Do you need to Get A Free SSL Certificate for WordPress Website? Is this because you are getting a ‘Not Secure’ message on your website? If they do not have an SSL certification, Google plans to show a ‘Not Secure’ message on all those websites. It means you do not have an encrypted connection. It also means that your user’s data is at risk.
SSL means you have an encrypted connection. If you want to see the back of the disturbing message of ‘Not Secure’ on your website, you need SSL. An SSL will change the ‘Not Secure’ message into a green pad, a secure lock symbol.
Also Read :- Best SSL Certificate Provider
What is SSL? Do I need to care?
SSL is Security Sockets Layer. SSL is a digital certificate issued by a Certificate Authority (CA). You must have it if you are running a WordPress e-commerce website. It offers the safety net for your user’s credit card payments and information.
SSL acts as a safety layer for your credit card information. If you are buying from an eCommerce store, ensure the address bar or the URL of the eCommerce store shows a secure log pad with HTTPs. It shows HTTP shun away from using it.
The letter ‘s’ following the HTTP on the URL tells you that the site has an active SSL certificate and is secure to use for credit cards payments.
Even if you are not doing any financial transactions on the website, you still need to ensure an HTTPS-enabled website to protect your data.
How to Differentiate Between Flexible SSL, Full SSL, and Full SSL (Strict)?
The CDN acts as a connection between server and user, and it helps load websites quickly using cache or a nearby server.
NO SSL (Off):
User ⇐ CDN ⇐ Server
There is no SSL between the user, CDN, and server.
Flexible SSL
You can apply for a Flexible SSL for your SSL-enabled website. Click on the SSL in the admin panel of the web security provider, and it will automatically apply for a Flexible SSL to your WordPress site.
An SSL establishes a secure connection between the website and the users. But it does not create a secure connection between the security service provider and your website.
Hence, for Flexible SSL, you don’t need to have an SSL certificate on your web server, although your users will see your site as HTTPS enabled.
Full SSL
Full SSL ensures that the users and the website have verification certified between them. It means you have SSL security between your website and the web security server. It also means that you have a secure and verified SSL between your website server and the web security server.
Full SSL (Strict)
Full SSL strict security provider verifies and confirms the authenticity of the certificate. Furthermore, it establishes a secure connection between the users and the web security server provides a secure connection between the web security server and your website server.
The Full SSL differs from Full SSL (Strict). The SSL Certificate on your website server must be valid and signed by a certificate authority of the web security service provider. In addition, it needs to bear an expiration date and respond to the request domain name.
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How to Differentiate Between HTTP and HTTPS?
The complete form of HTTP is HyperText Transfer Protocol. HTTPS is when you have HTTP with encryption. Hypertext is a concoction with enriched text which contains links, formats, and various other web elements. The protocol means many rules to help transfer hypertext on various platforms across networks.
HTTP is a set of rules to communicate information between the website and the server. HTTPS follows the same transfer protocol as HTTP but with added security. Before transferring, the HTTPS protocol encrypts the data. Fishing websites and hackers cannot easily decrypt encrypted data. While HTTP can give rise to insecure content issues, HTTPS is a highly secuHTTP versionTTP. It allows secure transactions by encrypting the entire communication chain with SSL.
Benefits From the SSL Encryption For WordPress Website?
As a website, you can either save the credit card information in the internal database or not. There are various reasons to support why you must have your website SSL certified from a CA.
Gain Users’ Trust
SSL helps you gain your advanced users’ trust after looking at the Green Lock on your website. URL visually labels the websites as HTTPS connections and hence is secure.
Password Protection
Some users use the same login credentials to login on to a public WIFI network and your website. If you have an SSL between the user and your website, you will encrypt the login information. That way, you offer a secure connection between your user’s browser and your website.
SEO Rankings
In 2014, Google announced to give an edge to secure websites using SSL/TLS in SEO ranking than unsecured websites. Because unsecured websites do not provide a secure connection to the users, Google says that the advantage will increase in Google Analytics from now on.
Does MY WordPress Website Need an SSL Certificate?
To collect and store user information on your WordPress website, you must ensure having an SSL. If you do not store users’ data, we still recommend having an SSL certificate for your WordPress website. For example, if you are running an eCommerce store, membership website, or store the login information, you must have SSL.
Users trust websites that have an SSL. It creates a positive impression on your brands. Google strongly recommends an SSL certificate for its SEO ranking on SERP. Google plans to display ‘Not Secure’ as an insecure content warning.
This will show the users that your site is not reliable and secure for transactions if you do not have an SSL. A not secure tag on Google Chrome will surely hamper your brand image and users’ trust in your website.
Also Check: Best Guide to Add an External Link Icon in WordPress
How Does the SSL Certificate Work For You?
The SSL encrypts information to protect the data transferred between the user’s browser and your website over the internet. When a user visits an SSL website, the browser first checks the validity of the SSL certificate.
Then, if all goes well and SSL is established, the browser leverages the website’s public key to encrypt the transferred data. Finally, the data is sent back to the webs and decrypted by a public and a secret private key.
Secure Connection:
Insecure Connection:
What is the cost of SSL Certificates?
SSL certificate cost varies from one CA to another, and the price may vary between $50-$200 per year. In addition, some domain service providers offer it as an add-on service to their annual subscription.
The add-on service with their certificate will affect the cost of your SSL certificate. So you can check to get SSL certificates free as well. But also check the CA (Certificate Authorities) that is issuing the certificate.
How Can I get an Free SSL Certificate?
Many website owners do not use SSL certificates. This is because SSL will cost them additional dollars. Unfortunately, this compels many small websites to risk their users’ data, resulting in information theft.
You can get a free SSL from a non-profit certificate authority, “Let’s Encrypt.” Website owners can now effortlessly get an SSL from this CA with no extra cost. This will make the internet a safer place to transact/ More small websites are inclined to get the SSL for free.
Major global players like Google, Facebook, WordPress, and Shopify, will prefer an SSL website/ But the challenge is for beginners who are not quite conversant with coding and server system knowledge.
Installing SSL from Let’s Encrypt requires coding and server system knowledge, which may appear difficult to startup websites. The good news is that most WordPress Hosting service providers offer free SSL certificate with their hosting plans.
Some are also using Lets Encrypt SSL certificates and help install their systems’ SSL installation process.
Go for these hosting service providers to save yourself money and the hassle of installing the SSL on your own. If you use the hosting providers’ free SSL, you can efficiently turn on the SSL certificates from the hosting dashboard.
You need to log in to the hosting account’s cPanel root directory and scroll down to find the security section. Then, you can enable the SSL easily on your website. We illustrate step-by-step instructions.
Step 1 to Install SSL on Your Host
Leverage Let’s Encrypt to install the SSL on your host. You can install an SSL in two ways. The first is the manual way. Refer to the Let’s Encrypt documentation to manually install SSL.
The second way is automatic installation. You can install the SSL automatically by going to the dashboard of most hosting providers’ admin panels. Although hosting companies’ installation processes may differ, there are a few common steps to install the SSL automatically.
- First, log in to the user portal and go to the dashboard.
- Find your website name and select SSL > Add Certificates > Get Certificate / Let’s Encrypt
- Choose the domain for which you want HTTPS
Not every hosting company will provide a free SSL certificate from the Let’s Encrypt auto-installer. However, you can search for the hosting providers and check if they support Let’s Encrypt. If your hosting server does not support Let’s Encrypt, you have the method described below to follow.
Step 2 to Update Your WordPress URLs
If your SSL certificate is auto-installed successfully on your WordPress website, you will get the green padlock on switching to HTTPS. Now, you need to change the URL of your WordPress website to complete the redirects to HTTPS.
To leverage the newly gained SSL Certificate, go to Settings and select General from your WordPress Admin panel. Next, you need to scroll down to find the WordPress Address (URL) and the site address (URL) sections. It would be best if you replaced the HTTP with HTTPS in the text fields of both sections. Press the Save.
Also Read :- 8 Top-Of-The-Line WordPress SSL Plugins
How to Get Free SSL Certificate for WordPress Website?
You do not need an SSL for general sites, blogs, or portfolio sites, where there are no payment transactions. But for critical users’ information stored in WordPress websites, you need SSL. But with an increasing number of faux fishing sites and hacking activities, SSL will be the rule of the day.
More WordPress Website owners are turning towards SSL. However, if you want a paid SSL certificate, you may need to pay up to US$700 each year. It looks pretty costly for many website owners. On the other hand, premium and high-end SSL can secure multiple domains, sub-domains with additional features.
Several SSL certificates service providers offering free cheap SSL make it hassle-free. In addition, they offer auto-installers for non-tech savvy website owners. Let’s look at the specific places where you can get a free or cheap SSL certificate in a step-by-step guide.
Let’s Encrypt
Let’s Encrypt helps you readily get free cheap SSL certificates for your WordPress sites. It has gained immense popularity, as it is one of the foremost to offer free SSL certificates. The advantage of Let’s Encrypt is that it is available for every platform or domain name, and it is open source.
It began as an Open SSL/TLS source certificate authority (CA). Then, they changed the paid structure of SSL to a free SSL certificate. Almost all major browsers support and recognize the Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificate and remain active for 90 days. You can auto-renew and make them active for lifelong for your domain.
CloudFlare
Cloudflare is a Content Delivery Network (CDN). You can get a single-click SSL feature letting your content via HTTPS instead of the non-secure HTTP protocol. While doing it, you can turn on the SSL feature, and your website will share pages over SSL.
You can get the free plan for the single-click Cloudflare free SSL certificate module. Cloudflare is a big name in the CDNs hence all major web browsers and server clients accept and recognize its SSL offering.
FreeSSL
You can get FreeSSL’s free SSL certificate in the pre-release phase. You can sign up by entering your email ID, and FreeSSL will let you know by email with instructions when it becomes available.
If you are a non-profit or a startup, you are eligible for an early access pass. You can get started immediately with FreeSSL. They will provide you with a domain-level SSL certificate valid for one year. FreeSSL does offer more extended duration certificates than Let’s Encrypt.
Symantec supports FreeSSL, and it is the same company behind Norton Website Security and other related products. FreeSSL might fit you as it comes with Norton Secure warning Seal and anti-malware tools.
cPanel AutoSSL
cPanel AutoSSL offers the SSL feature as part of their cPanel web hosting control panel software. It is an automatic SSL option offering free-of-cost SSL certificates to any website managed via cPanel root access.
The older versions of cPanel do not support SSL as a feature. Your web hosting provider will have to offer cPanel 58 or higher for this to work. For the most part, everything works out of the box, and you can redirect your traffic to the HTTPS version of your web pages. You can get the active SSL certificate for up to 90 days from COMODO issues. After that, you can opt for auto-renew, making it suitable for life.
As a web hosting service provider, you need to make cPanel available to your subscribers. If you are on a managed WordPress host not offering cPanel, you cannot use this feature.
Comodo Positive SSL
You do not need a high-end SSL certificate to secure your website or prevent its search engine ranking from falling. However, there are various cheap SSL certificates for WordPress users that you can pick from if the above free options do not seem to suffice for you.
You can go for a COMODO PositiveSSL. It costs $9.00 per year. Comodo includes system services, which is a prominent part of the SSL industry.
It delivers the cheapest SSL Certificates and offers unlimited server licenses at the original cost. In addition, Comodo offers email and web assistance, as well as a guarantee and a 30-day return policy. It also provides a free SSL certificate for 90days.
When the PositiveSSL seal appears on your website, it certifies that your consumers and their credentials are safe when doing transactions online. Price as low as this one, you can secure your website using guaranteed encryption and site verification services.
RapidSSL
RapidSSL is among the cheap SSL certificates for WordPress, costing $10.95 per year. In addition, you can get potent 128 to 256-bit encryption.
The cheap here does not mean below quality. All the major web technology and services recognize both of the above certificates. They offer a refund period, but it varies from one SSL registrar to another.
You can leverage EssentialSSL for $99.90 per year to secure your main domain per certificate that includes all sub-domains. You can have different SSLs for your multiple websites.
Conclusion
You can find many cheap SSL providers on the web. However, a better way to save on SSL is by selecting a hosting provider offering free SSL with the subscription; some of them may offer a free domain for one year.
SSL could be a costly affair, but you can find various options to get cheap SSL certificates for WordPress websites and blog posts. We hope this article was helpful for you in getting a free SSL Certificate.
