Don’t have an SSL Certificate? Google is going to flag your WordPress website this year!
Google loves its users and worries about everyone’s safety therefore recently they announced that Google will flag all the unencrypted websites by the end of 2017.
This means if your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate, it will display a ‘Not Secure’ in the URL bar. Not only will your site be marked as insecure but your google rank will be lower too! What that means is if you are on the first page of google, you could be dropped to second or third page. This could lead to less traffic and less sales. Not good!
So how do you upgrade to ssl? Here is how to do it.
Step 1. Backup your site before you do anything.
Step 2. Contact your host, buy / install your ssl certificate.
Most hosts are giving out SSL certificates apart of hosting plans now but if your host doesn’t you can purchase one. Ask your host to install it for you.
Step 3. Go to Plugins -> Add new and search for “Really Simple SSL”. Activate the plugin.
Step 4.Go to Plugins -> Add new and search for “Better Search and Replace” plugin. Activate the plugin.
Step 5. Go to Tools -> Better Search and Replace. Search for “http:” and replace with “https:”.
Select all tables (see image below).
Leave “dry run” on first to see what results you get before changing everything. There should be a lot of changes, if not something is wrong. Once that is completed then uncheck “dry run” box. Now your site is in https. That’s it!
If you have any problems send me a message.
I hope this blog post served you well, stay tuned for more!
Thanks!
