Setting Your WordPress Site to HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt
When it comes to your business website, security is paramount. You might just be trying to follow googles guidelines or may actually have some sensitive information you are trying to protect. An SSL is one alternative.
There are many firms that provide certs to business websites but none I can think of provide this service at zero cost. Let’s Encrypt will provide this service for free. This article will guide you on how to set your WordPress site to https with Let’s Encrypt, just read through the sections below and comment if you need any help or something isn’t clear.
Setting Your WordPress Site to HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt
Https is a secure communication protocol on [AA1] [AA2] computer network which is popularly used on the internet. Site owners can make their site work through this secure web protocol fairly easy and without expense now that Let’s Encrypt is around.
What is Let’s Encrypt?
Let’s Encrypt is a recently launched Certificate Authority that renders free secure certificates and https protection to websites. This project, which was launched in 2016, provides free services that are as secure as secure as paid certificates.
It is sponsored by Mozilla Foundation, Cisco Systems, OVH and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) among others. The initiative is developed to ensure that websites are secure and protected by encouraging the setting up and maintenance of TLS encryption through the elimination of web server configuration, certificate renewal, validation email management and payment. (automation is king!)
To install a certificate on your server check out the getting started here:
Things to Know Before Setting Your WordPress Site to HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt/ Requirements
To set your WordPress site to https you have to do the following.
a. First activate and install SSL certificate for your domain on the server.
b. Since some SSL setups are not safe, go the extra mile to verify your SSL setup by doing an SSL test. The Qualys SSL test is reliable and you can conduct the test once you type the ssltest command on your domain using the Quix App. The least score to target is an A.
Setting your WordPress Address (URL) to HTTPS
Once you have your SSL certificate, the next thing to do is adjusting your address (url) to https (https://example.com).
Take the following steps to do this.
1. Login to your dashboard on WordPress.
2. Click on “Settings” then Click on “General”.
3. Input your WordPress address (url) and site address (url) such that they appear this way: https://example.com
Now your pages should be accessible through https:
4. Install WordPress HTTPS (SSL) plugin to make your links to redirect automatically to https://
1. Download this plugin
2. Locate the SSL host field for specifying secure link your website.
3. Add “/” to your url in the filters menu for redirecting pages to https://
Alternatively you can download this script, upload it to you root and change the URLS in the database. Make sure to remove it once your done.
Conclusion
Setting your WordPress site to https is the default standard today and you can have your website protected free of charge using Let’s Encrypt.
So there you have it. If you liked this post, please follow me on the web https://buildingbettersoftware.io/contact/
DISCLAIMER: If you are a serious e-commerce site making money dont go with this just yet there are still some drawbacks like 90 day validation. (auto-renew blah). I also think there is a still a huge potential for fraud not proven yet.
Comment below with your experiences with Let’s Encrypt and any problems you might have using it.
