Many ask me should I convert my website to https: and make it secure? As of today I would say yes. Adding a SSL certificate will encrypt all your traffic plus give you an added bump in the search engines especially Google.
This is more important if you are running WordPress which is constantly under attack from Hackers, Malware, bots, and others that want to exploit your weaknesses and take over your website for their own purpose.
Converting your WordPress Website to https: by adding a SSL certificate is easier than you think. Here is a simple list you can follow:
- Have you hosting company install the SSL certificate for you and make sure your website is backed up.
- Go into your admin and change the http://yourdomain.com to https://
- Install a Search & Replace plugin such as “Better Search and Replace” any similar plugin can get the job done for you.
- Rename all your http://yourdomain.com links to https:// using the search and replace plugin you just installed.
- Check your work on https://www.whynopadlock.com/ to make sure there are no failures. If there are failures you need to edit the page and fix the errors.
- Now you are about 90% done.
- If you have an SEO plugin installed such as “Yoast” all your sitemaps will be automatically updated using https://. Just double check to make sure.
- Google will automatically update the urls for you in their search engine. Eventually the un-secure urls will fall off the index.
- Now you are finished.
Here is more info on SSL certificates if you are interested.
Congratulations you have just converted your WordPress website to SSL. Feel free to contact Web Design City if you do not want to do this chore yourself. We offer low cost upgrades. So far we have a 100% success rate.