Over the past few months, we started hearing rumblings that Google would soon start showing a default ‘not secure warning’ of a non-secured website to users of its Chrome browser. Between the hacking of Yahoo accounts, to the Wikileaks documents about government spying, people are more wary of a “non-secured” anything on the internet these days. Not to mention that Google now sees SSL as a positive ranking factor and is considered good SEO.
So, always striving to be ahead of the curve, I decided it was time to encrypt Sparks SEO and any other web properties we owned. For non-techie types, encryption is simply to scramble up all the data that is called for by your website visitors as it travels safely from your web host to the user, then unscrambling it so that it shows up just as intended. This also works in the opposite direction. When users of your site enter emails, passwords or any other information, it is scrambled and unscrambled in like manner so that anyone (without a supercomputer) trying to gain access to it is unable to break the encryption and get the information.
Great! So How Do I Add SSL To My WordPress Site?
As techie as I am, I have to admit when securing this site I encountered a few headaches. I quickly learned that getting a security certificate is not too hard to do, yet once I had one it wasn’t as simple as going to “Settings”, “General”, and changing the HTTP to HTTPS in my URL. Having to go into the database and do find and replace on URL’s that didn’t get changed, such as media items, pictures, internal links was not my idea of a fun way to spend the afternoon. Also, there needs to be some code added to the .htaccess file on a site to properly redirect traffic to the newly secured HTTPS) version of my site(s). I learned to do just that and have helped many others to secure their own WordPress site over the last few months.
Enter Siteground’s “SG Optimizer”
Siteground have recently introduced “SG Optimizer” WP Plugin, which includes a one-click SSL configurator. Just turn it on, it’s that simple. Now if that weren’t enough, Siteground also offers SSL certificates FREE to all its new customers.
The plugin can be found in the WordPress repository, but you do need to be a Siteground customer to make use of it.
For reasons like these, along with automatic WordPress Core updates, Siteground is my #1 recommendation in a hosting provider and believe me I’ve pretty much tried them all.
This will make it far easier to properly set up SSL for those who are just getting started with their blog, e-commerce, or general website using WordPress.
And for the rest of us who value time as life’s most precious commodity, it’s indispensable tech.
Disclaimer: If you purchase hosting from Siteground through the links on this page, Sparks SEO may receive a small commission, however, your purchase price is unaffected.
