One of the best ways to improve the security of your home is to find its weak spots, which you can do by looking at your home as a potential intruder would. Before you invest in an alarm system, you first need to take care of the obvious ways a burglar can enter — and you want to make your home uninviting to someone who wants to break in.

First of all, most burglars are amateur opportunists. They’ll pick the easy targets and avoid anything that looks too hard. They also don’t want to get hurt or get caught, which is more likely to happen if they break in while you’re home. A lot of burglaries happen during the day when most people are at work, or in the evening when the homeowners are enjoying a night out.

Go outside your home and look at it as a burglar would.

Walk around tyour home and look for good hiding places. If you were trying to break in, could you hide from view while trying to get in a door or window — behind bushes, garbage cans, or a recess in a wall? How easy is it to get next to your house without being seen?

Now look in your windows. Do you see anything of value that might tempt a burglar or that advertises that you have something worth stealing? If so, you may want to move the valuable items away from windows so they can’t be seen.

Are your doors and windows sturdy? An expensive lock doesn’t do much good if the door can easily be kicked in. Both the door and the frame around it need to be strong and solid, so that the door cannot be easily jimmied with a crowbar.

Try gently prying doors and windows with a large screwdriver and see if they give a little. Don’t do this hard enough to damage anything, just enough to test for weak spots.

If you locked yourself out of the house, would you be able to get in through a window? If so, that’s how a burglar could get in. Many windows, especially if they’re old, can be easily pried open and don’t offer much security against a determined intruder.

Now approach your house by walking past your neighbor’s houses, still thinking like a burglar. Which ones look the most inviting?

If your neighbors have alarm systems, and your house doesn’t, what might that suggest to a potential burglar? You might be the most desirable target on the block if you don’t have a home security system installed. On the other hand, if your house has an alarm system and you advertise that fact with yard signs or window stickers, a burglar will think twice about trying to break in, especially if there’s a more tempting target up the street.

By taking some time to look at your home from a burglar’s point of view, you can get some good ideas on how to improve your home’s security.