How to Protect Your Business Online

It’s generally very safe to run an online business. 🙌

That said, there are still several areas of legality and security that are important to be aware of as a business owner, to keep yourself and your business protected online.

Protecting your business online

Here are the key things I like to give special consideration, to keep everything running smoothly, legally, and securely on your website (and in your online business overall):

Have your legal policies in place

It’s important to be sure you’re including the appropriate legal policies on your website.

The big three are: Privacy Policy, Website Terms & Conditions, Disclaimer.

Some of these policies protect your business and the content on your website; and others, like your Privacy Policy, are legally required to comply with local and international privacy laws. Not sure what those laws are? It’s safe to assume they apply to you if you collect any personal information on your website (like an email address—which you’re probably doing).

Here’s the full post on the policies your website needs to be legally legit, with more specific information on each of these policies and tips for drafting legally protective documents.

Copyright your work

By default, your intellectual property is protected by copyright law, but it’s also a good idea to include the copyright symbol on any piece of work you share online, specifically stating your claim that you created it and it is yours and not to be reproduced without your permission.

It’s also a good idea to include copyright information on any downloadable materials that could be used outside the context of your website (like adding copyright information at the bottom of any freebie opt-in gift downloads—you’ll also see copyright info at the bottom of my Website Checklist, etc.).

Know your scope & stay within it

Depending on your industry and how services within your industry are regulated (medical care, real estate, financial advising, etc. are particularly regulated), you’ll need to be especially clear on what the scope of your business services are—and what they are not.

A good way to set boundaries around this and clarify your scope of practice is with your website content. Use your copywriting and keywords to specify your scope of work and attract visitors and clients who are interested in exactly what you can offer (rather than attracting visitors who end up believing you do something you don’t actually do).

A good rule of thumb is: If you can’t legally do it in real life (e.g. offer medical advice), you can’t legally say it on your website.

Keep your email address safe

Spam email is a real issue (hence all the recent laws protecting against it!), so it’s a good idea to be especially careful with publishing your email address on your website.

Squarespace websites make it quite easy to use contact forms (which can be sent directly to your email inbox of choice) rather than needing to publish your email address publicly in order for your website visitors to contact you. This can help to reduce mis-use of your email address and potential spammy messages.

Use reCAPTCHA for online forms

Google offers a free service called reCAPTCHA that can be integrated with your Squarespace forms. This little checkbox at the bottom of your forms helps protect your form submissions from spam and abuse (like, bots creating fake submissions).

reCAPTCHA can be added to any Squarespace form, newsletter block or product waitlist. Here’s how to set up reCAPTCHA on your Squarespace website.

Secure payment gateways

If you collect payments on your website (whether for physical products, digital products, or services), it’s super important for your customers’ online safety that your website uses a secure payment gateway.

This is one of the reasons I use and recommend Squarespace websites—the e-commerce set-up on your site is by default secure and safe for your customers.

Keep your SSL Certificate active

An SSL Certificate (SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer if you’re wondering 🤓) provides a secure connection to your website and prevents hackers from stealing your visitors’ information.

All Squarespace websites are automatically protected with free SSL Certificates to improve security (yay!).

Quick tips for checking a website’s security:

Secure websites begin in https:// (as opposed to simply http:// with no “s”)
In most browsers, secure websites will display a security symbol—in the case of Google Chrome, it’s a lock:

SSL Certificate Squarespace, website secure symbol // How to Protect Your Business Online // Five Design Co.

Note: If you have a Squarespace site and notice it’s not showing up as “secure,” it’s possible your SSL Certificate is not enabled (access it via Settings > Advanced > SSL) or that your domain name was not properly connected.

Set your domain on auto-renewal

Website domains are purchased on a subscription basis. Depending on your registrar, you may pay annually for your domain name, or every two years, etc. Regardless of the length of your domain name subscription, it’s important that it does not accidentally expire.

This is, unfortunately, somewhat common—a new business owner may purchase a domain name with an email address they eventually stop using or a credit card that expires before renewal; later on, the domain is then stopped from automatically renewing, and/or communication regarding the domain is not received.

I generally recommend setting your domain up for auto-renewal, as well as hosting it through Squarespace (if possible), so all of your website subscriptions are managed from one secure location. This also gives you one less username/password to remember, and one less place to update a credit card number if the card you used to purchase the domain expires, is canceled, etc.

Use secure passwords

All the many business tools and technology involved in running an online business can mean that you have a million and one passwords to create/remember—which makes it difficult to use different, secure passwords for each!

LastPass is a secure password manager that allows you to just remember one password while still protecting all of your accounts with unique secure passwords.

It works as both a browser extension and mobile app—game changer! All of your accounts are securely protected, no two passwords are the same, and no more failed log-in attempts and “reset my password” workarounds.