Securing your WordPress website provides numerous benefits

When you secure your WordPress website with an SSL certificate, you will get the padlock icon next to your domain name on the address bar of your web browser. Some might simply state “Secure” next to it.

What’s an SSL Certificate?

An SSL certificate is an electronic protection you can purchase from a provider online and setup on the server where your website files and database reside. When setup properly, it creates a “chain” that certifies the security of your website online and therefore encrypts data to and from your website. Afterwards, any web browser accessing your website from any devices will notice that all communications are indeed certified to be secure.

What are the benefits?

This has numerous benefits such as:

1. Encrypting the connection between your WordPress website and the end user’s device, hence protecting any data exchange such as contact forms or ecommerce transactions
2. Generating trust among your audience
3. Showing Google and other search engines that you’ve invested in the security of your online presence
4. Improving your SEO ranking as Google favours secure websites and more

What types of SSL certificates exit?

There are few different ones that exist but for most of us, a “Basic” one that protects both “yourdomain.com” and “www.yourdomain.com” is largely enough.

You will also find other ones such as a “WildCard SSL” that protect all subdomains of your website like “support.yourdomain.com” for example, a “SAN/UCC SSL” that protects multiple domains and an “EV SSL” that larger companies & organizations use to have the highest protection and to show the company name in green beside the domain name in the address bar of your web browser.

Where do you buy an SSL certificate?

There are numerous companies you can buy an SSL certificate from but we have our favorite we’ve counted on for years for our client’s projects (contact us to find out more). One thing you may want to be careful with is the famous promotion online of “Free SSL Certificates”. As usual, you get what you pay for and a free certificate may note be reliable enough and may have hidden terms and conditions attached. We always recommend to purchase it from a reliable and professional source.

How to setup an SSL certificate?

Ahhhh… the tricky question! It’s actually not super easy to setup if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you’re managing your own WordPress website and the only professional people you have access to are the ones who work at the hosting company you’ve chosen, then we would recommend to contact them to help you. If you’ve invested in a true professional long-term partner to create a powerful online presence for your business, then they can help you set it up. It can be tricky to setup correctly and we’ve seen many websites where the SSL certificate wasn’t setup properly when it was actually done by the web designer themselves. We’ve noticed this when potential clients approached us to find out if we could help them take their current website to the next level.

How to get started with securing your WordPress website?

Contact us to discover your options!