What is SSL?
SSL is (very briefly) a way of keeping your customers details secure. When added to your website it allows a secure connection from your customers web browser to your web server.
Why should you get an SSL certificate?
I will be 100% honest that it goes a bit over my head but I can assure you that it worth doing for SEO purposes and should be done as standard on all websites.
Google hasn’t said that they favour sites using SSL but it seems that they do, especially in technology based niches. It is extremely easy to do and there is no disadvantage in doing it. Google has also confirmed that there is no loss in linkjuice when migrating from HTTP to HTTPS.
As consumers become more aware it is a good trust signal to have, as people don’t want their data being recorded. I can’t remember the exact statistic but I know that on ecommerce stores pages without SSL have been shown to have a lower conversion rate, so not having an SSL certificate can be leaving money on the table.
How do I get an SSL certificate?
So SSL sounds good right? Where can I get it?
Lets Encrypt is a popular way to get an SSL certificate, but it does require some technical knowledge. If you can’t understand the documentation you can follow a tutorial on youtube like this one. Depending on what hosting you are using there are various different ways to set up SSL.
Once you have your certificate I recommend installing this wordpress plugin and literally all you have to do is click activate once it is installed then click activate SSL and it will be done.
What about the EV SSL?
EV SSL stands for extended validation SSL and we recommend this especially if you are an ecommerce store or a bigger business. Charles mentions in this video that he has seen a high correlation between changing to EV SSL and increasing in rankings. Currently the cheapest EV SSL I am aware of is this one if you know of any cheaper ones let me know in the comments and I will change this.
The next additional factor we are going to be covering is site speed optimization.
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