3. Change your WordPress URL

However, completing the steps above is only the first part of the process to prevent a “not secure” message from appearing when someone visits your website. This is because if you are running a WordPress website, it will continue to load your old HTTP URL, meaning you must change your URL before it can run as HTTPS.

To change your WordPress URL to HTTPS, log into your WordPress dashboard and head to the settings tab. Navigate to the “General” tab and find the WordPress address (URL) and the website address (URL). Change both to HTTPS by adding the EXTRA “S” to HTTP. Save your changes and you&;#39;re ready to go.

4. Implement a web-wide 301 redirect

Although you have changed your website URL to HTTPS, most visitors know your website with the HTTP tag. They may have bookmarked your website or used the link above to visit it whenever they want.

To address this problem, you need to tell WordPress to redirect all HTTP traffic to your new HTTPS URL. There are numerous ways to redirect your entire website, but the 301 redirect is the most popular way to do it. You can use plugins, like really simple SSL, to perform web-wide redirection. These plugins force WordPress to load traffic over HTTPS instead of the HTTP that most visitors know it for.

You can also perform a web-wide 301 redirect manually to avoid problems if the plugin fails. To do that, you&;#39;ll need to have an FTP client like FileZilla. Running a manual redirect is actually much more reliable than restarting your website to use HTTPS instead of HTTP.

Why it is essential to have a secure website

You may be setting up a website for the first time, here are some of the key differences between HTTP and HTTPS websites:

1. Extra secure: HTTP is not ideal in terms of security. The HTTP protocol is susceptible to man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. This means that the protocol does not provide the best way to share sensitive information, since anyone with access to your connection can intercept the data passed to you. HTTPS, on the other hand, is strongly encrypted, and any communication between a user and a server is highly secure. When your website is protected using HTTPS, users can share sensitive data on your website, knowing that their information will be safe during transit between their browser and your server.
2. Increase (or at least maintain) traffic: Google Chrome indicates the security level of a website to its visitors. It warns them when they try to access HTTP websites that are not secure. With HTTP, many of your potential visitors would probably navigate elsewhere. With HTTPS, however, things are different. Chrome displays a green lock symbol, which indicates that your website is secure. Users tend to trust such websites and are more likely to interact or share relevant data with a secure website.
3. Trust: the use of the HTTPS protocol over HTTP indicates that you take security very seriously. Data breaches and fraud on the Internet are very common. As a result, the average Internet user is much more cautious about the websites they visit than they probably were in the past. The HTTPS protocol will help build trust between you and your visitors, as they know that you care about the security and confidentiality of the data they may share with you.

At the very least, the “HTTPS not secure” message in Chrome can be annoying. Unfortunately, it can also cause you to lose customers, drop in search rankings, and suffer an online attack. Fix it by shopping at Bastify an SSL certificate and installing it on your website. Doing so will help build trust between you and your customers, drive more traffic to your website, and increase your credibility with your target audiences.