘https’ sites as standard, which Google will also favour in terms of SEO. If you still have an unencrypted ‘http’ website, then ask your web developer why!