Activating SSL before Launching

9 Steps to Adding SSL to your WordPress Site

1. Buy SSL certificate or get a free one if hosting provides such a possibility (Let’s Encrypt is a free SSL offered by most good hosting providers).
2. Activate certificate from hosting account. If you access your site at this point HTTPS should be showing, it’s possible you’ll have mixed content and some errors at this point.
3. Next Install the “Really simple SSL” plugin (and activate it like in the screenshots). Go to Plugins > Add New, then search for really simple SSL, click “activate”, make sure to check the box to Flush Rewrite rules on activation and then click “Go Ahead, activate SSL!”
   
4. Next you’ll need to update the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) via Settings > General in the WordPress admin panel and save the settings.
   
5. If website has any caching/minify plugins flush all caches.
6. Check pages, posts and galleries if all of them are working right.
7. Check your site paying attention to fonts, slideshow arrows, social media icons.
8. Test your contact form and make sure that you are receiving emails
9. Your site is now secure.

See the following video on how to add an SSL via SiteGround:

Useful SSL Articles from Popular Hosting Providers
Check out the following links to learn how you can implement free SSL’s from some of the most popular hosting providers.

SiteGround
GreenGeeks
Flywheel
A2 Hosting
InMotion
Bluehost

See a full list of hosting providers offering free Let’s encrypt here.

Now that you’ve added the SSL and have HTTPS on your site, there are some next steps that should be taken to make sure SEO performance isn’t affected, as Google will now see your site as brand new.

Next Steps After Implementing an SSL

You can do a few things to after switching to make sure the process is as smooth as possible. Follow these next steps and you’ll be up and tracking the right info again in no time:

1. Update your Google Analytics property to HTTPS in property and view

• Go to Admin in Google Analytics (the cog icon bottom right)
• In property column, click property settings
• Change default URL to “HTTPS”
• Scroll down and click “save”

2. Re-link your Google Analytics profile in search console

• Go to Admin in Google Analytics (the cog icon bottom right)
• In property column, click property settings
• Under Search Console Settings, click edit on the URL, update with HTTPS URL and click save.
• You’ll be prompted to unlock HTTP click ok.
• Scroll down and click “save”

3. Setup a new HTTPS property in Google Search Console (as it’s technically a new site).

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34592?hl=en

4. If you’ve linked to your site with third party tools in Google Tag Manager, make sure to update them to HTTPS, such as Facebook / Bing etc.

5. Generate and submit your new sitemap via Google Search console. We highly recommend using Yoast SEO for this.

6. Update any links you’ve added in Social Media accounts

Thats it, you should now be tracking the new HTTPS version of your site.

NOTE! that in search console you’ll have no data for a while as Google re-indexes your site with HTTPS. Your site may be affected in the short term as it is being ranked again, this is normal, and you can expect to see your site bounce back within 2-4 weeks.

Need help?

Want assistance with the setup? Check out our SEO Services. Our SSL Implementation service aims to set up your SSL and take care of any technical aspects that may affect your site and SEO links.  Normally our turn around time is 48 hours after form completion (in some cases it will be longer due to hosting restrictions).