According to various search engines, such as Google, secure websites will be held in higher regards when determining rank. This means that your site could be rated higher if it begins with the “HTTPS:” prefix. This is because secure socket layers protect visitors from several types of fraud by encrypting the transmission of data. It makes it far more difficult to “snoop” and steal information in this manner. When you want to protect your users while simultaneously improving the search ranking of your pages, installing a WordPress SSL certificate is one of the easiest and cost efficient ways.

How Much Extra Are SSLs Per Year?

The actual cost of the SSL certificate will vary from one hosting provider to the next. You’ll also need to take into consideration which SSL you need. For example, a standard certificate for personal and business websites could be significantly less when compared to higher security offered for eCommerce.

Installing the SSL on Your WordPress Site

Installation of the WordPress SSL certificate is relatively simple. In fact, there is very little coding or changes involved on your side. In a very short amount of time, you can offer secure pages to your visitors while improving your online authority. While you could manually make changes for redirects, it’s much simpler if you utilize the right plugin.

Getting the SSL

To start, you need to purchase the SSL from your hosting provider. You can easily find out what is required to install a SSL certificate on your account with GreenGeeks. Some services will allow you to transfer the certificate from third parties. However, it’s probably a good idea to make sure you don’t already have one available. If you have a different hosting plan, you could have been set up with the SSL as a default. You find this out by contacting your web hosting provider.

Installing the SSL

Once you have purchased the SSL, it needs to be installed. This is done by deciding which domain will have the certificate. If you have a hosting account with unlimited domains and maintain more than one website, you’ll need to choose which is getting the new SSL.

Using a Plugin to Make the Necessary Changes

Using a plugin can take a great deal of the work out of using the SSL for your site. Many of these will automatically make the necessary changes once your certificate has been purchased. Some will set up the site just by activating the plugin without requiring additional input from yourself. Here are a few of the best SSL plugins for WordPress:

Really Simple SSL

This plugin requires no additional setup outside of installation and activation. It will automatically make the changes to the .htaccess file if the SSL is detected on your site. You can also view the configuration settings of what has been controlled by the plugin.

CTW SSL for CLoudflare

For those who use Cloudflare for their SSL, this plugin will automatically install all needed changes as well as prevent a common problem of redirecting loops. This is another one of those plugins that will make the appropriate changes once it has been installed and activated.

WP Force SSL

WP Force SSL is a plugin designed to prevent pages and posts from being accessed through HTTP rather than the secure HTTPS. It automatically redirects all traffic of your site to the correct certificate-driven content. This plugin will make the necessary adjustments for you.

Modifying Your WordPress Settings

After installing the plugin to govern your SSL, it’s time to change the settings in WordPress. Go to the “Settings” section of your dashboard. Here, you will see a text box for “Site Address.” Make sure your domain’s prefix shows “https.” This will help the redirect of your secure content and will solve a few problems with posts and pages not showing correctly.

Modifying the .htaccess Page Manually

Should you want to modify the .htaccess manually, the coding is quite simple. Just open the file in an editor and enter the following lines:

<lfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond%{SERVER_PORT} 80

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://yourdomain.com/$1 [R,L]

</lfModule>

Setting up a WordPress SSL certificate is less troublesome than what you might think. It can help visitors feel confident in your pages while enhancing how the world views your site in search engines. Think of the expense as a way to enhance the marketing capabilities of your website. Your content could be more readily available in comparison to competitors just by having the SSL installed on the domain.

What kind of security measures do you have on your WordPress site? Do you think the extra cost per year is worth the security and effort of the SSL?