In the world of WordPress development, there are often many choices on how to achieve a certain function. From block editing tools to form builders there are a bevy of options to choose from, often requiring a keen eye and years of WordPress experience to suss out which is the best for your particular application. Even security and SEO stalwarts WordFence and Yoast SEO, which we firmly believe are your best option for their respective usage, have a number of well reviewed robust competitors. However, when it comes to putting your security certificate to use on your site, and ensuring there are no conflicts, the plugin Really Simple SSL is as close as it gets to a no-brainer.
What Does Really Simple SSL Do?
Really Simple SSL is a one click plugin that automatically detects your settings and configures your WordPress website to run over https. You must have an SSL security certificate installed on the server for the site, but otherwise it takes care of all of the rest for you. Trying to set up this configuration yourself can often be tedious and easy to end up with an incomplete job, so the plugin handles all the nuances for you. In our experience, it works nearly flawlessly.
Why Bother with an SSL Certificate Anyway?
It wasn’t too long ago that SSL Certificates were for eCommerce sites and the kind of people who have three deadbolts on their front doors. Nowadays if you don’t have an SSL Certificate for your WordPress website, you are asking for trouble (kind of like the people who leave their purse or wallet sitting out on the seat of their vehicle in a sketchy part of town). Besides the obvious advantage of keeping safe any information exchanged between the site and website users, Google and other search engines will penalize sites who don’t have an active security certificate installed. If that isn’t enough to convince you, without an SSL Certificate, this is what users will see when they get to your site:
How to Install and Activate Really Simple SSL
The installation and activation couldn’t be much easier. That said, it is always important to fully backup your site prior to installing any plugin, especially one that makes significant configuration changes. Once your files and database are backed up, simply add the plugin to the site, activate, and click “go ahead, activate SSL”. It is important to thoroughly check your site after clearing browser cache to ensure there are no issues, something we recommend you have an experienced web development team (like us) take care of. Like many things WordPress, everything is simple and easy until a problem occurs. Luckily with Really Simple SSL, this is rare, but it is still very important that the site is thoroughly checked out after enabling SSL.