Making your website secure by installing an SSL is not only good for your visitors but also good for your ranking in Google Search.
We all know that we need to make sure our websites are secure and protected from hackers but one of the great things about adding a SSL to your site, not only does it protect your visitors’ information, like their email address, but it also helps increase your rank with Google. Google loves secure sites and will give you a boost up the ranking chain if you have an SSL on your site.
So what is an SSL? Well it stands for Secure Sockets Layer and you can tell when a website has this installed as there is a padlock icon in address bar and you also gain a “s” after http – http:// changes to https://
How do you go about installing a SSL certificate?
You may be thinking, gosh…I really want to get this on my site but I have no idea how to do this and how much will it cost. Well for all of you WordPress.org users you can install a FREE SSL certificate by contacting your host and asking them to add it or you can follow directions here
If you are not on WordPress you will need to contact your host to add a paid SSL certificate.
Which SSL certificate should you install?
There are 3 types of SSL certificates. One is super expensive but gives you a warranty in case something drastic happens on your site, one is less expensive and then there is the Free version. You can find out more here to determine which one suits your needs best
If you have any questions about installing an SSL certificate you can contact me. We also run WordPress Workshops helping you design and build your very own simple website that can grow and change as your business grows and changes. We show you how to add an SSL in this course. You can find out more about this Workshop here
Learn more about the importance of installing an SSL certificate below
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/security/encrypt-in-transit/why-https?hl=en
Another way to increase your rank in Google is to create a “Google my Business” account. Find out how in this blog post
