Does your website need an SSL Certificate?
Security is a big deal for you and your customers and modern browsers point out when a website doesn't have basic security measures in place. An SSL Certificate is a good way to boost trust and keep your customer's information secure. Whether or not you have an SSL certificate can also impact how you rank in google searches. We'll cover the different options and even talk about a no cost method to get an SSL Certificate that make the decision of whether or not to get one a no brainer.
What is an SSL Certificate?
You may have noticed that some some websites start with HTTP while others start with HTTPS. This 'S' stands for secure. Any information being transmitted using HTTPS is encrypted, keeping you and your users information safe. This security comes from the website having an SSL certificate.
Do you need one for your website?
Let's imagine a scenario where you're at a coffee shop connected to their public Wi-Fi and need to log in to your website and make some changes in your content management system but you're not using HTTPS. When you type in your username and password and attempt to login, that packet of information is sent to the coffee shop's router unencrypted and in plain text. Let's also imagine that someone in the neighboring parking lot has a wireless adapter that is set to Monitor Mode and is sniffing traffic. At this point your username and password are no longer secret and your website has been compromised. If your website had had an SSL certificate and was using HTTPS this information would be encrypted so managing your content while at the local coffee shop wouldn't be an issue.
Anytime your users sign into a members portal, submit sensitive information, or even submit their email to subscribe to your website's mailing list you should make sure that traffic is encrypted.
Which kind of certificate do you need (Single SSL vs Multi-domain (SAN) vs Wildcard)?
| Certificate | Examples |
|---|---|
| Single Site SSL Applies to a single domain |
www.domainname.com |
| Wildcard SSL Applies to a single domain and sub-domains |
www.domainname.com login.domainname.com news.domainname.com |
| Multi-Domain SAN Applies to multiple domains and sub-domains |
www.domainname.com login.domainname.com news.domainname.com www.domainname.org domainname.co.uk |
Let's Encrypt!
If you're still on the fence about whether or not you need an SSL certificate Let's Encrypt will make your decision an easy one. They provide a free SSL certificates with a 3 month expiration and you can set up your web server to renew automatically. If anything goes wrong during the renewal process they will send you an email to make you aware that your certificate is expiring. For more information you can check them out here: Let's Encrypt
We provide a free SSL certificate through Let's Encrypt for all websites that we set up and manage. We recommend that anyone with a website uses HTTPS to protect themselves and their users privacy and security.