Review: Secure Your WordPress Website with HTTPS for Free: A Visual Step-by-Step Guide to Securing Your Website with SSL

This page will answer how to secure a WordPress website with https (any other site or blog type) or how to migrate a website from http to https version for free. Yes, really FREE! But, why http to https? Visit some websites. Look at the URLs of those websites. You see some website URLs beginning with http and some others with https. HTTPS means that those websites with it are the secured websites. The secured websites are the trusted ones in the eyes of people and Google. When people see https in the browser address bar, they are confident to make credit card payments and share their personal data like username, password, email id etc. Because, the connection between the browser and the web server is encrypted so that hackers can’t access the information to and fro. From the SEO point of view too, secured sites with https rank better than those ones without it in Google search results. From all these reasons, why won’t you take the benefits? You have to buy a SSL certificate for this purpose. But, in this article, you’ll learn how to get a free SSL certificate and how to change from http to https easily without any mistake.

To those who know how to do the same, the procedures might be a simple task to complete. But if you are a newbie in this area, it may be a very hard work to you. Articles found on the web probably can’t give the perfect knowledge to do it successfully without any mistake in the end. Hence, I recommend a very good book recently published solely for this purpose. Read this new book. It is an extremely easy read. You can do the same yourself easily and quickly without any mistake left.

As a reviewer, let me tell you something worth-to-mention here about this book:

Secure Your WordPress Website with HTTPS for free: A Visual Step-by-Step, Non-Technical Guide to Securing Your Web Site (Webmaster Series Book 8)

Book Title: Secure Your WordPress Website with HTTPS for free: A Visual Step-by-Step Guide to Securing Your Website with SSL

Author
: Dr. Andy Williams

ISBN-10
: 1987550323

ISBN-13
: 978-1987550320

Language
: English

Book Format
: Available in both paperback and Amazon Kindle editions

Click the following link to buy or know more about this book:

Buy this book from Amazon

I have already read many books by Dr. Andy Williams. His books are forward looking and result oriented. Read this book. I am sure you’ll get satisfied. You can do it easily to change from your current http (such as http://www.domain.com) to a secured https (such as https://www.domain.com). To me, I got nothing confused after I read the book. I hope so to you also.

Here are below some things what you’ll learn in the book, where you’ll read more in clear details:

What is SSL?

SSL means Secure Sockets Layer. It is a standard security protocol to establish encrypted links between a web server and a browser in an online communication.


What is an SSL Certificate?

It is a digital certificate issued by an authority to install in your web server.


Who is the Certificate Authority?

The authority is a website or company who issues valid SSL certificates free or paid.


Why you need to migrate from HTTP to HTTPS?

After you install the free SSL certificate on your server, your website URLs turn into the https version such as https://domain.com or https://www.domain.com. When visitors see the green padlock with https in the browser, they have no doubt to login, sign up your newsletter, transact with their credit cards and share their private information like username, password, email id etc. Most of the visitors today are aware that they are safe with the sites with https. So, they will do more with what you are offering in your website. Above all, Google trusts more in those secured sites using SSL. If two websites have equal ranking properties, the site with https will rank higher than the other with http. So, that’s why you need to shift to the ‘https’ version to get the extra benefits.


Where to go for a free SSL certificate?

In this book, the author uses the Cloudflare service more importantly for getting a free 15-year certificate as it also provides the CDN service for free. However, you will find other options with AutoSSL and Let’s Encrypt described to use in the book. CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. If you use CDN, your website will be 100% uptime. Your website always remains up and running even when your web hosting server is down.

Other benefits of using Cloudflare’s CDN:

  • It protects your site from malicious attacks.
  • It saves the bandwidth of your hosting server.
  • It makes your pages load faster.
  • Above all, it’s free.

Some web hosting services provide Cloudflare in the cPanel. If Cloudflare is not available in your cPanel, it’s not an issue. You can create your account directly from its website. After logged in, you should add your domain in the Cloudflare. Select the free plan. Then, you need to change DNS. You have to change the existing nameservers of your domain registrar with the nameservers given by Cloudflare. Then, wait until your website is active on Cloudflare.

In Cloudflare, there are three types of free SSL certificates available. They are Flexible SSL, Full and Full (Strict). Our aim is to get an origin certificate for Full (Strict) from there. Once your WordPress site is active on Cloudflare, you can generate it from there and install on your web server.


How to install SSL on your server?

Now, you need to install the origin certificate from Cloudflare. Find the icon SSL/TLS by logging in to your hosting cPanel. Open it and install the Cloudflare certificate and private key correctly. As you have now an Edge Certificate on the server, you can now switch over to Full (Strict) by going to Cloudflare.


Have you got any difficulties to complete the above processes?

Yes, I know. What I have been writing so far in this article is the summary of the book. The important parts are left inside the book to solve any kind of issues you may face. As it is a review article for the book, I can’t reveal all to you here.

Even though you have obtained a valid certificate from Cloudflare, you may get stuck due to the following critical issues:

  • How to get a free valid SSL certificate of long duration?
  • Can you install SSL correctly on your server?
  • Test your website by opening with https. Is SSL ok? Can’t you see the green padlock (as it should be) without any error?
  • How to secure your WordPress Dashboard with SSL?
  • Leaving your site with both http and https versions is not true. How to redirect all your pages to the HTTPS version correctly in htaccess file?
  • How to fix mixed content issues correctly without any mistake, most importantly in WordPress sites?
  • How to update your new secured site to Google Search Console and Google Analytics?
  • How to change an existing certificate with a new one, if your mind changes?
  • Any other issues or errors you may face?

This book will clear out any type of issues or errors step by step using full illustrations. If you plan to transform your website to be a secured one using free SSL, I recommend this book to you and every site owner (of WordPress or not) to add a trust value to your valuable site users and search engines, most importantly Google.

Scroll up the page and find the link “Buy this book from Amazon” as mentioned above and buy a copy for you. Enjoy reading.

After reading the book, write your experiences in the comment box below. Did you complete the processes successfully? Or did you come across problems and issues? Write your comments. I will answer them if possible, and if my time agrees.

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