INTRODUCTION
Traditionally required only for online banking, and online commerce, SSL certificates are now the new standard, thanks to an increased interest in privacy and security. Solving many problems, the important thing to know about encrypting your website traffic is that it’s good, both for your visitors and for your bottom line.
HOW TO
- The best place to start the process, is your website hosting provider. While there are many places to purchase an SSL certificate, it ultimately needs to be installed at… your web hosting provider!
- Once purchased, and installed you need to force all website traffic to the new secure URL, which will start with https:// instead of http:// Visitors attempting to access the non-secure address, should be redirected.
- You’ll need to check every page on your website, and verify that all the content is being “called” securely. If you have an image or tracking script on the page, it needs to come from your secure URL, otherwise visitors to that page will see that it isn’t fully secure.
BUT WHY?
- It will protect the privacy of your visitors.
- It will improve your Google search ranking.
- Chrome, Safari and other browsers warn the user when a site isn’t secure and reward sites that are secure.
LONG TERM
Installing, and reinstalling SSL certificates can be a hassle depending on your web host and how smoothly they handle such a transaction. Do yourself a favor and buy multiple years, or set the certificate to auto-renew, you’ll thank me later.