What is SSL?
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is an internet security protocol that incorporates encryption when data is shared/exchanged.
SSL certificates are small files that are responsible for maintaining encrypted links between your server and the web browser. They make sure that the data passed between the server and internet browser remain absolutely private.
Whether users are sharing your blog post on social media, purchasing a book from your online store, or just browsing your site, you want to make sure that transactions are encrypted so that they are not intercepted by hackers or scammers.
As a website owner, it is crucial that your users feel comfortable when visiting your website and feel safe that their information will be transmitted securely on the internet. Nowadays, SSL Certificates are inexpensive, and mandatory for every WordPress site whether the data is private or public.
Why You Should Use SSL on your WordPress site?
If you use SSL, you are informing the visitors of your site (and the search engines) that the data is kept secured between the users web browser and your WordPress server. You are also gaining trust of the visitors, hence increasing web traffic and building reputation. Most importantly, your website is getting highlighted by Google and other search engines safe.
The main difference between these types of websites is in the URL itself: secured sites use https while others are simply http. This ‘s’ refers to the fact that the website you are browsing has a SSL Certificate keeping data safe. When you are browsing through websites, you often notice how many sites have a lock icon while some have alerts notifying you about how the website is not secure. Nobody wants the impression that their site is insecure.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and SSL
In 2014, Google explicitly announced that websites with https will be given higher ranking. Google wants to motivate all website owners to move towards https from http. So, if you would like to make sure your website ranks at the first page then, apart from SEO based content, SSL is important.
If your website is accessible via http and https both: http://www.MyWebsite.com and https://www.MyWebsit.com, then it is crucial to have a properly configured redirect. It is important with respect to SEO because both links/URLs will have exactly the same content accessible to search engines, causing duplicate content issues and resulting in negative impact.
What happens if my SSL certificate is invalid?
If the SSL certificate for your site is misconfigured or invalid, any user visiting your site will receive notification similar to the one shown in screenshots below. Your website will not respond because internet browsers will not display insecure sites. Any visitor that sees these kind of messages will leave your site, and most likely will not to engage with your business.
There are many different reasons why a browser will display the messages above. The most common causes are due to a misconfiguration on your WordPress server or an issue with the certificate itself. For example, the certificate may have reached its expiration date and needs to be renewed. It is also possible that the certificate has been revoked or invalidated by the issuer for any number of technical reasons, which may be difficult to figure out and resolve without professional or technical experience..
Final Thoughts
Are you facing issues with your SSL Certificate? They are not something you can ignore and present a glaring problem to the user. Contact us today and get any SSL issues fixed by our team of technical experts. The price for our service far outweighs the cost of your time spent to research and fix the problem yourself. You can have peace of mind in knowing that the issues will be taken care of properly. If you own a website and would like to increase your online presence and better engage with your customers’, trust is of utmost importance and correctly configured SSL is the right way to do it.
