It’s becoming more important to have an SSL Certificate installed on your website. “An SSL…what?!” Fair enough, yes another tech related acronym that when first heard means absolutely nothing. However, this one is important and worth learning about.
Have you been surfing the web and found a site that has the URL (website address) starting with https? An SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer) will mean your website address will start will https. The ’s’ stands for secure. HTTPS gives your website increased security and privacy when information is being transferred between website server and visitor.
What are the benefits of using HTTPS?
- Limit web browser warnings
If you use Chrome, or another popular modern web browser, you might have seen browser display warnings saying that the website is not secure, and isn’t using HTTPS. Using an SSL Certificate that is installed correctly will remove these warnings. See image below.
- Improved security
Having your website run over HTTPS encrypts any data that is sent between your website and visitors. This stops attackers from intercepting information travelling between the website server and the visitors browser.
- Build trust in your website
Visitors recognise that your website has an SSL Certificate, as indicated by the green padlock icon in the address bar. This shows a level of trustworthiness and signals to potential customers that you take their privacy seriously.
- Better search ranking results
Search engines like Google factor in if a website is using HTTPS into their search engine results and how it ranks your website. This means installing an SSL Certificate boosts website rankings when compared to competition.
Example of Chrome web browser displaying warnings about a website that is not secure. In this case the SSL Certificate was not installed correctly.
So how can I install an SSL Certificate on my website?
Typically most website hosting companies offer SSL Certificates, and depending on the hosting company, they might even install it for you. At worst they’ll have instructions on how to install your certificate. Once your certificate is installed you’ll need to change your URL’s on your website.
If you’re using Wordpress you’ll need to change your “Wordpress Address (URL)” and “Site Address (URL)” to include the new certificate.
For example: If your Wordpress and Site Address was:
http://www.yourdomain.co.nz
Change it to:
https://www.yourdomain.co.nz
When you make this change you’ll be logged out of your Wordpress admin area, and will have to login again, so make sure you know your username and password before making the above changes.
Link clean-up
The next step is to navigate through each page of your website and fix any links that are pointing to “http” instead of “https”.
A lot of the time this will simply mean changing the address on an image, or a link to another page on your site that has been written in absolute form, and hasn’t changed after you updated the Wordpress & Site address.
Time to check
The easy way to check if all links on your pages are using HTTPS is view the page.
If you see the green padlock, your good to go and you can move on to check the next page
If you see a yellow triangle, then you have images that are still using HTTP
And, if you see “Not secure” or a crossed out padlock, then your certificate might not be installed or configured correctly
Wrapping up
It’s a lot to take in, but installing an SSL Certificate onto your website is worth while. Are you using an SSL Certificate on your site? Do you have any helpful hints when installing a certificate on your site? Let us know in the comments sections below.
