The Importance of SSL in Today’s Web Environment
It’s become commonplace for a majority of internet users to share personal information on the internet.
With the disregard for protecting personal data becoming second nature, how do we protect ourselves and our users? That’s where the power of SSL comes in.
If your site requires users to submit any valuable or fragile information, then having an SSL certificate is a must-have. Below you’ll learn what SSL actually is and how you can install your SSL certificate on your WordPress site.
Quick answer: SSL (now technically TLS) encrypts the connection between your visitors and your WordPress site, protects sensitive data in transit, and is required for modern browser trust signals, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, and Google’s baseline ranking expectations. Every WordPress site should serve traffic over HTTPS.
Understanding SSL: The Basics
What is SSL? Having a secure website is an absolute necessity these days. SSL is the current web standard for exchanging information securely between a website and a user. Most information traveling over the web can be easily accessed anytime by people who know what they’re doing. You know, like hackers and the government.
Since this is such a common occurrence, the best line of defense is to encrypt your data. That way, anyone who accesses your data, besides the person you were intending, will receive nothing more than a string of gibberish.
For SSL to be valid on your site, the first thing you need is to have a working SSL certificate and a host capable of supporting SSL integration.
SSL vs. TLS
The protocol most people still call “SSL” was officially replaced by TLS (Transport Layer Security) years ago. The original SSL protocols (SSL 2.0 and 3.0) are deprecated and disabled in modern browsers and servers. When you buy or install an “SSL certificate” today, you’re really enabling TLS, with TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 being the versions in active use. The “SSL” label has stuck around as shorthand, and we use it here for familiarity.
Should every WordPress site use SSL?
Yes. HTTPS is now the baseline for the modern web, not an upgrade. Major browsers label any site served over plain HTTP as “Not Secure” in the address bar, modern protocols like HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 require an encrypted connection in practice, and search engines treat HTTPS as a standard expectation rather than a bonus. If your WordPress site is still running on HTTP, switching to HTTPS should be a priority regardless of what the site does.
There are still strong, specific reasons to make sure SSL is properly configured, even on sites that feel “low risk.”
Google has long treated HTTPS as a positive ranking signal. More importantly, the absence of HTTPS now creates negative signals: browser warnings that scare visitors away, blocked features (geolocation, service workers, payment APIs, modern media), and lost compatibility with HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. For sites that rely on organic search, HTTPS is part of the cost of entry rather than a competitive edge.
Beyond the reasons why you might want it, there are a few instances that basically require using SSL. These instances include:
- Requiring users to log in and/or using a membership, LMS, or subscription plugin
- You have an ecommerce website or collect form submissions of any kind, including contact forms, newsletter signups, or anywhere users can submit personal information
- You serve an admin dashboard or any authenticated area (this includes every WordPress site by default)
- If you want to run your site over HTTP/2 or HTTP/3
Without SSL there’s a chance this information could be stolen.
Practical considerations when implementing SSL
The cost – It isn’t particularly expensive, but an extended SSL certificate does cost a bit more. Plus, you need to remember to renew your certificate every year. For most WordPress sites, cost is no longer a real objection. Free, automated certificates from Let’s Encrypt and ZeroSSL are widely supported, and managed WordPress hosts (including Pagely) provision and auto-renew certificates for you. Paid certificates still make sense when you need extended warranties, organization validation, or specific compliance requirements, but a free, automatically renewing certificate is enough for the vast majority of sites.
ROI isn’t guaranteed – You need a little technical knowledge to set it up. On a managed host, the technical lift is usually a few clicks or zero clicks. The bigger investment is making sure all internal links, hardcoded asset URLs, and third-party embeds use HTTPS so you avoid mixed-content warnings.
Certificate lifetimes are shorter than they used to be – Industry policy has moved toward shorter maximum validity periods, and free certificates like Let’s Encrypt renew every 90 days. This is only a “drawback” if renewals are manual. With automation in place, shorter lifetimes actually improve security by limiting the window of exposure if a key is ever compromised.
SSL and HTTPS: What Changes?
When your site is protected, the usual “http” prefix will instead be changed to a secure “https” preface. In current browsers, a secure connection is indicated by a neutral lock or tune icon to the left of the domain rather than the older green padlock and green address bar treatment. Browsers have shifted toward warning users about insecure sites instead of celebrating secure ones, so the visible reward for HTTPS is mostly the absence of a “Not Secure” label.
There will also be a green padlock to the left of your domain, like the image below.
Some sites will use an Extended Validation Certificate, which will make your site name and URL appear green, like we have at Pagely. These certificates offer more WordPress security and are issued after a more vigorous application and verification process.
What about Extended Validation (EV) certificates?
EV certificates still exist and still require a more rigorous identity verification process for the organization that owns the site. What has changed is how browsers display them. Modern versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge no longer show the organization name or a green address bar for EV certificates; the UI looks the same as a standard Domain Validation (DV) certificate. EV can still be valuable for compliance, internal trust, or specific industries, but it should no longer be chosen based on the assumption that visitors will see a visible difference in the address bar.
How SSL Encryption Works
SSLs encrypt the information traveling between the server and browser. If at any point someone beyond the intended recipient tries to access the information it will be illegible.
In order to use this encryption you need to install an SSL certificate on your server. You can obtain a certificate from a company known as a Certificate Authority.
After you’ve purchased or requested a certificate you’ll submit your website and company information and receive a public and private key. Your public key will then get submitted with your previous information in your Certificate Signing Request.
After this information is verified, your SSL certificate will be signed with a SHA-256 (or stronger) hash. Then, the actual certificate will be issued and you can use it on your site.
What about ACME and automated issuance?
Most modern certificates aren’t ordered through a manual web form anymore. They’re issued through the ACME protocol, which lets your server (or your host’s control panel) request, validate, install, and renew certificates automatically. If you’re on a managed WordPress host, this is almost certainly happening for you behind the scenes. If you’re self-hosting, tools like Certbot and acme.sh handle the same workflow.
Keeping Your SSL Certificate Current
When you have an SSL certificate installed on your site, you need to ensure it doesn’t expire or become invalid. If this happens, your visitors won’t be able to visit your site and, instead, will be taken to a screen that says ‘This site’s security certificate is not trusted!’
Having a first-time visitor see this screen when they visit your site won’t help to build trust. At all.
It’s important to obtain your SSL certificate from a trusted authority. Otherwise, you run the risk of your user running into a screen that says ‘Secure connection failed’. This screen won’t look as serious as having an expired certificate, but it still deters visitors from accessing your site.
Set renewals on autopilot
Because certificate validity periods have shortened, manual renewal is no longer a realistic strategy. A few practices that prevent surprise outages:
- Use a host or tool that issues and renews certificates automatically through ACME.
- Monitor expiration dates with an uptime or SSL monitoring service so you’re alerted before a certificate lapses.
- If you manage DNS separately from your host, make sure your DNS validation records (CAA, CNAME for DNS-01 challenges) stay in place so renewals don’t silently fail.
Step-by-Step: Integrating SSL with WordPress
Once you obtain an SSL certificate you can then move forward with integrating SSL and your WordPress site. Before making any changes to your site it’s always a good idea to backup your site, just in case something happens.
Many managed WordPress hosts, Pagely included, will provision a certificate and force HTTPS site-wide from the control panel, so the manual steps below may not be necessary. If your host handles SSL for you, confirm that HTTPS is enforced at the server level and skip ahead to verifying mixed content.
The first step will be editing your wp-config.php file. Open up wp-config.php in your favorite code editor program and add the following line of code.
define(‘FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);This will force the SSL certificate to load for any user who visits your site. More precisely, it forces logins and the WordPress admin area to be served over HTTPS, which is the minimum every site should enforce.
You should also make sure your Site Address (URL) and WordPress Address (URL) under Settings → General use the https:// prefix. Mismatched URLs are a common cause of redirect loops and mixed-content warnings after switching to HTTPS.
Next we’ll add a 301 redirect to ensure visitors to your site are automatically sent to the secure HTTPS version.
To do this, we’re going to edit the .htaccess file. Open up your .htaccess file, or create one if your site doesn’t already have one, and add the code below.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.mysite.com/$1 [R,L]
</IfModule>You’ll need to change the URL of your site, and possibly the server port if yours is different.
On Nginx-based hosts (including most managed WordPress platforms), .htaccess is not used. The equivalent redirect lives in the server configuration and is typically managed by the host or through a control panel toggle rather than a file you edit directly.
After you switch: clean up mixed content
A site can have a valid certificate and still trigger browser warnings if individual assets (images, scripts, stylesheets, embeds) load over HTTP. After enabling HTTPS:
- Update hardcoded URLs in the database, including image references and widget content. A search-and-replace tool that handles serialized data (like WP-CLI’s
search-replace) is the safest approach. - Review theme and plugin files for hardcoded
http://references to your own domain or to third-party assets. - Open the browser’s developer tools console on key pages and confirm there are no mixed-content warnings.
- Once everything is clean, consider adding HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) so browsers refuse to connect over plain HTTP in the future.
SSL is a great way to ensure your site remains protected, however, it’s just one of many security measures you should incorporate into your site. Having a secure hosting environment, strong admin passwords, and using a few select WordPress security plugins will help take your site the rest of the way.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Is SSL the same thing as TLS?
Functionally, yes. TLS is the modern successor to SSL, and “SSL certificate” is the term that stuck. When you install one today, you’re enabling TLS.
Do I need a paid SSL certificate for WordPress?
Not for most sites. Free certificates from Let’s Encrypt and similar Certificate Authorities are trusted by every major browser and are sufficient for the majority of WordPress sites. Paid certificates make sense for organization validation, extended warranties, or specific compliance needs.
Will switching to HTTPS hurt my SEO?
Done correctly, no. Implement site-wide 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS, update internal links and canonical tags, and submit the HTTPS version of your site to search consoles. Search engines treat the move as a protocol change rather than a new site.
Why does my site still say “Not Secure” after installing a certificate?
Almost always, this is mixed content: the page loads over HTTPS, but one or more assets on it still load over HTTP. Audit the page in browser developer tools and update the offending URLs.
How often do I need to renew my SSL certificate?
It depends on the certificate, but plan for automation. Free certificates typically renew every 90 days, and industry-wide certificate lifetimes have been getting shorter. Any modern setup should renew certificates automatically rather than relying on calendar reminders.
